Discovering Site ranking depending on keywords

[synon]

Being a new user and a SEO novice appologise if this is a trivial question however it is one I can't find the answer to.

I am aware that it is possible to search Yahoo using the keyword1 keyword2 www.domain.com type string which obviously has its uses. What I would really like to do is discover how a site ranks with a certain keyword without have to scroll through 1000's of returned sites. eg if I searched for monkeys where would the London Zoo Website rank in the research result list Is this at all possible? :)

[jcoronella]

Have you looked in your logs for the referral string? That'd be the quick and dirty way. You can get a rough idea with the "Start=" parameter to see what page the user was on when they clicked.

[Terry Plank]

jcoronella, welcome to the Forums and your first post.

Not quite sure what your asking. Let me say, though, that sites don't rank for a keyword, pages do. So you can't really say that a domain ranks for a keyword; it will be a page related to the keyword being searched. The London Zoo will have many pages ranked, and perhaps a page (s) will be ranked related to the keyword [monkeys].

[jcoronella]

Well, I'm assuming you are trying to figure out how your *own* site ranks. In which case, even if you are on page 10, over the course of time someone (or some bot) will follow the google link and you can see that in your referal logs.

Of course, it depends on the obscurity of the phrase whether it will get clicked over time, but you can usually see which page (on most engines) you are on for minor phrases without manually checking them. Google's referral string will look like http://www.google.com/search?q=widgets&hl=en&start=30 when the page they are on starts at the 31st listing.

Note: The number of the start parameter varies by what page they are on and how many results per page they are set up for.

[seobook]

try http://www.yahoosearchrankings.com

[synon]

Thanks for the help, it sounds like a piece of code is needed on each page to determine where the visitor came from. If they were directed from a SE then I could determine what keyword (s) were used in the search and what ranking the page had from the referal string. Can I assume this can be achieved with a MYSQL database and some PHP code?

[eitemiller]

SEObook - that is an awesome link. I noticed it is in beta...is this yours, or something you stumbled accross? Definatly deserves a bookmark. Thanks for the tip.

[Terry Plank]

Thanks for the help, it sounds like a piece of code is needed on each page to determine where the visitor came from....

You can use a piece of code, but your log files are the best way to know everything about your traffic. Ask your ISP if they provide a report to those hosting with them. They often charge something for that, like $10 or so. If they don't you can purchase Web Analysis software like Web Trends (http://www.netiq.com/webtrends/default.asp) or Urchin (http://www.urchin.com).

seobook gave a good recommendation for free ranking evaluation, you can also purchase programs like WebPosition Gold3 (http://www.webposition.com) or Ranking Manager (http://www.websitemanagementtools.com/ranking-manager/standard.php) for a more robust reporting and exporting of positioning. They have Trial Downloads so you can get a sense of what the products do without risking a purchase. :)

[seobook]

SEObook - that is an awesome link. I noticed it is in beta...is this yours, or something you stumbled accross? Definatly deserves a bookmark. Thanks for the tip.

I prettymuch am a junkie of forums and blogs so when anything new comes out I usually am quick to find out about it. I do not know languages much yet so I am not yet the geek I would like to be and thus I can only find toys...I can't yet build them :(

By the end of the year or so I hope to transition more from "seo / marketer" to "total geek who plays with market too"

[eitemiller]

By the end of the year or so I hope to transition more from "seo / marketer" to "total geek who plays with market too"

When you make that transition, can I be your best friend? :)

[seobook]

When you make that transition, can I be your best friend? :)

well its kinda a hopeful transition. I know nothing about databases or programming right now. if I make the transition then I will post a calling for best friends and I will send you a PM :)