I operate a local parenting site and my team and I are often checking what position specific pages on the site are in search engines like Google.

When I am logged in to Google/Gmail and I search for a particular phrase that I hope my site comes up for, my website’s pages may show higher in Google’s search engine results than if I am not logged in to Google.com.  However, it is a pain to have to log out of Google/Gmail every time I want to check the real Google position of one of my pages.

For example, if I am logged into my Gmail account and I open a new browser window and search “atlanta maternity stores”.  My Maternity Stores Guide is usually #1 or #2 in the results.  However, when I log out of Google/Gmail and search Google for the same keyword phrase, my Maternity Stores Guide is the 5th result.  Not a bad position to be in, it’s just not what I thought it was.

How to find your real position in Google:

• Using Google Chrome, open an incognito window. 
• To do this click the ‘tool’ button in the top right corner of the URL/search bar, then click ‘new incognito window’.
• An incognito window is designed to not have access to your browser’s history information.
• Do not log into your Gmail/Google account from this incognito window.
• Go straight to Google.com and search for your keywords.
• Because this will be a a non-personalized search this will reveal your true rank/page position.

Bloggers are increasingly needing to to share their Google search positions with potential advertisers and PR representatives.  It is important to make sure that we are sharing the most accurate information and this is how to do it!