How do you know "real" search engine results position

9 replies
  • SEO
  • |
If you are #1 or #10 or whatever on page 1 when someone does a search, is that called SERP? Whatever it's called, how does one know the "real" position? Do you fire up a Chrome incognito search or what? If I had a contract with you to do SEO and it was based on results, how are "real" or "true" results obtained? Google might give me different search results than what you might get, right?
#engine #position #real #results #search
  • Profile picture of the author webby0031
    Originally Posted by livemusic View Post

    If you are #1 or #10 or whatever on page 1 when someone does a search, is that called SERP? Whatever it's called, how does one know the "real" position? Do you fire up a Chrome incognito search or what? If I had a contract with you to do SEO and it was based on results, how are "real" or "true" results obtained? Google might give me different search results than what you might get, right?
    hi mate goto serpfox.com add keywords see yourself
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8169882].message }}
  • Livemusic,

    Webby has suggested a good service and there are a lot of others. You could try rank tracker, Moz’s Open Site Explorer. There are also some cool tutorials floating around out there where you can install custom code to track which keywords visitors were using to visit your site from an SERP (although it only tracks average rank in the pages if users actually click through to your site).

    You can find that here,

    A New Method to Track Keyword Ranking using Google Analytics

    All that being said, I think the best case scenario for tracking positions in SERPs is to get a “very good idea” of where your site falls. I could be wrong but I do not think there is one, universal, absolute resource that will tell you “your site is number 2 currently”. If search worked the same way for everyone anywhere in the world in terms of the kind of results it delivered, it wouldn’t work very well. For instance the Venice update to the Google algorithm made local results that much more prevalent in search results. Can you imagine searching for a pizza joint in your home town only to be shown a ton of pizza places that were nowhere near you? How frustrating would that be? The types of results users are shown vary drastically and more now than ever before as Google and other engines try to deliver more relevant results. The social interactions of others in a person’s network, the sites they visit, the previous queries they’ve performed, their location and language settings; all of that has an impact on where your site falls in SERPs and that makes it really hard to place a decisive label on where your average rank is. Don’t get me wrong, you can still get a pretty good idea but I wouldn’t go chasing after anything absolute.

    Hope that helps,

    Shawn
    Signature
    Outsource to the experts...

    We customize your Blog, eBook, Press Release and Sale Copy content with your message.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8170028].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author BenJackson
    Just hop into incognito and you should be good. Really though, you shouldn't worry much about your rankings for a single keywords. Better to log into google webmaster and see where you're getting impressions and low CTRs and then work on optimizing your content for those keywords to increase CTRs. Those are easy wins.

    P.S. SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8171364].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Hansons
    You can use

    seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/keyword-position.html

    for checking keyword ranking in Google, Yahoo, Bing
    Signature

    Is your website Hacked? Try -> www.sitebeak.com
    Is Google Analytics installed Properly? Test -> www.GAtective.com
    Impersonal Google search? Check -> www.impersonal.me

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8171636].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author fiehatran
      I recommend serpfox.com , this service is so great , cheap price
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8171664].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jonnyhardbaked
    If you are talking a "real" ranking, I'm sorry to tell you that there is no real ranking anymore. What you are seeing right now won't be the same as what the others see in the different side of the world.

    Factors like personalized search, history, IP address, geographic location, and lot more are now affecting the SERP.

    However, you can still make a good judgement by using some tools to monitor the closest possible "real" ranking of your site.

    I use webrank tool by the way.
    Signature

    Acquire an unlimited access to over 2,000 eBooks with unlimited Downloads and resale rights for only $55! Join me now!

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8171701].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Annie15
    You can use Google Ad preview tool to find the exact position of your page for a keyword in your location. https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPrevi...__c=1000000000
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8172112].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author linkassistant
      With Google so much focused on personalization these days, "real" rankings are indeed vague.

      They depend on location, search history, search settings, being logged into your Google account and what not. Some keywords and niches are more prone to ranking variations, while others are more or less stable.

      Travel niche is a great example of a segment where variations are diverse. People in the same office searching for "barcelona hotels" will not only get results in different order, some of them will even find a Hotel Finder section missing.

      Still, rank checking is the essence of SEO and thus it's crucial. They provide "unbiased" results and even if they differ from what you see in your browser (because of your search history), they're surely closer to what your prospects see.

      Stuff you might find handy is monitoring personalized Google results in Rank Tracker. With this feature, you can model personalized search results your users get by varying your Rank Tracker settings:

      Signature
      SEO PowerSuite - the most trusted SEO software on the market!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8175739].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by livemusic View Post

    If you are #1 or #10 or whatever on page 1 when someone does a search, is that called SERP? Whatever it's called, how does one know the "real" position? Do you fire up a Chrome incognito search or what? If I had a contract with you to do SEO and it was based on results, how are "real" or "true" results obtained? Google might give me different search results than what you might get, right?
    Yes it's called SERPs.

    IMO the best you can do on a manual search is something like run CCleaner to get rid of any browser history/cookies/etc... then run Chrome Incognito.

    Keep in mind that even Chrome Incognito keeps a temporary browser history.

    Also keep in mind that traffic usually has browser history while they're searching Google.

    This might help.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8175748].message }}

Trending Topics