Is SEO moz ranking tool reliable?

[Nightwing]

Good afternoon from 21 degrees C hot and sunny wetherby UK with the aroma of wetherby whalers fish and chips wafting through the office window...

I'm begiining to question the vailidity of SEO moz ranking tool. Specifically for this site www.davidclick.com it ranks the site zero for term "York wedding photographer"

Here is the evidence:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/ranking-25-may-12copy.jpg

I question it after checking this term on PC and networks ive never used before and i get the term ranking at 5th. Can anyone verify what SERP www.davicdclick.com ranks for "York wedding photographer" and indeed why SEO Moz ranking tool is scrorring in zero.

Thanks in advance

[EricaMcGillivray]

Hi Nicola,

Thanks for being active in our Q&A, but please remember that members come from all walks of internet marketing and some are just starting out. (We all once where there.) Part of the reason we have Q&A is to help out and be generous with our knowledge, among other TAGFEE tenants, even when the answer or ways to find the answer seem obvious to us.

Have a great weekend

[RankStealer]

Google places is completely different to organic results. Why dont you google the term if you are unsure of what it is.

In terms of where you are on the first page then you are 5th but that is 2nd in google places (which is below the 3 organic results) rather than 5th on the organic results - there IS a difference.  For example if google decided to remove google places for whatever reason you would no longer be appearing on the first page for this term.

[RuthBurrReedy]

Hi Nightwing,

The screenshot you post at http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/ranking-25-may-12copy.jpg appears to be from a tool called Web CEO, which is not an SEOMoz tool.  I can't speak to the accuracy of their tool.

It looks like the screenshot you have from our tool at http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/rank-checker.jpg puts you at ranking number 5.  When I checked "york wedding photographer" just now on Google.co.uk, I saw the same thing that Riplash saw.  There are 3 paid ads at the top of the page (in a yellow box), then 3 organic listings under those.  After those first 3 organic listings, there is a 7-pack of Google Places results with address info - that is where Davidclick.com is currently showing up.

Since Google Places uses an entirely different algorithm than the rest of Google's organic results, rank tracking tools will often not pick up that ranking - that appears to be what's happening the Web CEO tool - again, that is NOT an SEOMoz tool so I can't speak to its accuracy.  As you can see, the SEOMoz rank tracking tool places you at position 5 (because we do pull in Google Places, video, image, etc. rankings where we can) - and that's where I see Davidclick.com in my SERP page.  3 regular organic listings, then 1 Google Places listing, then Davidclick.com as the 2nd Google Places listing, or 5th overall.  Hope that helps!

[riplash]

Nightwing..

davidclick.com ranks second in a Google Places/Maps search for "york wedding photographer".. https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=York+wedding+photographer&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&authuser=0

davidclick.com does not rank in the top 50 organic search results for "york wedding photographer"

The reason it shows up on Page 1 of the search results you see, is because Google is using the Google Places/Maps data on Page 1. There are only 7 organic results, and the rest of the data is coming from the Google Places/Maps results.

Does this help clarify?

edit: the top 3 results are definitely not PPC ads, unless both of my monitors are broken.

edit: The first natural result I can find for you is on Page 13.

The parsonage escrick york wedding photography | davidclick.com

_<cite>www.davidclick.com/the-parsonage-york-wedding-photography.html</cite>_On Saturday 23rd July 2011 Rachael & Peter married at St Everildas Church Nether Poppleton, wedding breakfast at the Parsonage, Escrick, York .

[Nightwing]

Any chance you could check were york wedding photograpger ranks for davidclick.com?

[BrianCC]

I use Link Assistant's Rank Tracker in addition to the SEOmoz rank tracker, and they are usually pretty close. There are definitely some instances where positions may vary, but they both accurately report rising and falling terms.

[Nightwing]

Thanks guys for returning replies but with respect i dont quite understand your replies.

So just to reiterate can anyone verify what position in the SERPS davidclick.com ranks for target term York wedding Phptographer.

To add to the confusion now get two different results via SEO moz tools:

One says i have no organic results, the other i'm midway up page 1, heres the evidence:

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/ranking-25-may-12copy.jpg

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/rank-checker.jpg

Riplash "123 are ppc ads not organic"
Nicola  "I see it in organic results page 1 ive tested this with a differnt PC's on different networks with no previous search history to skew results"

Ah well confusion continues, time for a beer...

[RankStealer]

Its not in the serps it in google places and position 2 there.I didnt find it in the first 3 pages of organic results.

I used pagewash.com to check.

[riplash]

1, 2 and 3 are organic results.

Then you have Google Places results, in which the site you refer to sits at #2

The site isn't in the top 5 pages for me organically.