How to track SAB Ranking?

[shripadd]

Hi,
I need your opinion to know best way to track search ranking for a service area business( with hidden address),
I tried to simulate search results by using few methods & results are different, so which one is the most accurate way you will suggest.
I tried to search using three methods
1) Simulating Search Result By City - Using (UULE) - View Results
2) Simulating Search Result By Users Search Location (Real Location-Like a store or business address) - By Using UULE - View Results
3) Simulating Search Result By GEO Coordinate of Real Location (Proximity) - View Results
Results are slightly different for each method so which one do you think is most accurate, and why?
Following sheet contains the search result.
View Sheet
Even if we refresh page then there is small change in result so I am little bit confused.

Thanks

 

[Yan Gilbert]

I am not sure there is one answer here. Since there is the potential for anyone's results to be affected by personalization, it almost never matches up perfectly with tracking results anyway. Most important thing would be to be consistent in the method used so that you can track over time if things are improving or not.

That being said, I think that results for the city will work best for search terms that have that location in the search string. Otherwise, the other two would better match real results. When you add a location modifier, you are telling Google to take into account the entire area. Depending on the size of the city, the algorithm will zoom out to a different level.

 

[whitespark]

What Yan said is spot on.

We have found that a uule based on zip/postal code is the closest match to what we get if we search in our own browsers.

But, there is no such thing as "accurate" rank tracking. Results vary by many different factors: location, personalization, device, date, time of day, positions of Jupiters moons, air quality readings, tide levels, the whims of Google engineers at that particular moment, etc.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Well @shripadd I came here to reply for you but Yan and Darren have it covered. So...what they said