: Why do different tools report different rankings for the same page? I am in a new job following an internship and I have been given the position of SEO Analyst. I have zero experience with

@Megan663

Google shows different results all the time based on:


Searcher location - local businesses rank higher
Searcher history and cookies
Searcher social network - links that friends like rank higher
Browser - especially mobile vs desktop
Searcher preferences such as

Verbatim search
Safe search

For random experiments - Google is often testing sites at various positions to judge how useful searchers find them higher or lower in the SERPs.
Different data - Google maintains many server farms which may not all have exactly the same view of the web at any given time


In addition, different tools may measure position differently


If a site has the top 3 slots, is that position 1 or average position of 2?
If there is a map at the top of the page with 10 results on the map, is the first organic result in position 1, 2 (counting the map as 1), or 11?
Do the number of sponsored links in the SERPs change the ranking of the first organic result?


Measuring position in SERPs is an inherently inexact science. I have found that tracking SERP positions is not an activity that is useful or actionable.

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@Shelton105

For local testing of results, I always use a clean (freshly reset) browser. Of course, don't use you default browser for this or you'll forever be deleting all your cookies and logins.

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@Megan663

For one, as you said "local" does play a large part in it. But that goes further than just what TLD of Google you're using. It will often take your city or region into account as well. So even if two different tools are both using google.ca for example, if one's on the West coast of Canada and the other's on the East coast of Canada, they could produce quite different results (depending on the type of query).

As for your manual results, if you are logged into Google (Gmail) Google+ can influence the results you see as well. If you've ever +1'd a site, or even your friends have +1'd a site, that can have a huge influence on that pages rankings.

Then you also have the fact that Google maintains many data centers with the same data propagating to all of them, but that process can take time. Sometimes a query hits one data center that has "newer" data, and the results can be very different from one data center who's cache hasn't yet been updated.

In short, you are insane for expecting consistency :) Google Webmaster Tools is probably going to be your best bet. Their data is aggregated over a longer period of time, so you see longer term trends, as opposed to just a "spot check". Also, it's a free Google product, so their results are going to be more accurate than most "outside" tools. That, or ask your colleagues which tool they prefer, and stick with that one.

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