How to track your Google rankings for free: the reliable method

Want to know whether your website is going up or down on Google, without paying for a rank tracker? Good news: Google gives you the numbers itself, for free. You just need to know where to look and how to read them.

Why isn't searching Google yourself enough?

When you type your trade on your phone, Google personalizes the answer: it takes into account where you are, your past searches, and the fact that you often visit your own website. A customer three streets away won't necessarily see the same thing. A private window corrects some of the history, not the location.

How do you track your rankings with Search Console?

Search Console is Google's free tool for website owners. Once your site is added and verified:

1. Open search.google.com/search-console and pick your site.
2. Click "Performance", then "Search results".
3. Turn on the four boxes at the top: clicks, impressions, CTR and average position.
4. Open the "Queries" tab: every search where your site showed up, with its average position.
5. Choose "Compare" in the date range (for example the last 28 days against the previous 28) to see what's going up and down.
6. Export the table every month to keep a record.

How do you read average position?

Average position is the average of the spots where your site appeared for a search, over the chosen period. A position of 8 means "usually on the first page, toward the bottom". A position of 45 means "fourth or fifth page". Two precautions: look at it search by search rather than for the whole site, and don't worry about a day-to-day swing; look at the trend over several weeks. The data also arrives about two days late.

Which method should you choose?

What if a page shows up nowhere?

If a page has no impressions in Search Console, it may not be indexed. Search Console's "Pages" report tells you why (discovered but not crawled yet, excluded by a noindex tag, error). The indexability checker also gives you the answer for one URL in seconds.

When should you switch to automatic tracking?

When opening Search Console every week becomes a chore, or when you want to be warned about a drop without going looking for it. With a CoolSEO Solo or Studio plan and your Search Console connected, Frosty, your SEO consultant working 24/7, records your rankings every week, compares them with the week before and warns you when a search drops. To start, the free audit already shows you what's holding your site back.