How to check Google Keyword rankings?

[Sparkstone]

Hey,

So I recently watched the DuckDuckGo commercial about Google's results bubble. My question is how can you get the actual keyword rankings of relevant key phrases without Google taking your locations and search history into account?

Would it just be a case of clearing your cache & history from the beginning of time or is there an accurate tool (other than SEOmoz ofc that I can use?

Best regards,

Dan

[CMC-SD]

One note -- de-personalized results are not your "actual" rankings. The majority of Google searches are personalized. Meaning the average searcher will NOT see the SERP that comes up on a de-personalized search. It's still extremely useful to know where you stand when location and history are taken out of the equation.

[Sparkstone]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I've been using incognito mode this morning which has worked pretty well. I'll give this a try too

Dan

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Personally I don't like GMT for tracking keywords - outside of SEOmoz, i have used and had no problems with SheerSEO - pretty nifty site and tracks words and phrases nicely - plus there is a 60 day free trial

[RobertChapman]

Hi Dan,

As Andy said, Incognito is a great way.

If you need to search loads of queries, you might be better off with Google Webmaster Tools. You can see a wider range of details and gain insight into your change in rankings.

How to do it

Go to the left hand tool bar, select "Traffic", then click "Search Queries".

Here is the Link - but you need to be signed in.

This should give you a fairly comprehensive list of:

• Search Queries
• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Average Position

What you can also do is just above the queries select the "With Change" tab which will give you movement over time.

There is also a 'Filters' tab at the top that allows you to filter by specific search queries.

The draw back is that you can't go back more than 3 months and the data is aggregated, unlike in Bing Webmaster Tools where you can get exact figures.

To overcome this loss of data due to only being able to go back 3 months it's worth checking out this post on Automating Search Query Downloads written by Ben over at Distilled.

Hope this helps.

Ed

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You're welcome Dan

[Sparkstone]

Ah totally forgot about Incognito mode.

Thanks!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I use Google Chrome and just open an Incognito window that clears all cache, history, sign-ins etc.

Shift+Cmd+N on the Mac

Andy