Logging out of Google vs. &PWS=0 ?

[crvw]

I typically append &pws=0 to my Google queries when I'm gathering results to share with a client.

I recently sat in on another digital marketing firms presentation to the client, and they made a big deal about how their search engineers had conducted all the searched by "painstaking logging out of google, using a fresh browser, etc..."  In my mind I was thinking that it was either a search engineer wasting time, or some hyperbole to impress the client.

But I didn't really know for sure.  Is &pws=0 actually equivellent to using a completely annonymous browser.  For fun, I ran some queries under incognito on chrome running off a thumbdrive, and compared them to &PWS=0 results from my everday browswer while logged into google.

I couldn't see any difference, but in my quick informal test, I also didn't find any difference between a personal SERP and a &PWS=0 SERP, so maybe I just didn't try the right query.

Any thoughts?

[evolvingSEO]

I've no direct research either way, but when I met Eric Enge (of Stone Temple Consulting) he told me to be logged in and use &pws=0. I'd very much trust his opinion

[Daylan]

Pretty sure that &pws=0 doesn't work for google instant, but does when instant is disabled. So logged out/clearing cookies etc seems like the most accurate when Instant is on.

I usually to run a seperate firefox browser (everything else in Chrome/Safari) with 'never remember history' assigned, instant assigned off, not logged in and running a cool little plug-in that automatically adds the &pws=0 to google searches (find it here fire IE and FF). I find this to be pretty suitable for 'un-personalised' results and not much hassle.

Cyrus wrote an article about this a little while ago that you might find useful.  But i agree, the logging out every time and clearing all your history seems like overkill.

[JamesNorquay]

To be honest adding &pws=0 is not as strong as it once was a few years ago, in todays market if you want one of the best ways to view non personalized results you need to use the Google Ad Preview Tool -

https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000

Their is no way logging out will totally wipe all the data.

[jandunlop]

Yep, I agree with you there - never have trusted using &pws=0 logged in or out