How to Check Your Site’s Search Results in Other Locations
To understand your site’s search performance, you must track where you rank on organic search results.
However, what if you want to see how your sites perform on search results for a specific location?
Maybe you want to see if your website or your client’s website is ranking for a specific city or street address, thus helping you generate highly targeted leads for your local business.
If that’s the case, simply entering your keyword on Google search won’t be enough since Google search results for different locations are always going to be different.
Here are a few methods you can use to check Google search results from a specific location:
1. Change Search Settings
Google provides users with a personalized search experience based on your IP address. At the same time, it can show you country-specific search results.
So, for instance, if you’re searching in the UK, you will get results from the Google UK database.
But if you want to check the SERPs of a keyword for a different country, just make this simple configuration change you’re good to go.
Go to Google.com. Click on “Settings” at the bottom-right corner of Google’s homepage and select “Search Settings.”
Next, scroll down the page until you reach the Region Settings section. Choose the region where you want to see the SERPs for your target keyword.
Save the settings. You will now be served results from your chosen location.
Keep in mind that changing the region settings won’t change the ads and local map pack results you see on SERPs. Google will still deliver ads and local map pack results based on your current IP address. However, you’ll be able to see location-specific organic search results using this method.
2. Append ‘&near=cityname’ Parameter
If you want to see local map pack results for a specific city, you can append ‘&near=cityname’ at the end of the URL in the search bar.
First, go to Google.com and perform your search.
Then, on the search result page, append ‘&near=cityname’ at the end of the URL string (without quotes). Finally, replace ‘cityname’ with the city that you want to search from.
The results on the map pack will now show establishments nearby the city you entered in the URL string.
Doing this allows you to see where you and your competitors rank on localized search results.
3. Use a VPN Software to Check Google Search Results
If you want to eliminate manual work and need something automated, you can use a VPN service like Windscribe.
VPNs are used to help users forego IP restrictions set in your country. They also provide users with more secure and private internet access by obfuscating their actual IP address.
However, for checking Google search results, a VPN allows users to see search results for different locations without tweaking their browser settings. This is done by hiding your current IP address and changing it to another IP address from a different location.
From Windscribe, choose the country where you want to search from. If you look at the screenshot above, you can also choose from specific regions of different countries to get more precise localized results.
Most good VPNs are paid, but Windscribe has a free account with a 2GB monthly limit, which should be good enough for your use.
4. Use the Google Ads Preview Tool
The Google Ads Preview Tool allows users to view how their ads appear on localized Google search results.
You can also use it to help you view Google search results for different locations.
Go to Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool and select the location from the drop-down menu.
You can type in the country, city, or even zip code to find more precise search results.
You also have the option to change the device to see search results for specific devices.
The search results will only show you the first page, so you’ll have to flip through the other pages to find your desired data.
5. See Search Results for Exact Geo-Coordinates in Google Chrome
You can load pages by entering the latitude and longitude of the location where you want to view the SERPs.
There are two ways you can do this.
The first is by accessing Developer Tools from your Chrome browser. To do this, press CTRL + SHIFT + I simultaneously on your keyboard and click on the three-dot icon.
Next, choose More tools > Sensors from the drop-down menu.
From here, you can override your current location by choosing from the different countries below.
However, another great way to use this Developer Tools feature is by entering the coordinates of a specific street address. Doing so allows you to find out the pages appearing on local search on a more granular level.
To do this, you must first know what the latitude and longitude of the street are. You can do this by going to Google Maps and typing a street address on the search bar.
Next, locate the street on the map and right-click on it. You will see the coordinates as the first option of the window.
To copy the latitude and longitude, click on it.
Next, go back to the Sensors window and enter the details here. Then, save the settings to be able to search from that certain location on Google.
6. Use Free Third-Party Tools
The problem with the Google Chrome method discussed above is that you have to make changes on your Google Chrome settings to view SERPs from other locations. Once you’re done, you have to revert to the previous settings.
While the process is not a huge obstacle, it can get tedious and time-consuming, especially when you’re searching results for multiple locations.
To avoid all these steps, you can use some free tools that can deliver Google SERPs from different locations and devices.
One of those free tools is I Search Form. Just enter the country, language, device, and other options to see the SERPs from your chosen regions.
Using tools like this, you can easily perform local SEO analysis without making cumbersome changes in Google Chrome settings.
7. Use SEO Tool with Rank Tracking Features
The methods of checking search results for different locations listed above require you to perform them to find the results manually.
While they will help you track organic positions accurately, there must be another way to automatically check Google search results. This way, you can go straight to finding out where your site or clients are currently ranking on search engines in those specific target locations.
This is where Keyword.com’s accurate Google SERP rank tracker can help. You only need to specify you target keywords, URLs and search locations once.
This way, you don’t have to manually enter your keyword and scour through every page of SERPs to find your page.
Once you’ve entered the keywords you want to track for a domain, you can choose the city to use for tracking your keyword rankings. You can even narrow it down to zip codes to get more accurate localized search engine results.
Within a few seconds, you will see where the site is ranking on SERPs for your chosen keywords.
Another great thing about Keyword.com is it offers daily updates, ensuring that you get fresh SERP rankings data every 24 hours. Depending on the plan you sign up for, you also get daily on-demand updates if you want to check the rankings for some specific keywords manually.
Keyword.com offers search history as well which allows you to see how much progress you made for your keywords since they were added to the campaign.
With a tool like Keyword.com at your disposal, there’s no reason for you not to keep track of your search performance and make the necessary changes to your SEO campaigns.
Final Words
As you can see above, there are many ways you can track Google search results for different locations.
However, most of the suggestions need you to perform a step-by-step process for tracking multiple locations accurately.
As a result, they will eat up most of your time from the other SEO tasks at hand.
In this case, using a rank tracker allows you to check geo-specific SERPs more efficiently.
All you need to do is determine the locations you want to monitor your keyword rankings for, set it up in Keyword.com’s rank tracker and forget. From there, you can analyze the results and make the necessary improvement to your SEO campaigns.
So, if you’re focused on generating more traffic to your sites by optimizing their SERP ranking, Keyword.com will help you get the most out of your rank tracking efforts.
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