Webmaster Tools...do they lie?

[onorinstorage]

Hi

I've got various websites and within Google Webmaster Tools there is a section called "your site on the web" and then "search queries" within this section it lists you average position for popular keyowrd associated to the website selected.

Now for all my sites these averages are fairly accurate and give a nice indication of how my work and SEO progress is coming along.

However my most important website:

Mobile Shelving | Office | Roller Racking | Archive Storage | Rotary X2

For the keyword "mobile shelving" is meant to have an average position of 39 yet it doesn't appear anywhere for this key word! Other keywords such as "rotary shelving" appears within a few spaces of 16 as stated by Google to be the average!

So why for "mobile shelving" is my website not ranking where they say it should be?

[onorinstorage]

Please SEO experts, help!?!

[Brad Callen]

onorinstorage,

Sometimes I field this question (or similar question) and the person asking it is wondering why there is a big difference between how they see their site ranking and what Google WMT's is saying.

1) Make sure your search history is disabled
2) Log out of your Gmail account when checking rankings

How do you check rankings? Is it with a tool or are you doing it by hand? Google will show you personalized results, your site will rank much higher than it actually does because you clicked on it in the past, and to stop that from happening you may need to tell Google to stop it. If you have already done this then it might be that one data center has updated the ranking before yours has, or vice versa.

[Social-Media-Marketing]

Originally Posted by onorinstorage

Hi

I've got various websites and within Google Webmaster Tools there is a section called "your site on the web" and then "search queries" within this section it lists you average position for popular keyowrd associated to the website selected.

Now for all my sites these averages are fairly accurate and give a nice indication of how my work and SEO progress is coming along.

However my most important website:

Mobile Shelving | Office | Roller Racking | Archive Storage | Rotary X2

For the keyword "mobile shelving" is meant to have an average position of 39 yet it doesn't appear anywhere for this key word! Other keywords such as "rotary shelving" appears within a few spaces of 16 as stated by Google to be the average!

So why for "mobile shelving" is my website not ranking where they say it should be?

They're not saying "it should be" ranking at 39. They are saying when it IS seen in the SERPs, it is seen on average around position 39.

Google is doing so much personalization of search results now that it is hard to tell where you really rank. They have always shuffled the results, showing things on page 1 from time to time even though they should never legitimately rank there. Then the very next search it might not show up at all.

Now they are tracking which URLs you're seeing in the SERPs, which you are clicking on, which you are not, how long you spend on a page after clicking on the SERP entry before bouncing back to Google, etc. They are using all of this data to constantly modify your SERPs for subsequent searches.

So they are simply indicating that the few people who are seeing your entry for that keyword phrase on average have to click through to the 4th page of the SERPs for that keyword phrase to find it. It doesn't mean that anyone clicking through to the 4th page is likely to see it. They may only occasionally bump the entry up to the 4th page through personalization. 99% of the time it might appear on page 100 and never be seen. But the 1% of the time that it is seen, on average it's around position 39.

[Frank Wilson]

Even for me It shows as that I have 30 backlinks , but back link watch shows as I have 65 (which is correct ). When I checked after few weeks the no of links has reduced.

[onorinstorage]

It's bloody weird as I've tried clearing my cache, deleting history and even used a completely different computer and still my micro-website is nowhere to be seen but Webmaster Tools says differently!

Help!?!

If there are any expert SEO people with examples of success I'd be interesting in hiring your services!

[dvduval]

Well keep in mind webmaster tools covers different localities and countries, and personalizes results. Also, results can flip around too, but I would say it is probably at least near accurate.

[onorinstorage]

Fairly Accurate?

So why does it say Avg. Position 36 for the keyword "mobile shelving" but it fact I can't even see my website listed!?!

Any of you with special tools that could check what's going on!?!

[onorinstorage]

I just got a mate to check in the US and he can't see my site either!???

[anthon]

The data google shows is average position and not exact position your position might fluctuate according to the country from which the search is done and the data center of google in which search is done.

[onorinstorage]

But Google Webmaster says average position is 36 for keyword mobile shelving. I fully understand this will fluctuate but surely give a rough indication?

I've checked the first 10 pages for my mobile shelving website and can't see it, it's only my main website Onorin Storage that then shows on page 11!

Help?

[Fraggler]

What Country is it reporting your site at #39?

Change the duration to the last couple of days available and check if it is still available.

[onorinstorage]

How do I check that?

[onorinstorage]

The website for my Mobile Shelving microsite has been indexed again by the Googlebot however it's still not showing up!

Even though Webmaster Tools say Avg.Position 36 for the keyword "mobile shelving"

Does anyone know what's going on? All my other websites/keywords roughly match up from webmaster tools to google.co.uk so I can't work out why just this one isn't working???

[onorinstorage]

Someone must be able to answer this/help!?!

[pbarnhart]

I'll let you in on a little secret about those Webmaster Tools numbers - broad match searches can skew the numbers - and it goes across all properties (news, blog, image, etc). I have compared long-term results of two- and three-word SERPs with the Webmaster Tools, and I am convinced that three-word SERPs are affecting calculations.

And remember, your site may could rank high in rank high in image search - or rank high in one country or another. Since you are ranking high in several three-word searches (like archive mobile shelving) I think you are probably doing well.

Webmaster tools are a trailing average, not all that accurate, and you really do need to filter by search type and country (top drop-downs) - but remember this is all past performance, not current performance.

[onorinstorage]

Interesting, thanks for the information.

I checked out what you said and selected "web" and "United Kingdom" and it still says rank 39, yet I can't see the site anywhere. I'm just concerned something weird is happening, not sure if there is an issue with the domain or something?

[Fraggler]

What time frame are you looking at in WMT? As mentioned above, the displayed results are trailing. Your site might no longer be there. Change the time frame to the last day or 2 and see what it says. If the date is a while ago then you will need to check it next week. The impressions will be very low for #39 so the results will be skewed. You can check in the graph for the last day you got an impression at #39.

[onorinstorage]

I'm now even more confused!

If I change the Country to UK, Type to Web, and change the date to say the last week I'm meant to be ranked 16 for keyword mobile shelving???

Someone seen this before?

[Fraggler]

Your site still may have dropped since then. A site can be pushed to the top for only hours.

How many impressions is it getting at #16? That will tell you if the site has been there for a while or not. It only has to appear once at #16 to be shown in the list.

Are you getting any referrals from the search?

[onorinstorage]

Nothing, it's no where to be seen which makes no sense! I mean go to page 14 etc and still no sign and trust me that's not right!

Can someone look at this seriously and let me know why my website Mobile Shelving | Office | Roller Racking | Archive Storage | Rotary X2 isn't ranking, before this site for a very short period I used www.mobile-shelving.org.uk and that still ranks better in google even though the site has been down for ages!

[goykos]

One of my sites was in 6th position for almost a month (the first month). After that, a "dance" bring me to 500. Right now webmaster tools shows that the average position for my main keyword is 40. It's that simple.

If your site is new, that is probably what happen to you.

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by onorinstorage

Can someone look at this seriously and let me know why my website Mobile Shelving | Office | Roller Racking | Archive Storage | Rotary X2 isn't ranking, before this site for a very short period I used www.mobile-shelving.org.uk and that still ranks better in google even though the site has been down for ages!

Do you own the .co.uk domain? If so, 301 redirect it to your new site.

You are sending links to to

http://www.mobile-shelving.com

NOT

http://www.mobile-shelving.com/

which is what you are using as your site's main URL. You need to include the trailing slash in your hyperlinks.

Your backlinks are poor. Of the few you have, the majority come from (I assume) your own sites on the same server/IP address. Get some diversity and get some more. Maybe look at some UK directories (good ones) that you can advertise on to start with.

Your competition is tough. The top 20 have at least 100 links to the page and many with > 500. There are some big brands in there too.

You on-site SEO seems ok. You do have a large chunk of useful text right at the end of your code though. Why not place this with the rest of the text and lose the tedious scrolling textbox?

I would target a long tail instead of mobile shelving in the short term. You will at least get some traffic.