Rank Tracker Result Not Reflected In Google
-
I'm tracking keyword results in Rank Tracker, but I can't confirm the positions when I do a Google search for the tracked keywords. Does anybody know why RT says the site should be #23, but is not actually in Google?
Is there a way to check Google results from different data centers? If I recall, Google allowed the option to view results from different cities, though I don't know if they still allow this.
-
Hey alrockn,
The search engines - Google, Yahoo! & Bing - all maintain multiple indices that run across multiple datacenters. This means if you query different datacenters, you can get somewhat different ranking results. As others have mentioned, other elements, such as personalization, geography and search history (even if you're logged out of your Google/search engine account) can also influence ranking positions. Hence, there can be a lot of variation in what different people, searching from different computers/locations might see in the rankings.
Our solution has been to run searches from a variety of IP addresses and IP blocks using non-personalized, search history/location agnostic requests. In our experience, these have provided the most accurate results, showing what the "most" users see, though we know there's still quite a bit of room for fluctuation. If you have suggestions about how we might improve the technical process of fetching rankings data to get better data, please let us know and we'll pass it on to our engineering team. We're always looking for ways to get you better data
-
Results are certainly displayed differently for different locations if the query is location-dependent (searching for [hospitals] from Rochester, NY in google.com will get you a very different result from doing the same thing in google.com in Sacramento).
You can change your perceived location in search settings, whether you are logged in or not: http://i.imgur.com/6xgLXAL.png
http://i.imgur.com/e9tuuua.png
Changing my location from its default (based on my IP, which Google actually gets wrong - it thinks I am an hour further south than I actually am) to a location in the north of England changes my results for such a query to reflect where I've said I am: http://i.imgur.com/GqNTKRG.png
I know there's a way to do this in an automated manner if you're building a rank checking tool (my former agency did this), but I'm afraid I don't know how to do this off the top of my head, so you're stuck with the manual option here.
I will assign this question to the Help Team as they will have more information about the IP location Moz's rank tracker crawls from.
Again, not sure what your queries are but they very much could be influenced by geo-location if they are at all dependent on a user's location.
-
If you are searching for something more local, like say a real estate business for a certain town, you are probably going to get better results by searching yourself.
Clear out all of your cookies in your browser, as well as LSOs and all cached site data, then perform your search for each keyword in your browser.
I don't know for sure, but I believe there must be some kind of weighting that goes into where the geo-location of your IP address is so for something local, I have seen it have an impact in what gets displayed in the searches.
-
When searching on Google use: "Hide personal results" so that you properly mimic what moz picks up.
In moz look to see if your ranking are for an image, local or general serp. There should be an associated icon with your rank position.
Lastly, we have found that Moz rank positions are rarely spot on with Google. They can show general trends - you are on or around this rank, but rankings change frequently and Moz updates weekly. There is bound to be a discrepancy.
Yahoo and Bing positions for us are not even close. These sites are less of a concern, but we consistently find huge variations between MOZ reports and the engines results on the day of the MOZ report run. It is not uncommon to find that the MOZ report simply fails to report anything.
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
-
Google Rank 0 - Best way?
We are trying to create tables or bullet points on each of our pages summarising the content of the page and get it to rank on position 0 on Google. This technique worked for some searches but not all so we were wondering: Is it beneficial to add links or not ? Is there a keyword limit? We are on Magento 2 if that helps. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesDavison0 -
Not ranking
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SharonEKG
so our website (www.18brandz.com) has been up for 8 months now and has not been ranking yet, we are indexing, moz crawler SEO issues are regularly fixed and we are down to about 25 non major issues, i started using google lighthouse to optimize and had made changes. we post GOOD quality in house written unique content, we follow an SEO templet of guideline i wrote for titles/meta title tags, structure, site speed has been optimized and as for the moment we rank A OR B with no major issues on all speed checking sites possible (gtmetrix/google speed insights/ webspeed... etc) but nothing. and i cant figure out why we wont rank, our field of digital marketing is a tough one and very competitive , i know, yet not ranking for so long seems odd. our only know fact major disadvantage is the lack of links and no link building strategy. any suggestions? any idea?1 -
Why does Google rank a product page rather than a category page?
Hi, everybody In the Moz ranking tool for one of our client's (the client sells sport equipment) account, there is a trend where more and more of their landing pages are product pages instead of category pages. The optimal landing page for the term "sleeping bag" is of course the sleeping bag category page, but Google is sending them to a product page for a specific sleeping bag.. What could be the critical factors that makes the product page more relevant than the category page as the landing page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo0 -
Keyword Rankings: One keyword dropped, dragging other rankings down. Possible or not?
Hey moz fans, So these week I noticed significant drop in rankings... But what caught my attention is that one specific keyword dropped 18 positions, and all the other just 1-3. Print screen: http://prntscr.com/7fb4g4 Do you think it's possible that the drop of that page, that went 18 positions down, brought the whole domain down? Or is it another cause?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kokolo0 -
Previously ranking #1 in google, web page has 301 / url rewrite, indexed but now showing for keyword search?
Two web pages on my website, previously ranked well in google, consistent top 3 places for 6months+, but when the site was modified, these two pages previously ending .php had the page names changed to the keyword to further improve (or so I thought). Since then the page doesn't rank at all for that search term in google. I used google webmaster tools to remove the previous page from Cache and search results, re submitted a sitemap, and where possible fixed links to the new page from other sites. On previous advice to fix I purchased links, web directories, social and articles etc to the new page but so far nothing... Its been almost 5 months and its very frustrating as these two pages previously ranked well and as a landing page ended in conversions. This problem is only appearing in google. The pages still rank well in Bing and Yahoo. Google has got the page indexed if I do a search by the url, but the page never shows under any search term it should, despite being heavily optimised for certain terms. I've spoke to my developers and they are stumped also, they've now added this text to the effected page(s) to see if this helps. Header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seanclc
$newurl=SITE_URL.$seo;
Header("Location:$newurl"); Can Google still index a web page but refuse to show it in search results? All other pages on my site rank well, just these two that were once called something different has caused issues? Any advice? Any ideas, Have I missed something? Im at a loss...0 -
Not ranking on Bing but is on Google?
Hi What are the main differences between Bing and Google in terms of ranking sites? My site is ranking well in Google but in Bing it is very low down and does not deliver much traffic. In Bing webmaster tools there are no warning messages and I had sent in a sitemap back in 2011 and 77 pages are listed, but I had not submitted a URL could this be why my pages are not ranking highly? Or does anybody have a checklist on what a site should offer to get ranking on Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ocelot0 -
What is a good content for google?
When we start to study SEO and how google see our webpage, one important point is to have good content. But, for beginners like me, we get lost on this. Is not so black and white: what for you is a good content? the text amount matters? there is any trick that all good content websites need to have?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Naghirniac0 -
Does Google Use Security Seals As A Trust/Ranking Signal
There are quite a few secuirty seals/site safety tools by some big antivirus/trust companies Mcaffe site secuirty, verisign etc. Does Google, or any other big search engines use these as a trust/ranking signal?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rhysmaster0