4 ways to check global SEO rankings for free

How and what search engines choose to rank in their index is entirely up to them. There are, however, best practices that every marketer and SEO follow to try to achieve high search rankings. High rankings don’t drive revenue, of course, but they do provide an indication as to whether SEO efforts are paying off.

I’m of the opinion that search ranking should never be the primary KPI, and therefore track rankings fairly infrequently. As a result, I find many of the enterprise rank checking tools to be an overkill for my needs. Additionally, I focus on a lot of global SEO rankings and I would need expensive add-ons to these software packages in order to see rankings globally.

Automated and manual rank checking within your local Google search engines is very simple as you can type your queries into a search box or use a variety of software solutions. The real rank checking challenge is to understand how you are doing on non-local Google searches.

Discovering how you rank in the UK is not nearly as simple as going to google.co.uk from an incognito window. Even though your personalized data is not included in Google’s query processing to understand the query intent, you are still physically located in your home country and the results will be more biased than what an actual in-country searcher would see.

Rank Checking for International SEO

International SEO presents some very complex challenges for someone who does not know the language they might be targeting in an SEO campaign, so knowing precise search engine rankings becomes even more important. You won’t be as familiar with your list of target keywords as you are with the keywords in your own language, and you won’t have as strong a grasp of the keyword modifiers and synonyms that you should also be targeting.

Much like domestic SEO, looking into your analytics software to see how much traffic you are receiving is not going to be that helpful. You can, for example, see that traffic is increasing in a target country, but you won’t have very much insight into whether branded or non-brand queries are driving the traffic. Also, if you are in the beginning stages of an international campaign and just need to prove the value of a new piece of non-English content, you will not have the data you need to prove a desired return on investment (ROI).

Four ways to check international rankings for free

Luckily, there are a few ways to check Google rankings for free or nearly for free that will show you search results just like any in-country user.

1) Adwords preview tool

Although this tool is designed to show you if your ad is currently appearing for a specific query term, as with most of Google’s paid search tools, there is an SEO use. The tool allows you to choose the specific Google TLD, country, and city you are targeting. You can see how rankings differ on Google.CA for a specific query in Toronto, ON or Montreal, QB.

For added fun, you can see what the ranking is on Google.co.uk for the same Canadian locations and notice how the rankings might change slightly. You can also choose between desktop and mobile search. These results are completely generic with no personalization and would be very similar to what a user in your target country would see.

2) Append parameters to your search query string

Search using your targeted Google top-level domain (TLD) – for example, Google.at for Austria – and then append parameters onto your Google query URL. The query URL tells Google what language interface you are using and the physical location of the user. Here’s an example of a query string: “https://www.google.pt|/search?q=wufoo|&gl=GB|&hl=es&”

The first part “https://www.google.pt” shows that you are conducting a search on Google.pt – Google’s Portuguese TLD. The next section “search?q=” is your actual query. After that is where you would append “gl” which is your Google location. Google uses the two-letter ISO country code for this parameter. You can find the full list here. In my query, I am searching in the UK, which uses the ISO code of “GB.”