There are many ways to filter your Google Anlaytics results, but how many of the methods out there can actually give us data that we can present to our clients in a way that they understand? After reading various posts on filtering organic traffic in Google Analytics I decided to convert the results we got from the filter into readable, valuable content that the client could understand. The end product was a easy to understand graph showing the position of your searched keywords as a percentage of total visits:
I really believe that this is valuable from a reporting point of view. How many of your clients have asked if their keywords are rank in the top five positions or better yet, in the 1st position. Well now you can tell them that 33% of their total visits are from keywords ranked in the top five positions in Google. If Google displays a not provided result due to their new privacy policy, we can at least assign a position to the result and get an indication of where that mystery keyword is located. For my results I decided to define my target down to organic visits including universal results, however you can rewrite the filter to suit your needs.
So how do we get results like this?
You can start of by reading Danny Ng post on "Track SEO Organic Rankings with Google Analytics", where he walks us through a simple set of filters that allow us to put "Universal" + "Organic" search data into Google Analytics. In summary, the filters we are going to need are as follows:
Step 1 (Creating the Filters):
We need to create a set of filters under a new profile to pull only organic Google traffic and allocate a keyword position to the keywords in Google Analytics. It is suggested that you create a new profile for these filters as it will rewrite your Analytics data.
Step 1: Filter 1 (Extracting the data):
We need to create a set of filters to extract the ranking data from the (cd) parameter and hold it for us in custom field 1.
Step 1: Filter 2 (Displaying the data):
We will then need a filter to grab the information from custom field 1 and show the results under the "Traffic Sources > Search > Organic" section of your Google Analytics.
Note: Be sure that the filter order is correct, Filter 1 must be above filter 2 in the order.
After a few hours you will start to see the results. Numbers will start to appear next to your keywords showing their organic positions (including universal results).
Step 2 (Segmenting the Data):
Step 2: Segment 1 (Position Top 1 Segment): Create a new segment under Advanced Segments > +New Custom Segment and call the number position you wish to segment:
Step 2: Segment 2 (Position Top 5 Segment): Create a new segment under Advanced Segments > +New Custom Segment and use the "or" statement to add numbers 1-5:
Step 2: Segment3 (Position Top 10 Segment): Create a new segment under Advanced Segments > +New Custom Segment and use the "or" statement to add numbers 1-10
You can repeat this to get Top 50 or Top 100 if you really have the time. Wait a couple days so that you can get some good data in and then turn on your advanced segments options "Position Top 1" , "Position Top 5" and "Position Top 10" along with the segment "All Visits" to get some very valuable results.
That is it, let me know what you think. I have shown this position segmentation to a few of my clients and they are loving it. I know that there are many filters out there but from a client point of view, this method is very easy to understand.
For those that want to copy/paste the regex: (\?|&)(cd)=([^&]*)
UPDATE: Sometimes your keyword might say a position number that you cannot find. Eg. If your keyword displays as follows:
If you do a manual search for keyword1 you may find your result as position 5. This does not mean that the result is in-accurate, it just means that you are searching from the wrong Google domain. Try break down the result to "region" using a secondary dimension. If the region says England then try do the search using google.co.uk. You will notice that indeed your keyword is in the right position.
The ranking is for Google.com ? Google.ca?
Also, I assume the ranking are not based on a single location, but a sumary of all people that searched for this. If I am ranking for 'Web Design' in Montreal, I do not want to rank in Vancouver, I do not do business over there. Thus I may be 1st in Montreal and 8th in Vancouver.. the important thing is that I am number 1 in Montreal.
Tracking ranking manually is still pretty revelent.
This tracking will give you two results then, web design (1) and web design (8) . Simply filter by location as your Secondary Dimension and you are sorted. If you want, you can even create a segment to exclude the region Montreal.... anything is possible in Analytics, you just have to play with it and customise it the way you want it.
That sir, would be amazing. Going to try it out
I agree with you Etienne. Keywords ranking is a thing of location in your case. However, for someone who has a buy-online and is selling stuff across the country, the average ranking will be important.
If you don't have a huge amount of keywords, manual tracking is still the best I think.
This is genius, thanks for sharing Bryan - why isnt this a default option in Analytics already?!
I am getting a fair chunk of Google organic keywords showing with no rank number which is a real bummer, but then I guess nothing is perfect.
Thanks again for a great article.
Andy
Not all Google searches call the cd parameter, if we can get a list of all the parameters that Google uses then we will get all the Google results. As for Bing and Yahoo, we would have to enter all the filters for these, the above is only for Google. I have done this for my own account but posting it here would have made my article very, very long
Hi Brian,
Would it be possibe for you to include or send me a list of all Google paramters? If possible, filters to include the Google parameters? I am willing to compensate you for your time.
Best Regards,
Ryan
I second this...this should be a built in feature in Google Analytics...in the SEO section!
As ever, marvellous post and information Bryan.
Thanks for sharing.
Wow, really an innovative idea...
May be the Google guys don't know about it.
Awesome post.
Thanks Bryan.
Hi Bryan,
Great info and very well explained. Really adding value to the SEOmoz community, really appreciate this!
Nice Bryan, represent us South African's! :)
Thanks Bryan.
We going to start implementing this immediately!! Awesome content!
Great post Bryan, I am going to setup a new profile in GA now and give this a whirl - thanks.
Hi Bryan - I have been running this on a new profile I created for the last six days and the data it has produced is great - very clear and easy to present to others. I have also been filtering by location as my secondary dimension as discussed below in order to gain an insight into my rankings. Excellent stuff - thanks again!
Very interesting filter and useful advanced segments !Thank you Bryan.But I notice that it doesn't work on all keywords.Is it an error ?
I am doing a work of making top 3 fo keyword.Your post will help me lots.
Hi Brian,
Great Article. I have implemented these filters with a new profile, however, a lot of my keywords do not have a ranking associated with them. Many of these keywords are branded, so should be ranked highly. Do you know why the ranking may not be populating for all keywords? I am filtered to just look at Google Organic and the filters were setup three weeks ago. Second, some of my keywords come through multiple times with different rankings. Do you know why this would be happening?
Thank you very much! This article and filters are going to be extremely helpful for managing my Google Analytics Accounts.
Hi, for your first part of the question please read above, the reason that some keywords do not show rank is because a)they come from Bing, Aol or Google search partner b) Google does not always display the CD paramenter.
As for the second part of your question, you get different position numbers on keywords because on Google.com you may be in position 3, but in Google.co.uk you are in position 6 . Or in the case of some countried like South Africa. We have "web" results" and "pages from South Africa" . Both generate traffic but your position can be slightly different in each. The best thing to go is choose "Region" under secondery dimension, this should tell you what part of the world they coming from. Not everyone uses google.com
Great stuff! Thank you for sharing. I am wondering if you have any insights into setting up the custom segments.
It seems that there is a cap at 20 "or" statements. You can add another "and" then get another batch of "or" statements. But I do not see a way to get more than 20 "or" statements.
You should be able to use regex and combine all the numbers you want into one statement instead of multiple lines. So it would choose "matches Regex" and it look like this for the first and second position:
\(1\)|\(2\)
You need the backslash because it escapes the parentheses, because parentheses are special characters. The backslash makes the statement look for the character literally. The "|" between the rankings means "or".
Hope that helps.
Did you notice a variation in your visit length metrics? When we setup the filter, we notice a tremendous fall in the visit length metric always showing a 1,16s or 1,18s however, before setting up the filter our visit length was 4,18s and so on....
Anyone?
Hi, thanks for the great tip! I have a question: why did you use two filter and not jus one like "Extract position in Field A, extract term in Field B and then output the two"?
Regards, Francesco.
Having issues with the filters. I am missing rankings for keywords from Google. Can anyone help?
See comments for answer
A+ Indeed. Thanks for this detailed explanation Bryan! I've got my filters running now and I'm looking forward to reporting the results. Kudos!
Hi Bryan!
I can't thank you enough! Really, you save my valuable time. Great article on checking keyword poosition using filters and advanced segments!
Keep it up man!
I knew this filters for a long time, in fact I used them on some accounts.. but I didn't realised to used that way! Thanks for your awesome tip :)
Hi Thanks for this useful article. I have setup detail according to you described.
I see the keyword ranking position in Google Analytics but when i click on "Ecommerce" section then
i can't see the revenue on keywords which i can see previously. Can you please advice about this.
Thanks,
Sorry, it was not designed for ecommerce, try find the parameter Google uses for ecomm and maybe we can come up with something
Heres the link to the full ecommerce setup https://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingEcommerce.html - wouldnt know exactly what to look for. Happy to fund anyones time for a solution to this!
I have an idea on how to do this, I will put it on my list of "things to do"
Great thanks would appreciate it.
Hi Bryan,
Have you found anything about this. Please email me if anything found which track ranking and maintain our E Commerce data.
Thanks,
Is this checked off your to-do list yet Bryan? :-)
Keen to use for ecommerce clients.
Ok. Thanks Brayan,
Awesome! it's really nice article. On page SEO is difficult and sensitive process which we can use to get promotion in search engine. Thank's Bryan casson sharing for this nice post.
Can someone please tell me how to get to the step 1 filter 1 page in the new analytics
Thanks.
Step 1: Log into your Analytics account
Step 2: Click on "Admin" in the top right corner
Step 3: Find the right tab:
>> Assets Goals Users Filters Profile Settings
Hi,
There is only one issue - if you look closer on "cd" value you will see that sometimes values higher than 10 occure (on 1st SERP). That's because of Universal search - videos, images, news and so on - they also have unique (for 1st SERP) cd value. But because of that, you can have cd=19 from 10th organic result. But in this case, 2nd SERP cd value starts from 11... So what I want to say is that this results can be missleading, nevertheless - excellent post and information.
As Bryan replied to me a fair few comments ago:
"I think this gives you a more accurate position result. What is the point of being #3 when your result only shows up as #9 because of all the universal results."
I olny wanted to say, that you never know if 11th position by the "cd" value is from 1st or 2nd SERP... So a big amount of traffic from positions 11-20 can be from 1st SERP.
A
Really good post and good to follow step-by-step. Thanks.
Hi,
thanks. does it works with the new version of google analytics ?
matthieu
Works like a charm
Hi Bryan, Thanks for great post. I have some keywords from Google organic without ranking position infect same keyword some time shows the ranking next to it and sometime not and I have checked the browser information and that does not help either. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Tahir
Thanks Bryan, these are some really great ideas on filters! Adding them to my websites now to test how I can see the data. The hidden query data has been driving me crazy! Thanks!
Thanks for the custom report.. But finding it difficult to understand the regex. What does $A3 and $B1($A1) mean? Also can anyone tell me why this regex was used (\?|&)(cd)=([^&]*) I want to know what this does ([^&]*)
This is what we all need. These one helped us save more time. Definitley i will follow all of these and I am pretty sure good results will come its way. Clients will not have a hard time understanding what we want to present.
Simple to follow and I can share this out throughout the company to make my life easier :) Thanks a million.
Found a new method that uses Event Tracking that appears to be far more useful. I just implemented it. Hopefully it works well!
https://cutroni.com/blog/2013/01/14/a-new-method-to-track-keyword-ranking-using-google-analytics/
I'm not getting any keyword data. The data it does give me is a number next to the bracketed position number. Any help?
Hi Brian,
You said "You can repeat this to get Top 50 or Top 100 if you really have the time."
However, when one tries to create more than 20 'OR' statements, G.A. stops allowing more to be added and forces you to add only 'AND' statements past that.
Perhaps an edit on your post might help to avoid more people trying to add 50 or 100 OR statements like us nuts. ;)
...
Ah, I just saw this comment reply from DavidG:
You should be able to use regex and combine all the numbers you want into one statement instead of multiple lines. So it would choose "matches Regex" and it look like this for the first and second position: \(1\)|\(2\)
Ok, so... to save us some time... (and according to DavidG's example)... here is the Regex to copy/paste for the Top 50 keywords ;)
\(1\)|\(2\)|\(3\)|\(4\)|\(5\)\(6\)|\(7\)|\(8\)|\(9\)|\(10\)\(11\)|\(12\)|\(13\)|\(14\)|\(15\)\(16\)|\(17\)|\(18\)|\(19\)|\(20\)\(21\)|\(22\)|\(23\)|\(24\)|\(25\)\(26\)|\(27\)|\(28\)|\(29\)|\(30\)\(31\)|\(32\)|\(33\)|\(34\)|\(35\)\(36\)|\(37\)|\(38\)|\(39\)|\(40\)\(41\)|\(42\)|\(43\)|\(44\)|\(45\)\(46\)|\(47\)|\(48\)|\(49\)|\(50\)
Russ
And for those who prefer simple and optimised regexp :
Top 1 => \(1\)$ => Add segment
Top 5 => \([1-5]\)$ => Add segment
Top 10 => \([1-9]\)$|\(10\)$ => Add segment
Top 50 => \([1-4]{0,1}[0-9]\)$|\(50\)$ => Add segment
Top 100 => \([1-9]{0,1}[0-9]\)$|\(100\)$ => Add segment
I've also excluded (not provided) and (not set) keywords adding this second statement (with a AND) => ^\(not provided\)|^\(not set\)
You can simply remove it if you want to keep this information.
You're welcome :)
Does anybody know how to set this up for the Top 50 or Top 100. It appears that the OR option stops after 20 entries. Thanks.
This is brilliant - thank you so much!
Hello Bryan
i just have implemented this technique but i cannot find the result anywhere. i went to custom variables and selected all of them< pos 1, 2 ,3 and all visit and did click on the apply it showed me the results but not the keyword and where they where they were ranking in the serp results.
plz hemp me oin it.
my email id is [email protected]
The results are under Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic
What about the exact location of the user who clicked the link ? Everyone is happy about URL position in SERP but from my POV as long as you dont know the user location, they are worthless as SERPs are different based on user GeoLocation.
To get location all you need to do is filter by region when you are in the keywords section :)
Thats OK for 1 keyword / 1 location, but when you have 10-20 keywords and 30-40 locations, doing it by filtering could be pretty time consuming. For this you can use a tool as GeoRanker - as this is what it does best.
Hi Bryan,
I followed your suggestion above and tried to do what you wrote, but I got this in the organic search in Google Analytics
Keyword visit page visit Av. Visit Duration
sb1 (&a1)571.14
00:02:05
So, sb1 (&a1) > as keyword.
Something went wrong?
Ok, I see Output to ---> $B1 ($A1), the image was not very clear
waiting for the results
tks
Hi,
reopening that post again :) Would it be possible to apply those filters & segments on a microsite?
I would need to filter few URL on my site so I get the Top5 - Top10 organic positions.
Example: www.domain.com
Would need to get the analytics only on those URL:
www.domain.com/property/property-Name/overview.aspx
www.domain.com/property/property-Name/products.aspx
www.domain.com/property/property-Name/products/landingPage01.aspx
Thnx
i dont get any ecommerce data at keyword level with the profiles ive applied this to. Seeing the effect of rank increase/decrease on revenue is what would make this awesome. Anyone else got this problem?
Yes, I face the same issue in my GA. I can't get any ecommerce data after creating this filter.
Thanks for the quick response Bryan, you are a legend!
Matt
Sorry one more question, where about in analytics will I start to see numbers appear alongside my keywords?
Thanks for your time.
The results will be under the profile that you filtered. Then go to search > organic to see the results
This is a really great post.
I started to collect some results, but I have a lot of keywords that do not show their organic positions, which is rather annoying.
What can be the explanation ? Is anyone else facing this problem ?
Thanks for your answers and the good job.
This is indeed true, the position results are only for Google. Results from Bing or Yahoo or even Google's partners does not show a position number.
Actually, I am talking about results for Google (not Bing, Yahoo...) with no positions displayed in GA near keywords. I just wonder if I'm the only one in that case.
To my mind, it could come from the cd parameter. Does Google always have the cd parameter in the URL?
If you take a look at the link I included in my post (to Danny Talks post), there is a debate about why Google does not use the cd parameter sometimes. In Adwords there is a gclid and aclk parameters you can use if you want to track paid queries etc. If we could just get a solid list of all the parameters Google uses then we could fix this problem. Eg. For Google instant sometimes Google does not use the cd parameter.
Nice B, can't wait to implement this on all our profiles.
Great information Bryan, going to test this out and will let you know how it goes.
Hi Bryan
Another question.. Would the results be accurate if we ran multiple domains under one Analytics Profile?i.e. would we be able to see the rankings for each domain?
It should work across all domains and sub-domains as all it is doing is creating a custom field and then re-writing it as an output in the Organic keywords
Awesome article. Thanks for sharing your tips with us... I implemented the filters on my website and I love the insight and data I can get just for the ranking keywords. Add secondary dimensions and it's gold :)
Thanks again, Bryan!
Can you use this to determine mutiple URLs of a site that are ranking for the same keyword.
This is a really great post. It's so useful. I love that I can easily see rankings and fast!! Not only that, but all these rankings will be archived via Google so I can easily compare different dates. All from one tool.
I only wish I could share my Filters across all of my profiles the way you can share segments.
Anyhow, thanks for writing this blog.
Fantastic, very useful as it's so important to give clients easy to understand data. Most aren't as 'geeky' as us about this kind of thing!
Well done Bryan - may have to test this out :)
BTW to everyone else - Bryan is the guy who got me started and hooked on SEO (I owe him the world and then some) - thanks again!
Hey Bryan,
Great article, I'm still learning all the new Google Analytics reporting tools, and you explained things very well. I'll have to give this a try.
Thank you, Brian! This is great stuff and it's coming right on time - I'm struggling with the setup of GA profile for one of my latests site, but now I'll try the things from your article! Woo-hoo! No more xls sheets and manual rank checking (I hope so!).
(Sorry) DAAAMN! It's working like a charm! Thanks again - this will save me incredible amount of work time now.
Hi Bryan,
Awesome and thanks man!!!!
Bryan,
Under field: Output To -> Constructor
is that a "$" and not a "S" ?
The image is not 100% clear so I'm not sure which it is. Ta :)
Yes those are all $'s
Output to ---> $B1 ($A1)
Link to full size image: https://seocowboy.co.za/images/seomoz-step1-filter2.jpg
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for such an amazing filter.
But after I set up these filters, I only get [my keyword](&a3) in my GA.
What's wrong? I've checked all the settings, they are just exactly as your guide.
That's really awesome because of certain reasons!!
First of all I get little bit skeptical when it comes for rank checking with the help of any third party tools. and additionally the manual rank checking sometimes leads to irrelevant data gathering if its done by any immature or any newbie guy!!
If we are getting the instant presentation of the Ranking positions from Google Analytics itself , that's much more Good and Trustworthy and it doesn't require any extra hard work.. That's Great! Thanks Bryan.. Awesome stuff from you, and the nice fact is that we can make it in use immediately!! Thumb up to you!!
truly great job well done my friend I believe coremetrics could have something to worry about soon
Good tip, really simple to set up and understand. Have used a few different ones like this but this seems the simplest to do. Good job
Sorry but I don't understand how it works. If client is logged cd param apper, but keyword has been hidden by new google policy. If client is not logged, cf param doesn't exists. Where do I wrong?
Sorry. I remember that in "unlogged" SERP link are directly to site. I just check that now also unlogged are redirect from a google page (with "cd" and "q" (keyword))!
Bryan, thanks for this easy to understand howto. I am not sure on when i will integrate this system to my existing analytics accounts for clients, but one thing is sure, i want to do it and i will do it. Being honest, i at the moment feel little nervous and fear that experimenting with existing analytics account, i could end up in messing the things up so i better watch someone else playing his/her analytics account to implement this keyword ranking system.
Simply create a new profile in your analytics. By doing this you have little risk of messing up anything. I create hundreds of filters a month and over 60% of them fail. If you don't try you will never find out what works. Trial and Error!
To create a new profile with the same UA number you need to do the following.
A really interestinng post, Bryan, and one that could potentially have made my team's lives much easier (at least until SEOMoz start putting their ranking data into their API).
Just one question - readin gyour post and Danny's, it seems that this filter includes universal results. So, if there is a three pack of local results and there are four image results in a SERP, I might rank 4th in the organic listings but this filter would say I rank 10th - is this correct?
Yes this is correct. I think this gives you a more accurate position result. What is the point of being #3 when your result only shows up as #9 because of all the universal results. I am currently creating a filter using almost the same method to distinguish between "The Web" results and "Pages From South africa" (or any country). Coming soon :)
I guess this is one of those near never-ending debates, with the final answer involving the word "context". So much depends on the univeral result in question - for example it is probably more useful for a pizza delivery company to appear in a local listing than as one of the image listings and similarly those image listings are much less likely to get clicked by somebody who wants a pizza. So those image results could probably be said not to count, but the local listings would. On the other hand, because the image results do physically exist CTR is likely to be much better for the position above them than the position below them. I think that's a whole different post for a whole different time ;-)
I look forward to that filter - definitely useful for website with a local focus.
Great article my friend. It is very simple to understand. Still i am learning all new GA reporting tools. Truly good job. Thank you
This is great stuff man! I think you are putting some services offering the same output out of business! I guess this is good enough information as a guide, although some very competitive keywords have adwords ads on them, affecting the position vs universal results.
Thanks for sharing Bryan. I added in new profiles in several accounts in about 10 minutes each.
Your post got me thing about what other new filters would be useful. Guess I will spend the next week playing with filters now!
Excellent tip Bryan.
Well explained, easy to set up and works like a charm.
I've been looking for a better way of showing how rankings effect traffic and conversions for my clients and this is the best option I've seen so far.
Thanks
This is great Brian. Really useful as we've got some clients who want to monitor a large amount of keywords. Is there a way of counting the results in the traditional method rather than including the universal ones? It would seem like the best option would be to two profiles, one for positions including universal results and one that just counts ten results per page, and then compare the two. Is this possible or is it something that's set by Google and can't be tracked in GA?
This is pretty cool! Thank you.
This worked like a charm. Great to see a version where I don't need to add any JS to a page.
Always love the steps by steps instruction :). Google Analytics can be overwhelming for new users as there are so much data available. Glad I come across this and must give it a try.
Very well explained! Love the way how you go with the stuff step by step...I was actually looking for this data and i can’t wait to apply this to any of my client.
Thanks for this!
Thanks very Much Bryan !
For those who may face problem :
Filter 1 : Field A - "UsedRejex" (\?|&)(cd)=([^&]*)
Output to Custructor $A3
Filter 2 : Filed A (.*)
Filed B (.*)
Output to Custructor $B1 ($A1)
Thanks for such a usefull information, most of the people dont know how to use filter for finding better keywords. It hepl me also.
Bryan, this looks great! I created a new profile this morning to test this method against an older set of filters. Based on the setup, I expect yours to perform better. Thanks for posting!
Thanks Bryan...i love playing with Analytics and this is indeed a treat for me. For defining expressions for the custom filters, I still need some basic grasp. Can you suggest from where I can learn using expressions on custom fields to a higher level in GA.
Many thanks, initial impression is this will go down with those clients with less SEO knowledge, personally I prefer old fashioned methods! However will add to each of my clients as an extra profile so option is there if they want it.
This looks very time consuming.. I have always used a software called Rank Tracker (from link-assistant) it has everything one would need for their rankings.
I am also able to incorparate my google analytics and it breaks down all the searches. This program has everything you mentioned above and much much more... The perfect tool for an SEO company. It allows me to publish reports and share them with my clients.. it even lets me include my logo on the report.
To learn everything about this unique tool go here: https://www.link-assistant.com/rank-tracker/features.html
Edited: to remove overly sales-y language, which was derailing the conversation about this post -- Erica McGillivray, Community Attache, SEOmoz
I don't think this is the better place to publicy a rank tracker system. If you feel like learning how to use and implement solutions in GA is like loosing time.... O_o
Great post Bryan btw, enjoyed it so much ;)
I dont work for rank traker.. just trying to help..
Did not want to take anything way from the post. However I have had no problems with this tool.
Rank tracker is exactly the reason why I decided to rather use my method above, Rank tracker was FAR TOO SLOW at compiling my reports and to tell you the truth I could not be bothered with wasting so much time. It slows down my computer and in most cases I need to use a proxy because of the restrictions set by Google. The proxy makes the process unbareable. It is real time tracking, how is this slow? You install once and never have to wait for another report again!
Your method is great! and it's efficient.
But, this is how I run the software.
I use a proxy and my proxy automatically changes my ip every hour. However, Rank Tracker has a schedualr built in. What this does is it runs searches for you automatically at your specified time... Saving the most possible time...
So the way I run my software I allways have my reports ready for my customers, all I have to do is publish and email(which can also be automated).
This software just has it all, if you know how to utilize all of its features.
Not hating on your post, just saying there are better alternatives in my opinion.
Perhaps you have tried using this tool a long time ago. They update it regularly and it runs perfect for me.
I use advanced web ranking...same problem...no proxy...too many long hours waiting for the machine to crank out a report. I don't even trust the results..
It took me 10min :)
Premature trackulation :)
As a user of the Link Assistant suite of tools - including Rank Tracker - for the past couple of years, I have to say that I disagree. in fact Rank Tracker was one of a number of reasons that we switched to SEOMoz Pro (I'm allowed to plug your own software, right? ;-) ).
I found that Rank Tracker was much too slow. Even wusing proxies and random query timings, it tends to get caught out by Google's "suspicious traffic" filters, which is a pain in the backside for everybody in the office as Google temporarily blocks the IP the request comes from. In all, a disappointment. It also ended up more expensive than originally advertised because I ended up having to buy beer for the rest of the office after they hadn't been able to use Google for most of a day.
Bryan's method also seems to have three big features Rank Tracker doesn't:
Perhaps not the best place to plug Link Assistant...