How do you check keyword rankings for your sites?

[vitaliykolos]

The other day I used Rank Tracker form SEO PowerSuite and SEO small tools ranking checker http://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/ to check a keyword ranking. Both said that my clients keyword is not in top 50, but when I used Rank Tracker from Moz.com it showed that my client's keyword ranks #30 !

What's the tool that works for you all the time and is 100% reliable?

[EGOL]

First, I will say that Google has thousands of computers that respond to search results.  Some of these computers have the freshest data, some of them have stale data.  They also have lots of experimental versions of the search results running at any given time.  In addition, search results can change depending upon your location, if you are logged into a Google service, previous searches that you have done, cookies on your browser, and many many other factors.

So, the positions of your pages in Google can move up and down depending upon all of the factors listed above and how your rankings change in any one of them.

Some of my rankings are rock solid.   The rest of them jump up and down constantly.  I have a few keywords where I have jumped back and forth almost randomly from any position between #15 and #4 for the past few years.

What's the tool that works for you all the time and is 100% reliable?

Nothing is going to be 100% reliable because of what I described above....

The rankings that I pay attention to are what I see in Moz Pro Rank Tracker.  I think that is a good choice because location, browser, search history, cookies, personalization and most other factors are not influencing the results.  But, still my rankings jump up and down there - and I can usually confirm them by searching on a machine/browser that I think is pretty clean.

If you want to track your progress, I think using a a tool that taps the Google API - like Moz Pro Rank Tracker - is as good as you are going to get.  Plus Moz Pro Rank Tracker will record your rankings history in a nice chart.

[hammadrafique]

you can use rankaware, it's free for one year. I'm using moz pro and rankaware both for checking my keywords' ranking. Also rankaware will provide you PDF report of your keywords. Use the below key and add unlimited websites in the list.

myrankaware.com

User Name: sharewareonsale201409

Registration Code: fgn5abOLezVyzwD3-54080d12

[gazzerman1]

Webmaster Tools can be surprisingly accurate. Just make sure you break it down by country in the report. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

[Christy-Correll]

Note: GWT search query data is useful for sure, but isn't a keyword ranking tracker in the sense that tools by Moz, Majestic SEO, SEMRush, etc. are. For example, as compared to showing you how you are theoretically ranking (or not ranking) for the keywords you specify, it only shows you data for actual search queries that returned URLs in the SERPs.

[TheeDigital]

I would recommend awrcloud as you can set the location for your search and track different things like map results along with organic.

[CommT]

I like SEM Rush. It gives you daily ranking updates for your keywords and allows you to monitor the serps for your keywords.

I actually find the moz raking a little poor in comparison, mostly because it is only updated weekly.

But I do look at both to make sure they correlate as much as possible, and they seem to. I spot check the SEM Rush rankings against searching manually every now and then too to make sure its accurate. So far it has been. I have used it for just over a year.

All ranking tools have limitations - country specific,  data center differences, google testing stuff, etc etc. Only way to be 100% sure what the ranking is is to manually check (with a 'clean' browser as mentioned by someone else), but I bet you (like me) have better things to do with your time!

Be interested to know what you choose and how you get on with it.

Best wishes,

Amelia