Measuring rankings – no longer elementary

In the past, an incognito search was enough to know how you ranked in the search results. Before that, you could just search. It’s no longer that simple—or perhaps “unambiguous” is a better word.

The first obstacle for anyone wanting to measure their rankings in search results is geographical differences. Those who follow our newsletter know that Google now treats practically all searches as local. The problem here is that you will rank differently on your keywords depending on where in the country the search is made. There is no default.

You need to make a choice

As an SEO agency, we try to filter out geography as much as possible in the measurements we make; it is possible to get a “non-geographic” position from Google. However, it’s not at all certain that this is always the most valuable metric. Perhaps the position in Gothenburg or Stockholm is more important?

The best way to measure changes over time—which is almost always the most important for us—is to filter out geography. Local results can fluctuate significantly depending on a wide range of factors, making them difficult to monitor. This also creates problems for the available tools, which very often show different results. To properly evaluate your efforts, you basically need to stick to one tool and not jump between them, or alternatively measure in parallel across several. We ourselves use a number of different ones; primarily we measure with the following:

• AWR (Advanced Web Ranking)
• Nightwatch
• Sistrix
• Incognito searches via proxy

The different methods have different strengths. Sistrix, which I personally consider the weakest of them, has another advantage: you can access historical data for something you didn’t previously track. AWR is, in our estimation, the most accurate, but their API is absolutely terrible. Incognito searches via proxy are inaccurate but extremely fast, and they also give you a snapshot of the search results.

Search history

Search history also creates major problems, particularly since it doesn’t necessarily apply only to you. Google has full capacity to see where a search originates. We notice this, for example, when we often work via an IP address connected to Stockholm, but after a while Google associates it with Örnsköldsvik (or another town in northern Sweden).

Incognito mode alone is therefore not enough to fully clear this, since Google also knows which IP you’re on.

Key takeaway from this article

In summary, it’s difficult to say that there’s actually a single position you hold. There is an average, and there are positions you hold in specific places. What you need to do is prioritize what matters most.

To measure change over time, you need to decide on a line and stick to it.

Try our tool

Since this article was written, we’ve invested in a tool that makes local searches easier to understand. Try our local search results tool to quickly get an overview of how results look in a specific location.