Can anyone verify the accuracy of MS rank checker?

MS has always worked great for me. But I only care about Google results, so that is all I focus on.

Sometimes when I am running a rank check there will be a hiccup and the results will be off. Usually because something else slows down my network connection.

Overall MS has been great for me and the fact that it's a one time price instead of monthly is epic.

I have owned MS since 2008 when there was like 1.5 modules working. Since then, they have added more modules (most of which I have not seen the need to use, but that's just me) but all seem to 'work' OK.

With regard to rank checking, I once read that you can get different results from different sources because of various factors. These included - but I am sure are not limited to - your location, the service providers location, the age of any cached results on their servers, and the updates to the search engines themselves in terms of where they positions sites for search queries.

If results vary by 10's or 100's, then shoot them a quick email, they are very quick with replies to technical stuff. If they are out by a few places, then there is probably no need to worry, just take an average! My experience with finding rank positioning is that it varies.

I actually use MNF as my tool of choice for keyword research, but always take my list of potential keywords and run it through MS because of the statistics it throws up (just me being a geek I guess!). As mentioned, a one off price with lifetime updates is a pretty good deal in my opinion. Just use that pinch of salt when you are looking at your position 1 rankings

Market Samurai rank checker works. I use it to check the rank on my offline client's websites and have verified the entire report about once a month to make sure it's still on, it's never been off, not even by one position when I've used it.

You have to realise that Google is presenting results a lot different to what they were only months ago. Different data centres are showing up results for different people, all the time. Results are often totally different after just 12 hours searching from the same computer.

There is no way to accurately check your rank by using any tool that scraps Google. The rank you are seeing is the position being returned to the Market Samurai proxy being used at the time.

If you want accurate rank tracking then use Google Webmaster Tools.

If you want a stable representation then use Scroogle.org

Focus on changes in traffic and search engine referrals for a rough idea of how your page is fluctuating.

It's worked fine for me in most cases.

If you were checking Google's rankings, I'd have referred you to Scroogle, but since you're asking about Yahoo, I don't have a lot of idea as I've never gone after Yahoo!

@fraggler: makes sense, but I was referring to yahoo.

Overall, I am not concerned about yahoo traffic, but I did notice the discrepancy, even if it's a minor one (actually, not so minor, a site that is position one can't be found in the top 1k?)

I'll send a ticket and see what they say. I hear their support is great.