Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Huge difference between GSC ranking and browser ranking for certain keywords: How to proceed?
-
Hi,
There is a huge ranking difference between the GSC and browser for our primary keyword. As per GSC, our ranking is around 15 and when checking on the multiple different incognito browsers it's around 50. How to handle this? Which is the accurate one? Product expert from Google forums claim that what I see on browsers are the personalized results; but I tried on different browsers with different connections.
Thanks
-
Agreed with what Gaston explained and would also add that you should check all elements on your website when it comes to what GSC is reporting. For example, it could be that you have an image ranking for that keyword in position 15 on the Image SERPs and a page from your website is actually ranking on position 50.
-
Hi there,
Yes, what you are seeing in your web browsers are personalized results, the same for everyone searching for that specific keyword.
The most reliable way to track the average position is with GSC, but you have to keep in mind that:
- Those results are for a specific country and for users that google chose to collect data.
- That metrics depends on the selected date and for the type of search(web, mobile, desktop, etc).
- From day to day positions can change rapidly.
- The last position you might find in GSC is at least from yesterday and might be different from today's ranking.
My advice here is to rely on GSC and/or use a private tracking tool to compare, such as Moz's rank tracking tool.
Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston
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
-
Does an EAT score on my YMYL site impact my rankings?
I've read some conflicting information on YMYL and EAT. If the Google Quality Raters are out there reviewing YMYL pages and scoring them on EAT, does that site's score have an impact on that page's/site's ranking?
Algorithm Updates | | BFMichael0 -
How to do effective keyword research with categories and subcategories?
Hi all, I'm trying to breakdown some SEO 101 tips and start from scratch. Starting with Keywords! I would like to audit our site for main keywords, grouping them in categories and subcategories. My questions are: 1. Is it possible to see where we rank on google AND search trends of visits to our site?
Algorithm Updates | | Eric_S
2. What is a good method or structure to document (excel?)
3. What analysis can be made from finding the results of these keywords and how can I make use of this? As a beginner your help is much appreciated!!2 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
Using Brand value for SEO: Can we use keyword with brand name?
Hi Moz community, I am curious to know this. Let's say there is a brand value for a company. It has it's own popularity that it's been mentioned across the internet and social media directly with brand name without their service or industry keyword. Now if the company started promoting themselves like keyword along with their brand name, will it help them to rank for that keyword. For example, Moz is already famous, now they want to rank for "SEO" and related keywords, so they started calling themselves on internet "Moz SEO"; will this fetch them in ranking for keyword SEO? My ultimate question is, using primary keyword along with brand name will work out in ranking for that primary keyword or not? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Dramatic drop in SEO rankings after recovering from hacking
A few months ago my client's website was hacked which created over 20,000+ spammy links on the site. I dealt with removing the malware and got google to remove the malware warning shortly within a week of the hacking. Then started the long process to do 301 redirects and disavowing links under Webmaster tools over these few months. The hacking only caused a slight drop in rankings at the time. Now just as of last week the site had a dramatic drop in rankings. When doing a keyword search I noticed the homepage doesn't even get listed on Google Maps and for Google Search instead the inner pages like the Contact Us page show up instead of the homepage. Does anyone have any insight to the sudden drop happening now and why the inner pages are ranking higher than the homepage now?
Algorithm Updates | | FPK0 -
Meta Keyword Tags
What is the word on Meta Keyword Tags? Are they good to have, or bad? Our biggest competitor seems to have them.
Algorithm Updates | | Essential-Pest0 -
W3C Validation: How Important is This to Ranking
Hi, I'm currently working with a developer who is trying to tell me that validation errors and warnings are of little to no importance in a website's SERP. In the past, whenever I've had a site that was experiencing problems ranking for a keyword terms, this was one of the first places we'd look. Is this still a relatively important component in getting a site to rank?
Algorithm Updates | | maxcarnage2 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0