How to check your Google ranking: count one search, one way. My studio’s page was 4th in a private window and on page 2 when I was signed in.

Ask where your site ranks on Google and the accurate answer starts with another question: for which search? On the afternoon of 2 November 2026, one page of my studio’s site, kovalweb.com, was 4th on Google’s first page for the phrase “wow effect website”. When I searched signed in to my Google account, it was on page 2. One click on a link Google puts at the bottom of the results brought it back to where it had been, and when I searched through a VPN, from a server in New York, it was on page 2 again. The phrase and the page stayed the same; what changed was how I searched. Google’s help page on why results differ opens on the same point:

Google’s help page “Why your Google Search results differ from others”

You may get the same or similar results to someone else who searches on Google Search. But sometimes, Google may give you different results based on things like time, context, or personalized results.

So a position belongs to one search, made one way. Here is a way you can repeat.

Count one search, one way

1. Open a private window, the browser mode Chrome calls Incognito. Chrome’s page on Incognito says “Chrome doesn’t automatically sign you into your Google Account or other websites”, so the search is made as someone signed out.

2. Search the phrase a customer would type for what the page offers, not your business name. If your customers would add a town, add it too, and keep that as its own phrase.

3. Count only the ordinary results, the kind Google’s guide to the parts of a results page describes:

Google’s guide to the parts of a results page, on the ordinary result

A text result (formerly known as a “web result” or “plain blue link”) is a result in Google Search that’s based on the textual content of the page.

Skip the ads, the AI Overview (Google’s AI-written summary, at or near the top), the map with nearby businesses, and boxes such as videos, “People also ask” and “People also search for”. Extra links under a result belong to that result. A single video in the list, which Google’s guide calls a video result, I count as one result too. Look through at least two pages; if the page is not on page 1, note the page and its place there: “page 2, second to last”.

4. Write down how you searched: date and time, phone or computer, signed in or not, and the place line at the bottom of the results. Google’s page on your location in Search says: “When you use Google, you can find out how your location was estimated at the bottom of the results page.”

The result is a number with its conditions attached: “4th, computer, private window, my region, 2 November, about 16:10”. That number is true for that search. Compare it only with the next check made the same way, a week later.

Searched by hand, 2 November

I picked phrases from the pages and topics of my two sites, left out the business names, and searched them by hand on 2 November 2026, between about 15:50 and 17:10. The studio’s site came up on page 1 for three of them, so I searched those three again on a phone, signed in, and through a VPN, a service that sends your connection out through a server in another place, here New York. For one of them I also clicked Google’s link for results without personalization. Counted by the rule above:

The top did not move. “copywriting rewriting naming posting” was first in every way I checked it. All the movement was lower down; one phrase is too few to say why.

Google picks the page. For “wow effect website” Google showed the studio’s service page, not the blog post I took the phrase from. Before you watch a number, check which of your pages it belongs to.

Page 1 is not ten results. It held 8 ordinary results for “wow effect website” and 9 for “what is html microdata”. “Top ten” and “page 1” are not the same thing.

The rest have no number at all. A product site I launched this year, cryptowl.io, was not in the first two pages for any of its three phrases. A page that is not in the first pages has no position worth watching yet. Whether it is in Google at all is a different question; the article on a site that is not showing up on Google answers it with four searches.

This is one afternoon, one person, my own place and one VPN city. It shows that the number moves; it does not show how much yours will.

Where you search from

A private window leaves your account out of the search, not your place. Google’s page on your location in Search:

Google’s help page “Understand & manage your location when you search on Google”

When you search on Google, Google will always estimate the general area that you’re searching from.

The line at the bottom of mine named my region and said “From your IP address”. None of the Google pages I read calls a private window a neutral or true view. It is a search without your account, made from where you are.

Through the VPN server in New York, the line at the bottom named New York, and the studio’s two pages fell: “wow effect website” to page 2, “what is html microdata” to page 4. That is what Google served to a connection from a server there. Google does not say a VPN shows what someone living in New York sees, and I would not read it that way.

Place is also why most results match. Google’s page on how Search works with your activity says: “For most of your searches, you’ll get the same results as anyone else who searches the same query from the same location.” That is why the place goes into every note.

Signed in, or not

Signed in, the two pages that were not first moved to page 2, second to last. Google says personalization can change the order; its help page on why results differ: “Sometimes, personalization may affect the order that individual results would be ranked on the search results page.”

At the bottom of the signed-in results for “wow effect website” was a link, “Try without personalization”. The same help page describes it:

Google’s help page “Why your Google Search results differ from others”

You can see a non-personalized version of the results for your query when you click on the link in the footer (“Try without”).

The page calls the link “Try without”; on my screen it read “Try without personalization”. I clicked it, and the studio’s page went back to where the private window had it, on page 1. Same computer, same place, minutes apart: the cleanest test of the afternoon.

The usual advice, which I have given too, assumes your own searches flatter your site. Signed in, two of my pages sat lower, not higher; that was my account’s view, and each customer’s is their own. One phrase tested with the link is too little for a rule, but the link shows the difference for your own search in one click. Google draws no such conclusion; this one is mine.

Phone or computer, minutes apart

On the phone, in a private window, the first phrase was 1st again and the other two were still on page 1. At a glance it looked the same as the computer; it was not. For “wow effect website”, a site that was not on the computer’s first page at all sat right above the studio’s page. I did not screenshot the top of those two phone pages, so I have no phone positions to give.

Google lists the device as part of the context of a search; its help page on why results differ says: “Device type: Links to the correct app store or shows the best results based on your screen type, like mobile or desktop.” It does not say that positions differ between phone and computer, and my checks cannot say it either. The phone searches were at 16:02 and 16:03, and the computer pages I counted were captured a few minutes later, at about 16:10. The same help page names time as a cause in its own right:

Google’s help page “Why your Google Search results differ from others”

Time may be one of the biggest reasons why results vary between people. For example, we regularly add new content from the web soon after it’s published. Those who search a few hours or even a few minutes apart may find variations because of newly available content.

So part of what I saw on the phone may be those minutes, not the device. The same page adds a reason that has nothing to do with you or your site. When Google improves its ranking systems, the change reaches its data centres gradually, and “This can produce differences in results depending on which data center is responding to your search.”

How you count

In the private window, for “wow effect website”, counting ordinary results only, the studio’s page was 4th. Counting the AI Overview above it as one place, it was 5th.

The AI Overview makes a count unstable in its own right. Google’s page on its AI features says: “AI Overviews are only shown when our systems determine that it is additive to classic Search, and as such, often don’t trigger.” If you count it as a place, a summary that appears above your page one day and not the next moves your number by one, with nothing changed on your page.

That summary also listed the studio’s site among its sources, and the help page for Search Console, Google’s free tool for site owners, counts that as a position: “An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results, and all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position.” By that rule the studio’s site was 3rd, the summary’s place. By the rule I use, a mention in the summary is not a position, and I did not count it. Three counts of one screen: count the same way every time, and the next check can be compared.

Among its questions, the same help page has this one:

Google’s help page “What are impressions, position, and clicks?”

The Performance report says my page position is 5, but when I do a search it’s in position 8!

Position value is the average position for all searches. For your specific search your position might be different than the average because of many variables, such as your search history, location, and so on.

Other views, free

Each of these is one more search, made one more way. None of them is the real number either.

• Another country. Google’s page on results for a different country says: “You can choose to see results for other countries from your computer and the Google app for Android.” The setting is “Region Settings”, in Search settings; the page describes countries, not cities.
• A town. For missing local results, Google’s page on your location in Search says: “Add your current location to your search, like coffee shops in Chelsea.” Putting another town in the phrase is my extension of that, not Google’s advice, and it makes a different phrase, so note it as one. Do it after your counted check, not before: Google may use the places in earlier searches to estimate where you are.
• Fewer searches, not a lower place. When visits fall and the position has not, people may simply be searching the phrase less. Google’s page on traffic drops points to “Google Trends, which provides access to a largely unfiltered sample of actual search requests made to Google.” Type your phrase there and see whether interest in it fell.

What a rank tracker gives you

A rank tracker is a service that searches your phrases automatically and reports a position. As I read it, that is one more results page, from one place at one time, counted by one rule; and since Google always estimates where a search comes from, there is no neutral place for a tracker to search from either.

Google’s spam policies name the practice by its purpose:

Google’s spam policies, on machine-generated traffic

Machine-generated traffic (also called automated traffic) refers to the practice of sending automated queries to Google. This includes scraping results for rank-checking purposes or other types of automated access to Google Search conducted without express permission.

The last three words matter. A service that gets its data with Google’s permission is outside that sentence; I cannot see from outside which ones have it, and this article names none. It is also why every search in this article was typed by hand. The policy describes the practice of sending automated searches; none of the Google pages I read says a site loses its place because someone tracked it.

If you were about to pay for one: for a few phrases checked weekly, the four steps at the top give you a number you can compare, by hand and for free. A tracker saves the typing; it does not give a truer number. If you already use one, compare its number only with its own earlier numbers, never with what your phone shows. Both are my judgement.

When a move is worth acting on

Google’s page on traffic drops is calm about small moves:

Google’s page “Debug Google Search Traffic Drops”

Small fluctuations in position can happen at any time (including moving back up in position, without you needing to do anything). In fact, we recommend avoiding making radical changes if your page is already performing well.

Google gives a scale, too. Of a drop from 2nd to 4th, its page on core updates, the broad changes to ranking it makes several times a year, says “There’s no need to take drastic action”. A large drop, in the words of the page on traffic drops, is “a notable drop out of the top results for a wide range of terms (for example, dropping from the top 10 results to position 29)”. No Google page I read puts a number on how much a page normally moves in a day, so this article gives none.

My own rule, which is judgement, not Google’s: check weekly, the same phrases, the same way, written down. A difference between a private window and a signed-in search is not a move; the two were never the same check. A move worth looking into is the same check falling a long way, for several phrases, and staying there; Google’s page on traffic drops, linked above, is where to start. A speed score moves too, for other reasons; those are in the article on PageSpeed Insights.

A second check, on 3 November

On 3 November I ran the first check again: computer, private window, my region, the same three phrases. “copywriting rewriting naming posting” was 1st. “wow effect website” was 6th of 8, two places down. “what is html microdata” was 8th, one place up, only because a video that counted as a result the day before now sat in a videos box, which the rule skips. On “wow effect website” the summary cited the studio’s site again, so by the help page’s rule it was 3rd on both days.