Most of us suspect that PageRank has little meaning these days. Here's my idea: Someone (not necessarily Google) creates a toolbar and/or small site banners showing the current SERP for specific terms for that page. 1. Roll your mouse over the top of the banner and you then see the terms or key words (the banner could also show a numerical value, such as "page 1, pos 3" for the page showing up on the first page at position 3 on the page. 2. The toolbar could show the search terms and the "SERP rank" Your thoughts?
My other thought on this is that it could be a great way for webmasters and marketers to see if there's sudden drops. The toolbar or service could notify them if there are sudden changes for a range of keywords. Someone smarter than me should jump on this, in my humble opinion.
Sure it's possible. The webmaster would determine the keywords that they want to track and display. The banner and toolbar would do an automatic search upon visiting the page and display it. The banner could also be cached once per day (after the first visit to the page) so it doesn't have to wait for the Google search every time someone visits the page (since the SERPs don't change throughout the day, no need to keep searching).
It wouldn't work because sites can be found by thousands of different search phrases. It would provide such easily fixable data that it would make it useless. Every webmaster would just set it to display SERP rank for whatever term they appear #1 for.
That's why I think it would need to be cached each day or every week, so it wouldn't need to do a search every time the page is loaded. The same small banner would display without loading w/ a query being done to Google. From Stox: Well, there are only 3 or 4 search engines that really matter. Mostly just Google. What do you mean by fixable? Do you mean easily manipulated? To that I would say, it's the same goal we all work toward. Abuse is met with de-indexing or other penalties by the search engines. This would matter and be important. Who cares if you are #1 for a made up word. It matters to those selling posts and links for relevant keywords. It also matters to advertisers and the webmaster alike. I wouldn't care about a page or content that talks about "small green rodents" but someone else may care. You would look at the key words and general content on the page and make the decision for yourself. If the relevant content is similar to yours then you're doing well to have a backlink from that page.
Google will de-index people to setting their serp rank keywords to things they are #1 for? I don't think you have thought this through. It's totally unworkable, Especially if you counter manipulation with de-indexing. The people who care about getting PR6 with purchased links. And it doesn't have to be a made up word to appear #1 in the serps. You could go to practically any site and find a four word search term that they appear #1 for. This idea just simply would not work and would provide zero reliable data.
The number of valid ranking phrases ought to be built into the script, displaying the top ten results in order of search volume. An extended grab would pull uo to say, 100 search terms. This could be done by combining existing tools , ie., Webmaster Tools data, Wordtracker, so it is possible, although not necessarily feasible, Google could create it, but I doubt they'd want to. They might in fact have a problem with such a tool if it makes a lot of automated requests. I would want this data for my own knowledge, and many webmasters would as well. As a selling point, I think it would be most valuable when selling a site. It could catch on but it would need to be highly accurate and the keyword sets (at least top ten by search volume) would have to be extracted somehow from the site data itself. You can't expect people to put in their keywords.
I agree with every thing you've said. I think this part above would be my main concern too. It's like doing too many "link:" queries, which I think could be a problem. St0x, I'm sorry, but I don't think you're understanding this. Maybe you'll want to take a moment more on this. It is quite feasible and valuable. PR has little value these days. The SERPs are free direct marketing. This is all important to webmasters, advertisers, and even link sellers (for relevant keywords).
I agree that serps are important. I disagree that there is any realiable workable method of generating a "SERP rank".
There are already sites with tools displaying your SERP for inputted keywords. It is already workable. The thing that does NOT exist as of yet is a toolbar and/or banner that would conveniently display it. THAT is what I'm talking about here.
If it's based on search terms submitted by the webmaster it's hardly going to be reliable. What term do you think most webmasters would set it to display? the term they are targeting that they appear on page 10 for? Or the random four word term that they appear #1 for? In principle it's a good idea, But it's simply not workable. It's even more open to abuse than PR. it's like PR except with the option to pick what PR you want displayed.
I see your point. As with anything, it is left to the eye of the beholder. If I look at the words picked out by the webmaster and think that few, if any, people would search for those keywords, then I would disregard it. It's meant to be helpful to the webmaster and advertiser. If the webmaster puts in rarely used keywords, then they are only cheating themselves out of a handy tool. The casual visitor wouldn't have any value in the tool and not care at all about it. The tool would only be for the webmaster, advertiser, and link builder.
Here's a site with something similar, but that's web-based: http://www.ventio.se/seo-tools/google-position/ I think it would be necessary to be able to control which data center is queried.