The most popular way of checking your position - typing your phrase into Google - shows you a result your customers often never see. Google arranges results for the specific user: it looks at where you are, what you are searching on and whether you are logged in. And you know your own site by heart, so you spot it on the list in a fraction of a second and it seems closer to the top than it is. The effect: you are pleased with a position that exists mainly on your screen.
In this piece I show how to check your position honestly - and more importantly, what to actually look at to know whether the site is bringing customers in. It is one slice of SEO and AI visibility, and the slice every conversation about results starts from.
Why I see my own site higher than my customers do
Google does not show one universal list of results. It arranges it slightly differently for everyone, based on three things:
- Location - in many industries the results in Krakow and in Gdansk look completely different, and the search engine knows where you are asking from
- Being logged in, and the device - a Google account ties settings across all your devices together, so a “clean test” on a phone is not clean at all
- Search history - Google itself says its influence on the order is small, but not zero; on top of that, pages you have visited are displayed differently, and you subconsciously know what you are looking for in the list
That is not an error or a trick - Google simply matches results to the user. The problem is that you are the worst possible user for testing your own site.
How to check your Google position more honestly
The effect can be partly worked around. Incognito mode in the browser cuts off your history and logs you out of your account - that is already a much more honest picture. Location is harder to fool, but some tools and search settings let you preview results “from another city”. Worth doing if you serve customers across the whole country and not only where you sit.
Except that this is still an impression, not a measurement. One check, on one day, on one phrase. A far better move is going to the source for data - and that is where Search Console comes in. And if in incognito mode your site is nowhere at all, not even far down, that is a different problem, which I take apart in the piece on why your site is not showing up in Google.
Search Console - how to read the data at source
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google itself that shows how your site is doing in search - with no personalisation and no guesswork. You connect it once: you confirm the domain is yours (usually with a record at your domain provider or a file on the server) and from that moment data starts collecting.
The most important report is Performance. In it you will find three numbers worth looking at every month:
- Clicks - how many times somebody actually entered the site from Google’s results
- Impressions - how many times the site was shown to somebody in the results at all
- Average position - the averaged place across all those impressions
Plus the queries tab: the specific phrases the site really shows up for. That is often the biggest surprise - it turns out Google shows you for questions you never thought of, while the phrase you care about barely appears. That list says more about your visibility than any amount of typing phrases in by hand.
What helps: read average position with some distance - it is an average across all phrases and locations at once, so it can look worse than reality. Instead of one number, compare whole periods: this month against last month and against the same month a year ago.
Rank tracking - when tools make sense
Beyond Search Console there are rank tracking tools: free ones that let you check a few phrases now and then, and paid ones that track selected phrases daily and draw graphs of the changes. I deliberately give no names or prices - that market changes fast, and the principle matters more than a specific app.
Paid tracking makes sense when you are running an active SEO campaign, work in a competitive industry and want to see the effect of changes week by week. For most company sites it is overkill - Search Console shows everything you need and does it for free. Start with that, and reach for tools only when you feel its limits.
Position is not a goal in itself
You can be first for a phrase nobody types - and get exactly zero customers from it. Which is why the order of looking should be: clicks first, then queries (are they phrases customers type, or passers-by), and only at the end the position.
There is also a new chapter to this story: more and more people look for a supplier by asking ChatGPT outright, or get a ready answer from AI directly in Google. Classic rank checking cannot see that visibility at all - your site may be cited by AI or entirely absent from those answers, and no rank tracker will tell you. How it works and how to find your feet in it I describe in the piece on SEO and AI.
How to read drops without panicking
Positions fluctuate - that is normal. Before you decide something has broken, check three things:
- Seasonality - in many industries interest rises and falls with the year; fewer searches mean fewer impressions even though the position has not moved
- Algorithm changes - Google regularly rebuilds how it arranges results and sites can shift with no change on your side at all
- Competition - sometimes it is not you who dropped, it is somebody above you who grew, because they looked after their site
A single day is noise. Look at weekly and monthly trends - only a drop that holds for several weeks is a signal to act. What to check then on the technical and content side I set out in the piece on what an SEO audit covers.
And if you would rather have somebody who does this daily glance at the data - as part of the free diagnosis I check the site’s visibility and say plainly what those numbers mean and whether there is anything to worry about at all.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check my site’s rankings for free? Connect Google Search Console - a free tool from Google that shows clicks, impressions, average position and the phrases the site is visible for. For ordinary monitoring of a company site you need nothing else.
Which phrases is my site visible for? You will see that in Search Console, in the Performance report, in the queries tab. It is a list of real phrases from search, not your assumptions - and it often looks nothing like what you expect.
Is average position in Search Console my real position? It is an average across all impressions - different phrases, locations and days - so it does not match what any specific person sees. Treat it as a trend for comparing periods, not as a match score.
How often should I check my Google position? For ordinary monitoring, looking at clicks, impressions and queries once a month is enough. Refreshing results daily only makes sense during an active SEO campaign - day to day it adds nerves, not knowledge.
Want your company to show up in Google and in ChatGPT answers? I work on technical SEO and AI visibility from the code side, not the reporting side. Tell me which questions matter to you and I will quote it.