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Here's my 2 cents regarding rank checking programs and how you may avoid them and still get the information you need to calculate ranking fairly accurately. You don't need automated(and risky!) ranking checks if you've got some imagination and you're not afraid of a bit of math ;)
Here's my recipe.
- The number of clickthroughs by SERP position is more or less constant. If I remember correctly #1 on page 1 is about 76% clickthrough rate (someone correct me please, I'm not sure). Remember this number, we'll use it shortly.
- Pay per click accounts reveal expected clicks according to the type of percentage mentioned on the former paragraph multiplied by the TOTAL SEARCHES for that phrase.
-- Yes, you can get those old and valuable NUMBER OF GOOGLE SEARCHES PER DAY original-adwords numbers from this ;)!
How?! Tell me, tell me! Yup. I'm telling.
Go for #1, go ahead and bid U$ 50 for that favorite keyword/phrase/sentence/paragraph!
Then divide the given expected clicks per day by 76 and multiply by 100, that's approximately how many searches are done for that keyword/phrase on Google on any given day. (Adjust 76 to the percentage clickthrough for #1 adword - it changes all the time according to marketers moods.)
- To find out what your ranking is do a bit of research on percentage of click-throughs for lower positions and pages beyond page 1. (This is the hard part. With this you'll never need WPG-type of programs again.)
- Use your referer logs. Referring keywords plus the technique above will give you fairly accurate idea of your ranking for each keyword/phrase/googlewhack.
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Example:
In November let's say you got 75 referrals from Google for the search "shamoo loves texas"(Warning. Fictitious search string. Any resemblance with real life killer whales is mere coincidence and I hate WIDGETS so bare with me.)
So you go and bid for #1 on PPC adwords, yup - U$ 50, yeeeha!
Expected clicks is 3 per day (again fictitious data).
That means the keyphrase "shamoo loves texas" is searched about 4 times a day((3/76)*100)(ok number freaks, around 3.94 times). That's 120 searches per month.
From there I can't reveal my secret data for other SERP positions ;) - but if you got half of that then you're probably around SERP position 4 or 10 :).
You got 75 which is a bit above 60(around #3 or #4) and fairly below 120(#1) - I'd guess you're about #2 or #3 on page 1.
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Note 1 : those pee h dee's over yonder at the goo gal plex surely thought of this so they feed you pretty darned tricky numbers on adwords. But them numbers have to be somewhat approximate since you must know how much to expect to pay, so you can kinda count on this technique for fairly accurate estimates of ranking without querying google 100000 times a day.
Note 2 : If the keyword/phrase you're checking your ranking on is not on your top 100 referer list then ignore it, you're probably beyond any reasonable SERP. Multiply zero times anything and it's 0% - which probably means a rank checking program would return NOT FOUND anyway.
Next stop Google is begging you to stop using automated adwords percentage miner robots :)! (Don't do that! Or we'll have to be figurin out a way to undepercentalize the already superkalafragile percentalized percentages above exprecedented.)
Cheers.
Da southamerican PhD
(Post #2 - around 46% clickthrough.)
Not from me. I only click on adwords when I am doing a commercial search and there are no good results on the first couple of pages, or I am in the mood to send google some money from a company I don't like.
