How do I find out where I actually rank?

Why your own search misleads you

Google personalises results based on what you have clicked before, and you have clicked your own site many times. It also uses your location, and you are usually sitting at your own address. Both push your listing upward for you and for nobody else.

Do this instead

1. Open a private or incognito window, so your history does not count.
2. Search the phrase a customer would type, including your town. Not your business name. Something like the service plus the city.
3. Scroll past the ads and past the map box. Start counting only at the first ordinary blue link.
4. Count every result until you find yourself. Include the directories. A customer has to scroll past those too.

Read the results properly

Two things people miss. Directory sites like Justia, Yelp, Angi and the Better Business Bureau occupy real positions and push you down whether or not you consider them competitors. And the map box is a separate system with separate rules, so being in it tells you nothing about your ordinary position.

What a good answer looks like

Inside the first ten ordinary results is page one and is worth having. Positions eleven to twenty is page two, which for most purposes is the same as not existing. Past thirty and almost nobody will ever see you.

If you would rather not do this yourself, that is precisely what our free market check is, and we record all forty positions rather than just yours.