Google - Horribly basic question but I'm flummoxed!

TheBigCheese · 1 Sep 2008 at 14:25

Hi guys

What I'm wanting to know is how I can tell what the position of a ranking is in Google as the search results aren't numbered.

For example...

Say I was looking for "cookie monster" on Google UK...I can see that :
BBC - Cult Television - Cookie monster crumbles is at position nine, but there is no number saying 9.

But if I was searching for a certain website position and I was looking at 100 results at once, how can I tell what number each site is at?

It's probably something really obvious that I'm overlooking but it's really bugging me!

Many thanks in advance!

MASSIVE EDIT

I've sorted it - there is a sub option in a Firefox addon called CustomizeGoogle.

(Should have looked more carefully before posting - whoops, sorry!)

UKDTweak · 1 Sep 2008 at 14:28

I thought they were list in order of position, top being first?

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2008 at 14:29

They're in order

Top is 1, second is 2 etc.

edwardcasbon1 · 1 Sep 2008 at 14:32

Yeh, but the OP doesn't want to count down to 100 to figure out that the link he wants is 112th or something.

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2008 at 14:33

True, didn't think of that.

Could work it out quite easily though as each page has a certain amount of results.

TheBigCheese · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:32

Craig321 said:
True, didn't think of that.

Could work it out quite easily though as each page has a certain amount of results.

OK Smarty pants...you have at least 100 search terms and one of those is Cookie Monster - your website is metro.co.uk.

I'm your boss and I want to know where abouts on Google UK we rank when the general public search for "cookie monster" (quote marks allowed). Because it's the public searching they don't know anything about wildcards or any other clever terms...the only thing you have to make it easier is quote marks...what ranking does Metro appear at?

You tell me where it appears and how easy it was to find

fini · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:34

Use the firefox add-on 'rank checker'. It allows you to easily check the rank of your site for multiple keywords on google, yahoo and live.

EDIT: Actually the add-on's completely broken for me at the moment - hopefully just my install though lol

EDIT2: Yep it was just my version - updated and now working. Metro doesn't appear in the top 100 results for "cookie monster" you cheater!

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:45

TheBigCheese said:
OK Smarty pants...you have at least 100 search terms and one of those is Cookie Monster - your website is metro.co.uk.

I'm your boss and I want to know where abouts on Google UK we rank when the general public search for "cookie monster" (quote marks allowed). Because it's the public searching they don't know anything about wildcards or any other clever terms...the only thing you have to make it easier is quote marks...what ranking does Metro appear at?

You tell me where it appears and how easy it was to find

I wasn't trying to be smart, I'm just saying you don't have to have the number there to find what rank it's at.

Using the search term "cookie monster" and looking for metro.co.uk will still require you to go through each page using page find until it appears. Once you've found it you multiply the page number by however many results are shown per page.

As fini said, easiest way would probably be to install a rank checker.

TheBigCheese · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:49

fini said:
Use the firefox add-on 'rank checker'. It allows you to easily check the rank of your site for multiple keywords on google, yahoo and live.

EDIT: Actually the add-on's completely broken for me at the moment - hopefully just my install though lol

EDIT2: Yep it was just my version - updated and now working. Metro doesn't appear in the top 100 results for "cookie monster" you cheater!

lol thanks for the link, I'll have a look but I think it's still broken for you! It displays at 86:

Craig321 said:
I wasn't trying to be smart, I'm just saying you don't have to have the number there to find what rank it's at.

Using the search term "cookie monster" and looking for metro.co.uk will still require you to go through each page using page find until it appears. Once you've found it you multiply the page number by however many results are shown per page.

I wasn't accusing you of being a smart botty (family friendly) or anything, just trying to point out how difficult it is to search...if you have 10 results per page set you have to click 9 times to get the right page.

If you have 100 results set per page, the Metro website will be on page 1 but you have to manually count down the results to get the right number.

It's not an easy thing to do! (Well it wasn't until I found the Firefox addon)

fini · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:55

TheBigCheese said:
lol thanks for the link, I'll have a look but I think it's still broken for you! It displays at 86:

Not for me it doesn't (link). Could be google harvesting my old search history, could be it differentiating based on my browser or I could just be getting results from a different data centre - but either way I don't get it in my top 200 let alone 100.

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2008 at 15:57

It's 86 on Google.co.uk, I don't think it's even top 1,000 on Google.com

I'd probably be more worried about where it is on Google.com, most people type google.com when they're searching... it doesn't seem to redirect you to your own countries page anymore.

TheBigCheese · 1 Sep 2008 at 16:01

Craig321 said:
It's 86 on Google.co.uk, I don't think it's even top 1,000 on Google.com

Whoops, sorry, yeah I should have said you have to click on UK results

Craig321 said:
I'd probably be more worried about where it is on Google.com, most people type google.com when they're searching... it doesn't seem to redirect you to your own countries page anymore.

Hey that's weird...it does redirect me automatically, I thought it did for everyone, there was a bit of a hoo haa about it a while ago. Can it depend on how your request is being routed? Will is vary from one ISP to another I wonder?

fini · 1 Sep 2008 at 16:04

TheBigCheese said:
Whoops, sorry, yeah I should have said you have to click on UK results

Ah so its not only google.co.uk, but google.co.uk when you click 'pages from the UK'? Yes I get it 86th when you do that, but realistically the amount of searchers who use google.co.uk AND hit the 'pages from the UK' button is low - using google.co.uk is not enough to get it in the top 100.

To answer your second question, it redirects automatically dependant on where your IP is - sometimes it wont be able to tell. It also stores whether you've clicked 'take me to google.com' before - by default I'm always taken to google.com

TheBigCheese · 1 Sep 2008 at 17:15

fini said:
Ah so its not only google.co.uk, but google.co.uk when you click 'pages from the UK'? Yes I get it 86th when you do that, but realistically the amount of searchers who use google.co.uk AND hit the 'pages from the UK' button is low - using google.co.uk is not enough to get it in the top 100.

To answer your second question, it redirects automatically dependant on where your IP is - sometimes it wont be able to tell. It also stores whether you've clicked 'take me to google.com' before - by default I'm always taken to google.com

Interesting to know, I thought the whole of the UK was directed to Google UK in the same way that Pandora internet radio is blocked for anyone using a UK IP address.

Thanks for the information folks, glad to say the Google sorting is...errr...sorted

Craig321 · 1 Sep 2008 at 17:36

TheBigCheese said:
Whoops, sorry, yeah I should have said you have to click on UK results

Hey that's weird...it does redirect me automatically, I thought it did for everyone, there was a bit of a hoo haa about it a while ago. Can it depend on how your request is being routed? Will is vary from one ISP to another I wonder?

Possibly. I always used to get re-directed to Google.co.uk (haven't changed ISP). Maybe because I'm using OpenDNS