Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the great tool. I've been experiencing the same issues as some of the other users (CleverChaps on November 10, 2008 08:02 PM) lately in the previous threads. I'm receiving all hyphens for Google although I know my domain ranks well for the keywords that I check. This happened roughly one week ago. Before that, it was working fine.

I have uninstalled installed multiple times (5+), but notice that my preset is still there when I re-install. I've upgraded to Firefox 3.0.4 and am running on a Mac. Any ideas on how to fix? Have I been blocked?

Please help! Love the tool.

I wish I knew what was causing that for a few people. could you maybe save your presets as new text files outside the tool, and see if the issue is maybe within one of them?

I'm one of those people getting hyphens for Google ranks. I installed rank checker on a new computer and its working fine. I just can't get it to work on my laptop. Only hyphens for Google. If anyone figures out how to solve the issue please post here I'm sure it'll help a few people. Thanks.

Hi Aaron, yes, I'm logged into a Google account when checking Google.co.uk - is this likely to make a difference? Google.com rankings are working fine.

Running latest FF3, XP Pro, latest version of Rank Checker and have uninstalled/reinstalled to no avail. :(

could you see if clearing out your preset files helps?

Hi Aaron,
great tool, thanks.

CaityLady321 reported problem with apostrophes in keywords on June 02, 2008 05:43 PM.
It looks like it is still not solved and all sets of keywords with aphostrophes don't work.
Is is possible to fix it?
Thanks again!

I just tested it and it worked for me for a keyword with an apostrophe in it.

I love this tool and have been using it for many months, but the results it finds don't match searching by hand. I don't use personalized results on hand or rank checker, put the &num=100 behind the url and the SERP rankings are still off.

used cars sioux falls rank checker shows 14 for billionauto.com, but it's actually 7.

sioux falls sd car dealers rank checker shows 134 for billionauto.com, but it's actually 1.

Help. I want to keep using this but I can't right now with these results.

Can you look at AOL rankings and compare it to those?

Keep in mind that Google has many data centers and alters their algorithms frequently...it is getting harder to "check rankings" because there is a certain amount of flux to it

for billionauto.com:

used cars sioux falls, 6 in aol, 7 in google, 14 in rankchecker

sioux falls sd car dealers 1 in aol, 1 in google, 134 in rankchecker

I will try to look into this kokopoko

Hi Aaron,

In October I mentioned some problems with Google.com.br SEO Tool and portuguese words (eg: Passeio Recreativo and Passeio Recreativo para Cães), when I had just hyphens against first page positions with manual search.

I have already uninstal / instal this extension, I'm using the latest Firefox version, but the problem persists.

Could you imagine what could be wrong?

tks
Andre

I am not sure Andre, but we might have a fix for it coming out soon....we are working on a new version right now.

Hi Aaron,

Back on October 11th. I posted about some issues I was having they are similar to the issues kokopoko is having.

The ranking is off on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

But in addition, rank checker is counting local search results on Yahoo and Google as a ranked search result.

For example check out this example, the website is alleghenyhealth.com now search for "chiropractor brackenridge" in Google, the is sites not on the first page (expect in local search results). Now use rank check to check for this and it'll say the site is #1. But it's really not - it's only #1 in the local search results.

Any ideas?

we might have a solution for this out soon...am talking to the developer about looking for some solutions.

Great thanks Aaron, you're the best!

Looks like the rank check was updated as I'm not seeing the local search results bug any more.

Thanks, well done guys! This will really make it much easier when I'm going over my client's positioning stats - rather than having to look up keywords that have local search results by hand.

That was our major goal of the last update. :)

Thanks for looking into it.

Aaron, I have just checked the new release of Rank Checker and the problem with portugueses words (eg: passeio recreativo para cães) are ok now.

The only difference occurs when I compare Rank Checker result with manual search with &num=10, 50 or other number besides 100. Could you explain me why the result position changes?

Tks

look for the "data conflict issues" header on this page
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Aaron Wall on November 17, 2008 05:40 PM
"I just tested it and it worked for me for a keyword with an apostrophe in it."

Hi Aaron,
I checked it and in fact it works until preset is not saved. Once it is saved and opened - it doesn't work.

Is is possible for you to check and fix it?

Thanks in advance,
Marcin K.

Aaron,

At the moment the preset list becomes extensive, it`s hard to manage it. It would be interesting if the Preset list could be sorted / organized by date or name, and have a search tool.

Tks

Interesting observation MarcinK. I've continued to have the problem with apostrophes. Typically if the list has an apostrophe, it just keeps on running once it gets to the end of the list and the "Export Results to CSV" button stays grayed out. Or, when I do export, it only exports the first three keywords into the csv file. My solution is just to exclude all special characters, and it works fine from there.

I haven't seen any other comments on this, but with the new update I no longer get results for Yahoo. Do I need to just uninstall/reinstall, or is there some other fix for this? Anyone else experiencing the same issue?

I have the same issue with Yahoo. But what's strange is if I set it for another country it works fine. Just united states broken?

We are trying to get the Yahoo! part fixed...I am running into that same issue with no US Yahoo! results, but the other countries and other search engines work fine.

OK, glad to hear it's a known issue. Thanks, Aaron, for fielding all of these comments and for all that you guys do. This tool has made a huge impact on my work and it is really amazing that you offer it for free and continue to improve it. Thanks again.

Oops! Somehow I managed to overlook the previous comments about Yahoo!

Glad to see you're working on it. Very much appreciated, Aaron.

Hi, Aaron.
I have to reinstall my FireFox. If I re-install my adds on, will i lose the historical data of my reports? Is there any way to keep these report? Where I can find them?

Thank you very much in advance,
Juan Pablo

I am not sure if you will keep the data Juan. Here is where you can find it though

c: / documents and settings / my username / application data / mozilla / firefox / profiles / someweirdstring / rankchecker.sqlite

I think application data was a hidden folder
and
someweirdstring is like brm9cmz3.default

Now this is odd. Regarding Yahoo US, it still isn't working for me, but I just noticed that after I export the history, occasionally ONE keyword term in a file will have a Yahoo result. Thought you might want to pass that on to whomever is troubleshooting this! =)

So I ran rank checker today and yahoo us is working....did the problem get fixed? Great tool by the way....Thanks Aaron

Glad to hear it is working for you. :)

This tool saves me so much time. I love it. I only have one problem with it.

I have dozens of websites and I have all my sites' keywords listed in one preset file. Once I've collected all the results I export them, then copy them to my Excel file which keeps a daily record of the rankings.

When I want to add a new keyword I can only add it to the end of the list, so the new keyword would usually not be listed next to the keywords for that site.

Is it possible to edit the preset file to insert keywords into certain places rather than just at the end of the list, either through the program or by opening it as a text file from its location on the computer? Where is it stored?

One other thing, is it possible to insert 2 letter keywords as one of my main keywords is just two characters?

When you export the keywords cant you sort that list in Excel by URL?

Tried reinstalling Firefox and rankchecker and still no go on the US listings for Yahoo. Not sure how the other person's works?

Yahoo US is still not working for me. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the extension, and no dice. It seems to be working again for some people, so I'm not sure of the problem. Any suggestions?

And, while I'm commenting, thanks for this great tool, Aaron. Saves me a ton of time.

Hi Aaron,
is there any chance to fix it?

keywords with apostrophes work until they are saved as presets. once you save them and then open a list from presets it never finishes to check positioning and data results are not saved.

Thanks!

We are working on another project right now...but plan on updating this fairly soon. :)

Hey Aaron -
I had an idea for a little tweak that would be helpful. In the next iteration, it'd be great if in the Rankchecker window, next to the Start and Export Results to CSV buttons, there was an "Export History to CSV" button as well. I always use presets, so I find myself accidentally exporting the current results only when I meant to do history. It'd be nice not to have to renavigate into the presets to export the history. =)
Just a thought. I hope you guys can figure out the Yahoo thing soon, that's of course a bigger issue as it removes a third of the functionality for US folks like me. =) Thanks again!

Sorry to be lazy about reading all comments if this has been suggested:

I open the presets and have accidentally hit the (x) delete a number of times instead of selecting my preset.

Can you add a confirmation or something, instead of having it erasing my keyword list?

It will transform me from :( to :)

Thanks,

Bill

We will try to add that pretty soon Bill.

Not seeing any results from Yahoo

Hi Aaron, nice tool. Good to keep it simple and efficient.
I have some questions about the data. Please bear if I missed the answers in your early replies.

1) The data varies largely when checked in different locations. E.g. keyword ranking No. 1 in Australia appear outside 200 in USA. Besides personalized search on/off and google data location, any other major reasons?
2) For a keyword, a sub-domain is shown in "Google.com URL", does it mean the sub-domain ranks better than the main domain, or the main domain ranks far out for this keyword?
3) It does not show Yahoo and Live results. Any way to fix it? Is using Firefox/3.0.5.

Thanks and appreciated.

#1 localization is a big part of the relevancy algorithms
#2 sub-domain ranks higher
#3 are you using the most recent version of rank checker? if not, you can upgrade it and see if that helps.

I havent tested that tool, and not sure if this is related, but when were talking about localization of the search results/international SERPs, I noticed something interesting a while back:

When I type in www yahoo com (from my computer which is located in Germany just as myself), Ill always get redirected to de.yahoo.com ...and if I type in linkdomain:www... there, I'll only get a split of the links that www yahoo com will show me using the same command (even for German websites!).

It's easy to change that (by simply clicking on the US flag which takes you to yahoo.com - so much for .com = commercial not us ;)), just in case anyone's using yahoo to check links from outside the US.

Helllo Aaron

Not seen this problem mentioned before but I'm not able to resize the colums in the window. Any chance of having a look to see if its just a problem I'm finding

Thanks

Mally

I am able to re-size the window.

I know the previous version worked for yahoo.com before this new one. Can we somehow revert back to it?

We will try to get this fixed before the month is out, but it is not easy for us to do a roll back.

RankChecker is one of my most valuable tools, but it still needs major improvements. I'm not sure why none of my previously-suggested ideas were incorporated in the months since, but since they are still really needed, I'll mention them again (and add some more):

- part of what Google picks up on appears to be regularity of searches. a simple randomization tool that allows a time range to be set would certain help throw off the scent when they are watching for users to ban for regularity of searching.
- apostrophes often cause the program to choke (preset saves are truncated, etc)...and yet, search terms with apostrophes are completely legit. this can't be that tough to fix.
- why limit searches to the top 200? as long as you're going to build the tool, raise the cap to 500. one still needs to know when their sites first appear in the index and to track their upward progress. and some sites are simply stubborn. it lowers the value of the tool by simply putting an arbitrary cap at 200. fine, make it the default, but allow user control up to 500 if desired.
- better management of presets and keyphrases within them is needed. confirm deletion instead of just having them disappear when an X get stray-clicked. allow reordering of presets and keyphrases within presets. some of us function better in an environment when things can be alphabetized. others have reasons for ordering by other patterns. the lack of tools here costs a lot of extra time...almost like forcing a speed typist to hunt and peck.
- a dream feature would be to "set it and forget it"...to hit start and have it roll thru all the presets over the period of an hour or 90 mins (plenty slow so as not to be snagged) and come back to find the results exported to a spreadsheet. Since I check 30-40 sites a day, this would be a massive time-savings. I realize this is a commercial-level feature, but I'd be willing to pay for it.

All that said, this is still the most valuable SEO tool I use. I'd just like to see a major update to resolve some of these long-standing hassles.

I updated to Rank Checker 1.6 but I keep getting the Thank You For Updating Rank Checker page in a separate tab every time I open Firefox. Is this deliberate behavior? Happy to donate if that's what I need to do to get rid of this. I am running Windows XP with Firefox 3.0.5

Sorry about that clivewalker. It should be fixed now if you update it again.