The changing face of ranking checks in 2018

We’re talking today about checking your site’s rankings. I’ve been doing a search, since it’s 2018, to see how bloggersSEO is ranking. I’ve started off using the Opera browser and it’s incognito, or private browsing. The first phrase I searched for is “blogger’s SEO system”. I’ve got a virtual private network (VPN) switched on, set to Los Angeles, to give local US results.

When I check for “blogger’s SEO system”, I find we’re ranking number one worldwide, which is great since that’s what we’re targeting. Now, when I go to look for the brand, bloggersSEO, the front page of Google in LA is showing StewArt Media. That shouldn’t happen. Last year Google changed its results to show local rankings. For instance, if you’re in New York you’ll get New York rankings, even if you use google.com.au. If you use google.com in Australia, you’ll get Australian results. It’s geocentric.

We tried getting different results in Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Now, StewArt Media shouldn’t be ranking for this. There have only been one or two links connecting the two sites, so it shouldn’t have authority. I’d love to know what you’re seeing. I’ve asked friends in the UK, and they’ve given us some interesting and varied results, but I’m not sure they were searching incognito. I’d like to know how accurate this method of checking, using a VPN to become incognito, actually is.

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