How do I measure keyword rank accurately? It looks different on different PCs
-
Does Google mess with my rank readings? They look different on different PCs and using different browsers. How do I get a true reading of rank of my clients keywords?
-
Definitely eliminate personalization, as alsvik said. Beyond that, though, there are still other factors (Location, I.P address etc.) that you need to account for.
The best way I've found to handle it is to forget the idea of a "true reading". There are too many variables to eliminate in the real world. Instead, keep your measuring consistent and prove value that way. If you measure in the same way each time you can demonstrate an increase or decline in rankings, because the variables will always be the same
The various tracking tools, while not perfect, will eliminate some of the variables, and will certainly give you a consistent read each time.
From a client management perspective, it's more about setting client expectations than anything else. You need to discuss the fact that results may be slightly different when they check. You also need to explain why.
Once you've done that, you need to get your client to agree to the process you'll be using to track rank. If you use SEOmoz rank tracker, or Raventools, or whatever else, then get their buy-in that that platform is the one you'll be using to measure the effectiveness of your work . If you don't, you're likely to end up playing the "I'm not ranking where you say I am" game.
Edit: If you're tracking rank manually, then consider looking for something like the Bruce Clay toolbar, which will let you run searches via proxy.
-
It uses personalization. Clear cache and cookies and try again - or add &pws=0 to the URL.
I use Google Chrome in "incognito mode" in XP environment along with CC Cleaner - it gives me accurate SERP everytime.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What qualities to look for when trying to find sites to get backlinks from?
When trying to build backlinks, of course some sites are much harder to get links on than others. I am trying to figure out which sites my time and effort is best spent trying to get a link on. I may view a site as important and high quality but Google may not. Which tools and metrics within MOZ should I look at to determine if a site is worth the effort to get a backlink from? I'm sure "Domain Authority" is a factor. Which number makes it definitely worth pursuing?
Link Building | | Bperry129
Does inbound links and spam score count for anything? Which metric is best to look at to figure out the most powerful backlink I can get?0 -
Citation Building et Backlinking: 4 offices with different adresses in different city
Hi there, We work with a client that has 4 offices with different addresses in 3 different cities. Each of them has a different google my business location. I was wondering what would be the best way to build the citations for them, especially if the website has a ''dofollow'' link. Would it be better to build one citation for each locations? That would mean 4 citations from each website. If so, wouldn't google find it suspicious that a backlink comes 4 times from the same domain? OR, would the best be to build only one citation from one selected offices? Other? Thank you in advance for your response,
Link Building | | H.M.N.1 -
New to SEO, looking for advice.
Good day. I am fairy new to SEO and a lot of things about how google ranking works is very confusing to me. For example i do not understand why websites that are not optimized score 1st positions. Currently i am working on optimizing http://logiunvarti.lv/ for google.lv. I would like to ask if i am going in the right direction as far as on-page optimization and any kind of suggestion would be very welcome. Another roadblock i have reached is link building. Latvia is not a big country and most of the websites on similar topic as my are either competitors and are have low domain authority, dead for years, or simply ignore emails. Would social media be a decent alternative? I feel like i am missing a crucial point on SEO in for my country. I would be extremely grateful for any advice or if possible to contact me on skype for a better explanation on my problem.
Link Building | | AlexElks0 -
Struggling to re-rank website
A client of ours - www.helenbattphotography.com - was ranking well for local keywords. However, the rankings started to drop as of January this year (slowly) and quite considerably since May. We have not had any Google penalties. To date we have gone through backlinks and removed a few low quality/dubious links that were built around 5 years ago by another agency the client was using and also disavowed some others. This was done around 2 months ago. No impact to date. The website is hovering around page 4 and 5 for the keywords that it used to rank for on page 1 for. We are really struggling to increase the rankings for this client. We have introduced good, unqiue content to the site - not that this was ever really a problem on the site - but this has also made little difference. Would be great to get some feedback on the site and any obvious pointers that we might be missing here - a case of not being able to see the wood through the trees. Thanks
Link Building | | piperis0 -
Is there a difference between .com backlinks and .co.uk?
(We are a UK based business) I am currently looking for sites for guest posting opportunities and I am not sure whether I should prioritize .co.uk sites or go for .com sites. Does it matter? Is more weight given to .co.uk sites if you are based in the UK?
Link Building | | JamesG0750 -
Google ranking penalty
Do you think that our websites involvement with LinkMonster.com link building program is the cause of our penalty by google in our ranking ?
Link Building | | websitedzyn0 -
Keyword Strategy for Very Large Website Launch
My friend and I are launching a website used to track alcoholic beverages. It has over 115k pages, three tier site structure. I am curious about the keyword strategy for the homepage. I know I will get a lot of long tail search traffic for drink names and how to mix drinks. Do I need a Keyword Strategy for my homepage with so many internal pages? Its a new brand we created, not a keyword domain. We would like to rank for how to mix drinks, etc... However with the number of pages we already have a lot of internal link juice. Where should link building be focused?
Link Building | | getbigyadig0 -
What to do with outdated (but ranking) content?
I'm SEOing for a theatre. We've got show pages that rank when searching for the business, but are outdated as the shows are from past years. The pages aren't accessible at all from the site now, but still exist in domain and are linked to by google. If you search the business, the results are: 1. [biz name] 2. [biz name] - tickets 3-6. outdated shows Should these pages be left up, or taken down and redirected home? Would there be any seo boost to the homepage from 301ing them home, or do you think it'd be more beneficial to have more results available as entry points into the site?
Link Building | | RyanWhitney150