Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I've recently taken over the responsibility of a company's web site that is still in the embryonic stage (launched back in July of this year), with a key facet of the role focused upon SEO.
Having viewed Google's webmaster tools, I have a few queries regarding the findings of such and what happens in reality. For example, as per the following: [a specific website] (please note that the aforementioned domain differs to the web site in question), it is claimed that a query consisting of [specific keywords] would render the web site in fourth position. However, in reality, I cannot find the web site in the resultant listings whatsoever.
Am I suffering from a penalisation from Google themselves for perceived bad practise, or can this be attributed to Google's aging delay?
Thank you for your time.
[edited by: Receptional_Andy at 2:55 pm (utc) on Sep. 24, 2008]
[edit reason] Removed specifics as per charter [/edit]
The ranking data reported by Google is accurate, however there is no single "ranking" in Google any more. In particular, results are different depending on where you are located, whether you are logged into a Google account (results can change based on user behaviour) and whether you are using a regional version of Google.
In addition, Google both fluctuate rankings for testing purposes, and can have several different ranking for a site running concurrently.
A current thread that may be of interest is "My client sees much different serps than I do [webmasterworld.com]
