Should You Track Your Organic Rankings By Hand?

That’s one of the interesting debates that is going on in the SEO world. On the surface, it really shouldn’t be much of a debate. If you have a thousand of keywords that you are planning to keep track of, do yourself a favor and get Web Position Pro.

WebTrends’ WebPosition software has been around for quite a while. The old school SEO folks probably remember the WebPosition Gold. It’s a nice software package that allows you to import your keywords and keep track of your rankings on a daily basis. But you really shouldn’t! Keeping track of your daily rankings can not only be a headache but could put enough load on Google to get your IP banned. And what are you going to get by checking your ranking every hour or every day? I personally try WebPosition twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays). That should be good enough for most folks.

But checking organic rankings by hand is a very useful exercise. It’s sort of like using a dictionary book to look up a word. Your eyes will wander on others’ listings on a daily basis, and you can concut how you are going to compete with the top guys in your niche. So I would choose a couple of keywords to look up everyday in order to not lose sight of my market.

Which way do you prefer? Do you trust automated rank checking scripts? What software package do you use to check your ranking?