Why are brand, company name queries not showing up on Google SERP1?

[Buildings]

I'm a bit confused today at Google's SERPs for a number of queries I've done. The first one that sparked my interest is when I searched for 'pinterest' (no quotes) and pinterest.com was NOT on the first page.

In fact, the first pinterest.com result was on page 3 and was the page for somebody named Bil Chamberlain, who himself must be more related to the search term pinterest than pinterest.com itself.

I've done this for a variety of search terms, signed out of google, signed in, and some companies' home page, or website in general comes up, and some do not.

search for facebook, facebook.com is #1

search for united airlines, united.com's "Club and Lounges" page is on SERP 5.

Am I missing something in google's search result methodology? I'd love to be directed to some article or discussion related to this because the last time I checked, most brand name or company name queries turned out company or brand home pages as reesult #1.

I very well may just be behind the times.

CCpjw

[SEODinosaur]

I think this is personalized search saved in your catch. If you clear your browsing history and catch in you browser it should solve this issue. I see Pintrest in the first spot.

[RyanKent]

When I search Google.com for "pinterest" without the quotes, Pinterest.com appears as the first result. See attachment.

My favorite tool to troubleshoot such issues is Chrome Incognito window. While Chrome is open press CTRL+SHIFT+N and a new Incognito window will appear. This window has no cache, cookies, etc. and you are not logged in to anything. Try the search there and see how it appears.

pinterest-serp.png

[rmontanez]

I usually add &pwd=0 at the end of the query string.

[Buildings]

Ah yes, noob question answered. Thanks guys, I love to forget the simple tricks. Still seems a bit weird to me, but the results are there.

[SEODinosaur]

What does &pwd=0  do? where do you place this? did you even read the question?