SEO noob question; how can you be sure you're on the first page?

[Sulphur]

So, this is probably a dumb question.
I saw a TED talks speaker demonstrate how Google and Facebook personalize their results. For example, Facebook news feed tends to show only the people you read regularly. Google checks which IP you're coming from, where you're located, what you've searched recently, what other people in the area have searched, probably the bounce rate of the pages they went to, etc etc in order to make your own search result page. So when you say, "this site ranks in the top 3 for keywords x y z" how do you know that's the real rank? Maybe their algorithm saw that you keep looking at the target site so they moved it up?

 

[zxcvb]

Log out, clear cookies, check again.

 

[Louey37]

I use market samurai which tends to provide accurate date.

Can you post the link to the TED talk? Sounds interesting.

 

[andyk]

You can also use some other keyword tracking tools out there (eg. sescout, seomoz, etc). Pick one and use that to keep track the history so that it is consistent.

 

[Richard Spanker]

Do a search for "google camo" its a firefox plugin that hides you.

 

[Hav3n]

Add &pws=0 at the end of the search URL

 

[kakaboo]

Use free proxies like

Turbohide
hidemyass
pagewash
etc
etc
etc
tons of them out there

 

[LiamGallagher]

Use incognito mode in Chrome

 

[Maruchi]

Better tool to check this is here: Search Engine Position Tool - iWEBTOOL.com

 

[GaryMcGeown]

try serprush

 

[aim100]

search on seoserp .com or on kpmrs .com
both great. seoserp tells you ranking upto 1000 places and kpmrs upto 100
use em.

 

[James Fortzman]

Scroogle!!!!

 

[pageoneseo]

Traffic Travis is a good free program (you can also upgrade, but it's not needed)

 

[bluffey]

try serprush

This tool is a product of seoquake? I ask because semrush and serprush are similar in pronunciation. Or it's developped by some other people?

 

[Spiderweb]

I'd stay away from trying to use the free proxies. They move at half the speed of smell and tend to be coated in ads.