I'm checking my keywords on a daily basis and where I'm ranking in Google. I have a handful of top ten keyword phrases, but they seem to move around a daily. The rankings seem to change on many different factors. Some of these are: - where I check the Google results. (I get completely different results at home and in the office) - I get different results when I sign into my Google acccount compared to when I'm signed out. - Google Webmaster tools give me one set of results and the myriad of keyword ranking websites all give me slightly different results too. Does anybody have a definitive answer to check one's Google SERP rankings for my keywords.
Hi, Well ... rankings are changing everyday so there is no such thing are a true ranking and inaccurate ones. home / office : your router may not connect to the same GG data center, that explains the changes sign in vs sign out of GWT, well you may have authorised web history so it keeps your trends in memory and thus influences your search results. I actually tend to use GWT for that kind of tracking since it provides an average of your rankings for such or such request. Another good point of the GWT is that you can select to look at stats from GG.com, GG.es, GG.fr ... or all extensions (default). That's useful for many of my sites. HTH g.
There isn't a definitive method for checking your rankings. As you've noted, the rankings displayed can vary widely for many different reasons. The only ones you have any significant control over is personalized search, which you can turn off by logging out of your Google account, and geo-location. So if you do not live in your site's target country, you should also use the Google specific to the target country rather than the local version. This is definitely from the "Do As I Say, Not As I Do Department", but you'll be better off spending more time improving your site or even goofing off than obsessively checking your rankings every day. Good luck!
Not quite sure what goofing off is .....???? but I'm still going to be obsessive about my rankings. I'm an SEO godammit!
Google has many datacenters that provide search results. At any given time you could be pulling data off of a different server, which may have an older set of search results. Use the tool at the link below and check your keywords in a variety of datacenters. http://seochat.com/seo-tools/multiple-datacenter-google-search
there are some really nice tools and websites out there that will tell you everything you want to know about your site with google. Just search for them! :-] "seo tools"
I never had such problem. "I get completely different results at home and in the office" I think its only possible if you are using different Google sites, like Google.com or Google.co.uk
No, these will go to different IP's due to Google's DNS and load balancing system. Generally your query will go to the closest DC with the least load at the time of your query. The only way to bypass this is to query via the same IP every time instead of using the domain name. For example: http://64.233.187.99
Thanks, I'll try the same IP trick. I guess I've been looking for an absolute answer, but it looks like Google likes to keep us guessing! The reason I'm so interested is I'm about to start consulting for a new startup and want to be able to demonstrate keyword ranking improvements over a 3 month period. I have access to loads of online tools to help me but I'm never sure which ones are the most accurate.
Google always change their algorithm. Each their algorithm changed, so we need revise our strategies for achieving the top ranking.