Use a Proxy for Better SEO
I regularly have people say to me that their Webpages appear in the first results page in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). When I then search for the same search terms they used, their Webpages are nowhere near the first Page. What most people don’t realise is that Google does a great job of personalizing the SERPs for every person searching; the results that you see for “wordpress specialist” will differ to the results that I see. As Google blogged back in 2009:
“For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I’m looking for news about Cornell University’s sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others”.
How to see more accurate SERPS Results
There is no means of ensuring precisely where in the SERPs your Webpages appears for specific search terms because of the SERPs differing for each person searching.
We can however get a good estimation of where our Webpages appear in relation to certain search words or search terms by using a Web proxy service. A Web proxy makes who we are anonymous to the Search Engines; what this means is that we are able to search without the SERPs results being customized based on our past searches. This is hugely beneficial in analysing how our Websites perform for most people for search terms.
Which Web Proxy Service to use?
There are thousands of free to use Web Proxies and most require no registration. The downfall of many of the free proxies is that they are slow with some not processing Javascript, not playing video or not showing images. Almost all also serve adverts. I use “Hide my Ass!” which I find reliable and quick.
Note: If you are using web proxy services to mask who you are then you’ll be far better off using TOR.
