Ranking Software

[Hannahness]

Hi y'all,

Until now I've mostly been working with smaller websites and checking rankings manually (using &gl=whatever), because frankly, I haven't yet found ranking software that I trust to be error-free. However, I've recently started working with a much bigger site that wants to rank for a huge amount of long tail keywords. Anyone know of any good, trustworthy ranking software that I could use? I've heard thus far that Advanced Web Ranking is ok.

[tedster]

Hello Hannahness, and welcome to the forums.

The challenge is that NO automated rank checking can be fully accurate. Google doesn't want it, and they may either shut down your IP for a while or (what's even worse, IMO) feed you junk data.

Then you throw in all the variables that affect ranking today, even when checking manually from two computers in the same office, and you really can't depend on ranking reports for anything but relatively fuzzy information.

If you check what Webmaster Tools now reports about position for various queries, it becomes clear that there is no such thing as "ranking at a given position" anymore.

Yes, given all these limitations AWR is OK - and so are most of the other major providers in the market, if you use them wisely. And in my view, "wisely" means don't use ranking as a key metric for your success... it's a diagnostic tool that is occasionally helpful.

The place to focus is traffic and conversions. If you focus on rankings, you may end up very confused. Rankings can seem to go up but traffic goes down, and vice versa. All kinds of craziness.

[Hannahness]

Hi Tedster,

Thanks for the reply, and the welcome.
Believe me, I know that oftentimes 'objective' rankings are not an accurate assessment of the success/failure of a given SEO campaign. That having been said, they are still considered a significant KPI - "search engine optimization" does imply a positive response from the search engines. I firmly believe that increasing usability and navigability is a chief priority so that once the site does rank, it will enhance the user experience. However, bear in mind that I work as an in-house SEO, and I do need to show tangible results to my company.