I thought I was ranking...until I saw this

[seamate]

I been doing some rather serious on page and off page SEO for my website for some time now, and I started to see improvements in rankings for a major keyword I am trying to rank for. I was virtually nowhere on the SERPS, but gradually I began to see my site on somewhere around page 7. Sometimes it moved a page forward or backward.

Recently I used a related posts plugin to create internal backlinks on most of my posts, and after about a week, my main keyword moved to page 3, and then to page 2 and page 1, and number 2 on page 1.

I was very happy to see this "improvement" until I discovered to my horror that when I searched for the keyword in an incognito tab, it is nowhere to be found on the SERPS. The keyword only appears on the SERPS on a tab in which I am logged in with my Search Console account. When I search for the keyword on this tab, I see a performance report at the top of the SERPS, and it clearly shows that there's been gradual improvement, and the average position of the keyword is shown as 14.

But why does it not appear at all on incognito tabs or when I am not logged in? Has anyone else encountered this scenario before?

 

[SocialManager]

Search engine results are based on a lot of different things, including your location and search history. So the results when you are logged in with lots of search history are going to be dramatically different from a fresh search engine result. This is why people use search engine result programs and tools (usually called "Rank trackers") to track their results more accurately.

 

[nimdekvan]

Search engine results are based on a lot of different things, including your location and search history. So the results when you are logged in with lots of search history are going to be dramatically different from a fresh search engine result. This is why people use search engine result programs and tools (usually called "Rank trackers") to track their results more accurately.

This.
I use semrush even though it doesn't update my main keywords much but it tells me my potential kws.
If you use app like serpmojo you will see clearly how much different your ranking is between US and Global (non specific country.)

 

[umerjutt00]

Google shows personalized search when you are logged in. You probably opened your site a lot and now google thinks you prefer/like it. That's why it shows it high in the search.

The real ranking is when you search in the incognito.

 

[RealGuestPost]

Yes.

you should use rank tracker to track instead of checking manually.

I use atserp which is very good and affordable.