Need SAFE ranking report tool - do they even exist?
Oimachi2
8:54 am on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
Years back in 2001 or so I bought searchposition gold.
It got me banned for 6 months...I suspect it was my automatic queries for placement for my keywords?
Anyways, that was an eternity ago.
But now in 2010, is there a safe tool or way to have an eye on my rankings?
I look at the stats but so time consuming..
Any suggestions? Maybe even Google might have a tool for that?
goodroi
11:16 am on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
all google serps are now personalized based on your location and/or previous search history. when i search for widgets it is very likely i will see different rankings then when you search for widgets. thus making any keyword ranking tool not very accurate.
also google has many different filters that they can temporarily apply to serps. qdf (query deserves freshness) will dramatically change the rankings if google senses the keyword is a hot topic. making it even harder to accurately determine keyword rankings.
i would look at your analytics to see what keywords are driving traffic and which ones aren't. that is generally much more useful to me. also google wmt provides some ranking data (including impressions, ctr and url data). even that data is not always perfect.
milosevic
1:35 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
Automated queries will get you banned.
The solution is to use a tool that's hosted by someone else, so you don't have to worry about stuff like that.
In other words, you don't have to download a program and do checks from your own PC anymore, you can pay for a web app based service. I would recommend one but it's been rather unreliable recently and I don't have experience with others.
Goodroi, I think you are overestimating the impact of personalised search.
If your keyphrase is "lock repair" or "japanese restaurant", someone in another city will likely see completely different results. But search for "japanese restaurant bristol" and both locations will see the same or similar results. For non locality related keyphrases, like software/internet related stuff there's often little difference even between countries.
Personalised search is also unlikely to be a real influence except in situations where someone for example searches regularly for recipes and visits recipe sites, and then one day decides they want to buy a recipe book. In addition, search history is only a persistent factor if someone has a Google account and most people don't.
almighty monkey
1:39 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
WebCEO spaces out its searches - takes a while to run a search as a result, but it works and don't get you banned. That said, they don't half nickle and dime you to keep it up to date, and you have to pay to get the export data facility. It'll do what you've asked for though.
Again, as others have mentioned, there's no accounting for Geolocation though - it's only really useful for terms and websites that have no particular geographic focus.
BenFox
1:47 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
SEOMoz Rank Tracker and their new web app both work fine for me. But neither are available individually so it'll cost $99 pcm.
netmeg
3:02 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
I'm with Goodroi when it comes to focusing on rankings. However, sometimes you need to track movement, or competitors, or a needy client just needs to know. So I use Raven's SERPTracker for that. It's part of a toolset, not available separately. Works for me.
xnavigator
7:11 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
Automated queries will get you banned
true if u mean u will not be able to do other search (just change your ip at that point).
not true if u mean ur website will get banned
mhansen
8:05 pm on Dec 17, 2010 (gmt 0)
If I just want to check a generic phrase for placement purposes, I use the free hidemya$$ (ss) proxy. (they have free and paid, I have never used the paid version)
It lets you query the top 100 results in Google, from behind their proxy. Not perfect, but I agree that checking rankings can be a waste of time.
M
Oimachi2
1:44 am on Dec 24, 2010 (gmt 0)
not true if u mean ur website will get banned
yes I mean the website in question, not where I do the query from. I'm in Thailand with 1000 internet cafes at 60 cents an hour.
They'll never know it's the same IP doing the query.
My question is for the URL you are searching the keywords for.
I suspect they couldn't ban or punish the URL because it would be too easy for competitors to sink you?
For example, what if I did 10 000 queries a day to see how well this site ranks for "webmaster"?
I sure they couldn't punish them for someone elses actions?
