“Accuracy” of checked positions is one of the most common myths when it comes to keyword tracking software. Each company claims its tool is more “accurate” than the ones from competitors. Most of that is just marketing fluff because there is no such thing as accuracy in the context of tracking positions in search engines.

Many people tend to believe that Google keeps some sort of reference ranking for each keyword. If the tool shows positions that match that reference ranking it means it is accurate. If it differs it is inaccurate.

That is a myth. There is no reference ranking. The ranking is calculated on-the-fly each time you type a query. Well… technically not each time because they surely use caching. But still, not going to deep into technical details, the ranking is dynamic by nature. It is generated when you type a query so there is no point of reference and thus, no accuracy can be measured.

However…

There is a thing called personalization. Google can present different results for the same query depending on browser history, device, language, and location.

In any decent rank tracker, you can explicitly define the last three. The first one – browser history – is a bit more tricky. If Google identified (and they did, believe me!) that you own a certain website, say example.com, they may show you this result higher in the rankings when you are searching for something relevant to topics covered on your website.

Also, when Google notices that you visit any given website more often than other websites they may treat this website in a favorable way while calculating the ranking for your queries.

You want to avoid both of those things to check your rankings in an “accurate” way. Most likely what you have in mind when saying that rankings are accurate is that they are depersonalized. You want to see if others see your site, not you. To achieve that, you can check your positions using private mode in your browser, typing query from the right location and from the right device. And this is, in essence, what all rank trackers do!

Well… maybe not all of them. If the rank tracker uses Google Seach Console data to track your rankings then the reported positions may differ from what you can find using the depersonalized method. 

Fortunately, most of the rank trackers do not use GSC data to track your rankings. If you can get position reports before you connect your GSC account to your tracker then you can safely assume it tracks positions on its own.

So, unless the rank tracking tool is directly lying to your face by providing fake positions or is messing up basic stuff like cookie and session management – it is “accurate”. I have tested almost 40 rank trackers and all of them were presenting “accurate” results. The results can be a bit different from time to time but it just means Google has not decided yet where you should rank. They are still testing how your site is performing for various queries. How many people click on your result? How long they stay on-site? Do they visit other pages on your website?

Based on this data Google changes your (and others!) positions quite frequently. And rank trackers? They ask Google for rankings and present to you what Google returned. The same what you are doing when trying to assess their “accuracy”.