Modern search engines and browsers both track and monitor which sites a person visits and what they search for. In most cases, they also know where a person is located.
Search engines use these factors to influence the order of search results displayed to a person — this means the order of results can vary from person to person. In modern search engines, there is no ‘true’ set of search rankings because they differ for every person.
Does personalization affect Local Rank Tracker results?
The Local Rank Tracker tool doesn’t run through your own browser, so it doesn’t inherit your personalization factors, meaning that the results the report shows will differ slightly from what you see in your own browser.
We run all search queries through a large network of IPs. Since search engines don’t like automated services such as rank-tracking tools (because we don’t click on PPC ads), doing this helps ensure they aren't detected.
Secondly, we reduce the impact of personalization by clearing browser settings and passing parameters, that tells the search engines to ignore personalized factors.
Check the Search Engine Results Page screenshot
You can view screenshots of the SERPs from the time the report was run when hovering over a ranking number and then selecting ‘SERP Screenshot’.
Does the time of search affect Local Rank Tracker results?
It is worth noting that if you are comparing data from your device at a different time of day, it may well be showing different results. Google recently made a change to its algorithm, making the business's opening hours a ranking factor. So if the report was run when it was closed, the results will look different to now. You can choose a local time slot for your report to run; this can be found within the report settings under 'General Settings'.
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