How to find rank position for ones site

Very basic I know

[webjourneyman]

This will seem very basic to many here but I have not found out on my own.

How do you find out where your site ranks for a particular keyword without having to search by hand? Or even if it is in the serps at all?

[seaside]

> How do you find out where your site ranks
> for a particular keyword without having to search by hand?
There are online tools out there, you could query Google
with: tool serp
Result No. 1:
<snip>
> Or even if it is in the serps at all?
You could use the site operator -
site:yourdomain
and you get only results in case your domain is part of
the index.

[edited by: engine at 9:50 am (utc) on Feb. 12, 2007]
[edit reason] No tool drops, thanks. [/edit]

[Clair]

webjourneyman - thanks for the question.
Seaside - thanks for the pointer to the tool.

NOW come the questions:
I spent some time with the tool and am looking for help to think about what I found about the google results for two sites.

Case Number ONE:
Keywords entered: vermont inns results: p. 19 rank 187
Keywords entered: inns vermont results: p. 7 rank: 73
Case Number TWO:
Keywords entered: vermont site design: results: p. 15 rank 145
Keywords entered: site design vermont: results: p. 31 rank: 312

As you can see the results are contrary. In the first case Vermont before the term resulted in lower rank. In the second Vermont before the term resulted in higher rank.

What does this tell me (fairly new at this)? I would have expected the relative results to be the same.

Thanks for any help.