Best method for tracking true keyword ranking overtime?
-
It seems as though week to week ranking monitoring can be very volatile, and comparing over the course of a month only takes into account the absolute change and not whether the rank has been jumping up and down in the 3 weeks between.
What is a good method (Moz tool or not) for tracking a true change in average rank?
-
I agree with Elliott and Oleg's answers, it is better to measure performance with changes in organic traffic to the landing page that you are optimizing. With all the personalization and increased importance on device and location, it is very difficult to measure a 'true' ranking.
However, if you are set on tracking rankings, I would recommend (and use) the following:
- Search Analytics Report in Google Search Console: Unfortunately only shows 90 days worth of data but it is free and will provide you data on your site's average ranking position (Avg. Position). You can adjust the filters to see the average ranking position for a specific query (or query set) or individual landing pages.
- SEMRush: Personally, my favorite keyword tool (no offense Moz!). This will require signing up for a paid subscription (as the free subscription does not take you very far) but you will be able to track individual keyword rankings in 'projects'. Their least expensive plan ($99.95/month or $999.40/year) allows you to track up to 500 keywords and will provide you with organic visibility trends, individual keyword rankings (over time), average position, estimated traffic, ranking distributions, landing page reports, and more. If you are willing to spring for the 'guru' package, you can look up historical ranking and search volume data as far back as January 2012.
- Moz Rank Tracker: Another great tool for tracking keyword performance over time. If you are willing to upgrade to Moz Pro, you will be able to track rankings here. What I like about Moz's rank tracker is that it allows you to track rankings against specific competitors, it allows you to track both mobile and desktop rankings side by side, and you also have the option to track keywords nationally or in a specific location. I am also a fan of the SERP features report, great for identifying featured snippet and instant answer opportunities that you may not have known were there. Moz is offering a 30 day trial, may as well give it a shot!
Hope this helps, good luck finding the tool that is right for you!
-
I agree with Oleg's point: your KPI should be traffic, not SERPs. Over time your traffic data will give you a very clear read on how well your article is performing organically.
With that said, we're antsy SEOs and when we drop from number 7 to number 22, it's pretty hard to sit there and wait calmly for the next Moz report to come out next week. This isn't scalable, but when I see keywords that I really care about performing in a surprising way, I like to go throw them in this free tool: http://www.whatsmyserp.com/serpcheck.php.
Refresh the results a few times and you'll get a sense of the range of your SERP, rather than just a single snapshot. Google seems to be moving things around constantly, so the single snapshot may not make the most sense anymore. I wonder if Moz is thinking about taking several snapshots and averaging them -- or doing a rolling average over time -- to level out some of the volatility we now see.
Or we can all learn to be more patient and take SERPs with a grain of salt!
-
Organic visits to landing page would probably be the most useful
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the difference between my pages' keyword rank and keyword-specific SERP?
I've been tasked with identifying high volume keywords for products our company sells and optimizing our copy and listings to rank higher on Google. The Keyword Explorer and On-Page Grader have been fantastic for this, but as I write my reports, i'm not sure whether SERP or Moz's keyword page rank would be more accurate for reporting results and movement. For instance, one of our product pages ranks #12 for the highest (relevant) volume keyword, but when looking at the SERP analysis for that keyword, our product page actually shows up at #7 down the list. I've tried naturally searching in Google in case it was an issue of private results based on my user data but it seems to give the same result. Am I conflating two different tools? Or is the Moz rank just an estimate?
Moz Pro | | BJake0 -
Is there a tool that can rank multiple results for a single keyword?
Hi all, I have searched the web for a tool that can tell me if more than 1 landing page is ranking for a single keyword. I have noticed sometimes that a single keyword query can trigger up to 3 landing pages within the 1st SERP. I found an old bookmarklet from Lunametrics that might do the trick using Search Console data, but the link is no longer working. Any other pointers, or can Moz do this as well? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | rodelmo40 -
Clearing our on-page ranking reports?
Is there a way to "bulk delete" on-page ranking reports which are no longer relevant? I know we can delete them one at a time, but the reason I ask is that I've done a fair bit of work changing URL's, so the reports are often for old URL's which no longer exist. (yes, I made sure to do 301 redirects to the new ones!) Thanks in advance for any help!
Moz Pro | | koalatm0 -
Rank Tracking results
Hi, Some problem with rank tracking from research tools: I rank #1 for this keyword "w immo" for URL : http://www.wimmobiliere.com in my campaign monitor (ranking tab) In rank tracking for the same Search Engine (google.be) i am not in the 50. Do you know why? Some images that might help... Rank_1<a class="attachment-title">Rank 1</a>Rank_2<a class="attachment-title">Rank 2</a>
Moz Pro | | VOUS0 -
Ranking Change
When I see ranking change in SEO Moz is there anyway of getting more information as why a particular keyword has increased or decreased?
Moz Pro | | petewinter0 -
SEOmoz Keyword Ranking - Does it work for local search?
I was just wondering how SEOmoz calculates keyword rankings up and down every week. Shouldn't there be a way to have SEOmoz calculate rankings on a Local and Non-Local Basis? For example I have "Local Dentist" as a keyword in SEOmo for my dental client. SEOmoz shows that we are not in the Top 50. | Local dentist Keyword History Ranking Analysis | Not in Top 50 | Moved unknown 0 spaces | Not in Top 50 | Moved unknown 0 spaces | Not in Top 5 | If I change my location in Google browser to the zip of where the office is located, we
Moz Pro | | Czubmeister
show up in position 14(for the home page) & 15 (for an inside page) How can I show the keyword rankings to my client if the keyword ranking report doesn't reflect searches done in my clients local area?0 -
Top ranking with no SEO
I ran an SEOMoz keyword difficulty report for the term "interim CFO services" and found that all of the websites that ranked really well for that term have good page authority and domain authority scores and plenty of incoming links.....except 1. result #5 has a page and domain authority of 1 and no incoming links, however it's ranked #5 in google SERP for this highly competitive term. see screenshots: http://screencast.com/t/NJiOn8N4l http://screencast.com/t/x6tU1RhX4j Is this ranking based solely on the domain name being 100% relevant? Did they just get lucky and hit the google rankings jackpot? If this is the case, by the same logic I am trying achieve high rankings for the keyword "outsourced accounting firm" and purchased the domain name outsourcedaccountingfirm.com and am not even ranked in the top 50 with google for that keyword. (it's very new though) any feedback on either questions above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Moz Pro | | texmeix0 -
Exporting ranking stats; errors
previously, when I went to export the weekly rank stats, the csv opened into excel and everything was fine. This week, one campaign data will not export other than purely in comma deliniated and will not translate to colums in ecel. A second campaign does export directly to excel but the data showing (on 27th June) is for the 22 february (report created march 1). so all my spread sheets for position analysis are up the creek and I cant even get last weeks positional report on my key domain. any thoughts??
Moz Pro | | Citybase0