Mark Williams-Cook posted a super interesting example of Google Search showing a different set of ranked results for the same query. The only difference was how the search was conducted. One search was done as a query, typing in the words into the search box. The second was selecting the entity in the search suggestions drop down box. Google ranks the results differently.
Take the time to watch how the results differ based on the way the search was conducted:
Interesting behaviour @JohnMu @methode
— Mark Williams-Cook = 🅼🅰🆁🅺 🅲🅾🅾🅺 (@thetafferboy) January 25, 2021
Searching for "Pimoroni Ltd" ranks their site first, as expected.
Starting to search for "Pimoroni Ltd" brings up suggested entity, clicking on this fills same search query but only ranks a returns page 4th.
Bug/feature? pic.twitter.com/tcRoSFVrsa
Why did this happen? John Mueller of Google thinks that "there can be a slight difference between entity & query, at least as far as I understand it." He said it is likely a bug and filed the bug report. Then Gary Illyes of Google came in and suggested "it's probably an entity lag." He later said there is no such term at Google as "entity lag," and that he made it up on the fly but it does have a ring to it. Entity lag!
Either way, this "bug" or "entity lag" is interesting.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
