Question on keyword rankings

[DRTBA]

Hi everyone

Within our campaign it says that we rank number 35 for a specific keyword in Google in the Unites States but when we google the specific keyword we come up as number two on the first page.

Can you help me understand what the current rank is based on as well as how it's results can be different from our Google search?

Thank you.

[UnderRugSwept]

Google is probably giving you personalized results. Make sure you are not logged in. Also, even if you're not, you may still be getting personalized results based on location and other factors. The only way to avoid this that I know of is in Firefox, go to Tools > Start Private Browsing and then do your search. Just make sure to go back and exit private browsing when you're done.

[tstauntonwri]

Hi Marisa,

Thanks for the reply but no joy I'm afraid. The SERPs are still the same.

[DRTBA]

Yes Tony I agree the results are still  the same in private and non private browsing in terms of the results for a specific keyword on Google.

[UnderRugSwept]

Yeah, you know, I just looked at my campaign, and it has us ranked number 17 for a keyword when we're actually 11. So, maybe someone else can answer this! Now I'd like to know!

I do know that Google has different servers it uses in different parts of the country and depending on which one they are using at any given time, the SERPs can be different. But the fluctuation is usually only a couple of spaces--nothing like what we're experiencing.

[DRTBA]

I just used a proxy site to make sure I am searching Google within the United States and we actually ranked number one for the keyword using Google search with a proxy server that has a New York IP address.

This is very weird results.

Marisa would be nice if a SEOMOZ team member would come and explain this to us so we can fully understand what the results are and how we can understand them to effectively utilize them.

[tstauntonwri]

As far as I know depending on where you are searching from google shows different results. So for example:

I run a search from the UK with Google.co.uk and my keyword comes up in position 4

I run the same search from the UK with Google.com and my keyword now appears in position 13

Obviously Google takes a lot into consideration when showing rankings but two things that come into play are your location running the search and the location of the server that hosts your site.

The best way to get the most accurate result is to run a search in Google as if you are in the country that you want the result for. So if you want to know the position of your keyword in Google.co.uk as if you are based in the UK do this.

There is a plugin for Google Chrome which allows you to select a country from a list and get back results as if you where in that country running the search:

http://www.redflymarketing.com/internet-marketing-tools/google-global/

Hope this helps

[DRTBA]

Tried it but it's not compatible with the latest Firefox 

Also not sure if you seen my response earlier but I tried a proxy IP from New York using Google.com and the results were different then what is posted on SEOMOZ. What do you think could be the issue there?

What location in the United States is SEOMOZ basing it's keyword ranking on and if that is different then Google own's ranking how can we truly optimize keywords without knowing how SEOMOZ results are different from Google's own results ?

If the results are truly different then is the only way to tell is to look up each keyword in Google and not in SEOMOZ?

[Cyrus-Shepard]

This goes to show that there is no longer anything such as "rank"

Over the past couple of years it's gotten to the point that no two people ever see the same result, even unpersonalized, so we tend to think in terms of "average position"

The SEOmoz PRO platform takes great pains not only to

1. Depersonalize results but also to
2. Display non-localize results.

It's important to do both. The best way to estimate your rank is still to add &pws=0 to the end of your search query. To non-localize it, set your location (left hand side of Google's results page) to the county you reside in. For the US this would be "United States".

I wrote a post on this here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-personalized-search

Regardless, hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.

[DRTBA]

Good morning Cyrus

Thank you for taking the time and answering my question. I also read your article, very informative. Thank you for sharing however I do have a follow up question.

I completely understand what you mean when you say there is no longer anything such as rank but when I do a search on Google and we are number 1 or 2 for a specific keyword and SEOMOZ shows that we rank number 35 there is a big difference and was wondering what can attribute to the big difference. Is there something that SEOMOZ takes into effect that we can replicate when we do a Google search to achieve similar results?

The reason I ask is so that we can see what impacts the results and best optimize our website.

Thanks again for all your help, feedback and sharing of information.