SERP Checkers

Explore the top SERP checkers to boost SEO and track rankings. Find the best tools for your site

When you search for something on the Web, search engines have to figure out the best order to display their results in. Only the pages with the best SEO practices and website factors end up in the upper parts of a SERP.

The easiest way to figure out how to increase your SERP position is to use an application called a SERP checker.

In case you haven’t heard about these tools before, let’s talk about what they do, how they do it, and why you should look at the ones we cover here.

Brett Helling
Owner, Bloggingtips.com

Brett Helling is a digital marketing expert with over 10 years of experience building, managing, and scaling websites.

Basics to Understand

Before we go into the best SERP checks to use for your business, let’s talk about what a SERP check is and why it is an important tool.

What is a SERP Checker?

A SERP checker reviews search engine result pages (SERPs) to see where a specific website ranks among search results.

These tools tend to ask that the user input a specific keyword or key phrase and then run a check on search engine results to review where that website falls on the results listing.

The Different Types of SERP Checkers

For the most part, SERP checkers work in the same framework as each other.

These tools scan the Internet for the top results for a given keyword and return information on why those websites rank well.

There are a lot of factors that add up to a page’s ranking, but SERPs try to identify those for users.

However, there is another tool out there similar to a SERP checker: a SERP tracker.

These tools chart the changes to a website’s ranking over time for a certain keyword.

So, rather than providing immediate changes a user can make for their website, SERP trackers show how a website’s ranking changes with time.  

Why are SERP Checkers Important?

SERP checks give website owners a way to see what changes they need to make for their website to improve its overall ranking.

Getting onto the top results for a keyword means that visitors will come to your website more often than if you rank lower on result pages.

Plus, many of the popular SERP checkers come with tools that help implement those changes or track changes to a website’s rank over time.

Combining immediate suggestions along with analytic data over time can make something like a SERP tracker useful for growing businesses and marketing staff.

How to Choose

Before we get into the details of why we picked out top choices, let’s talk a little more about the review criteria we teased earlier.

1. Number of Keywords Included in Plans

Our top priority when reviewing SERP checkers was the number of keywords they offer as part of their plans.

Most checkers allow up to a certain number of keywords to their users as part of their pricing.

Why Number of Keywords Included in Plans Matters

The biggest draw of using a SERP checker is to see how a website stack up against its competition within a certain search query.

These queries use keywords to link up a user’s question with the website offering info about that keyword.

By expanding the number of keywords one can review, website owners can see how their website stacks across a broader range of search queries.

2. Accuracy

Another big part of how effective a SERP checker will be is in its accuracy.

Why Accuracy Matters

SERP checkers can’t know exactly how your page will line compared to others for several reasons.

One of these reasons is that most major search engines have variables look that doesn’t always make sense or aren’t known to outside users.

Plus, websites change often, causing their rankings to change over time.

Still, the closer a SERP checker can get to offering accurate info will help more in the long term than a checker that often misrepresents where your website ranks among its peers.

3. Pricing

As is the case for every tool or software we review, the out-of-pocket cost for the tool will play a big part in our evaluations.

Why Pricing Matters

As always in business, money matters. If a tool costs a lot and doesn’t perform the way you need it to, you’ll waste a lot of money for no benefit.

Similarly, you don’t want to overpay for something that you can get for cheaper from somewhere else, especially if it’s the same or higher quality service.

Plus, many website owners operate small businesses or are the property of independent creators.

The less money these small projects have to spend, the more they can spend on growth or satisfying their customers.

4. Dashboard and User Interface

How you interface with your SERP checker is important, just like with any other software.

We’re used to thinking about how UI affects a user’s experience, so we factored that into our ratings, too.

Why Dashboard and User Interface Matters

A clunky UI will keep a user from getting the info they need from an application.

Given all the info that SERP checkers provide to users, having a useful dashboard and clean UI affects a SERP checker’s usability.

Ideally, you have some options to customize the info the dashboard gives or the looks of the UI.

This won’t be the case for every SERP checker, but it’s nice to have.

5. Competition Analysis

SERP checkers are different from many other applications in that they exist to compare services against one another rather than offering a service.

So, how a SERP checker provides that info matters to the application’s utility.

Why Competition Analysis Matters

SERP checkers should give you the info you need to rank high in search results.

You cannot rank higher without seeing how your competition does it.

So, good SERP checkers will explain how competitor websites manage to rank above and what factors contribute to that ranking difference.

6. Additional Features Besides Rank Tracking

While the above five criteria are the most important, we also wanted to look at the other features a SERP checker offers to its users as part of our evaluation.

Why Additional Features Besides Rank Tracking Matter

Well-designed applications offer a range of features without feeling clunky or difficult to navigate.

Plenty of the better SERP checkers out there do more than just review SERPs, meaning there are plenty of other functions to review and grade a SERP checker on.

My Personal Take

Here's a brief overview of our top picks after years of experience using SERPtrackers.

So, these suggestions are well and good, but why should you take them to heart? After all, isn’t it possible that we just want to push certain products onto you like other websites?

The truth is that SERP checkers matter to us. We review tens of thousands of keywords every day to ensure that the niche websites we manage show up in search results despite their small size.

Without that experience, we wouldn’t be able to deliver fair reviews on these handy tools.

Speaking of reviews, we review software as another part of our livelihood. Editorial guidelines for software are strict, so to keep ourselves consistent, we take those strict guidelines into everything we do.

Combined with our industry monitoring practices, we think we are capable and trustworthy reviewers to our readers.

Who This is For

While anyone can buy a license for a SERP checker, it’s not something we recommend for the average person. Instead, the folks that we think will get the most out of a SERP checker are website owners.

Website owners generally don’t manage a website on a whim. Instead, their websites suit some purpose.

Whether that purpose is sales, marketing, or content creation, a website is a tool that an individual or businesses can use to promote themselves. With a SERP checker, a website owner can see how their website stacks up against the competition.

Many of the best checkers can help you hone in on the best changes to make to have your website start showing up on search result pages.

Our Top Picks

Why We Chose This for Top Pick

Ahrefs is one of the biggest names in SEO tools. The company offers a package of tools for businesses of all sizes that rely on their huge server of keywords, backlinks, and search traffic trends.

If you look into SERP checkers, Ahrefs is one of the main names that come up for quality and capability.

Specs

Here are the specs for the website:

  • Keywords Included: 750 – 10,000
  • Pricing: $99/month to $999/month
  • Ease of Use: Medium
  • Mobile Ranking Support: Yes

What We Like

These are the things we like about Ahrefs as a SERP checker:

  • Huge database: Ahrefs has servers with data on billions of keywords and millions of backlinks and search history trends to refer to for their webpage rankings
  • Content idea generation: The included tools help you find low-competition keywords to get content ideas for your website
  • Site audits: The application can run an audit on your website to see where improvements can be made
  • Refined keyword research: Between keyword suggestions and a database covering over 170 countries of users, Ahrefs has plenty of keyword research tools
  • New tools: Ahrefs produces new tools for their users regularly

What We Don’t Like

However, there are some downsides to using Ahrefs for SERP checking:

  • High price: Ahrefs comes in at $99 per month for its cheaper plan, making it an expensive option compared to other SERP checkers
  • Weekly updates: Ahrefs updates its website rankings once per week, a pace that is sometimes too slow for how fast the Internet operates
  • Limited clarity on release dates: Ahrefs doesn’t always offer clear release schedules for their new tools
  • Short free trial: The free trial only lasts for seven days, which isn’t a lot of time to get accustomed to all the tools Ahrefs offers.
  • Little value for small users: Between the expense and range of features, Ahrefs won’t be worth the investment for owners of smaller websites or businesses

Why We Chose Ahrefs As Our Winner

With the summary laid out, let’s get in-depth about why Ahrefs is our top pick for SERP checkers.

Number of Keywords Included in Plans

Regardless of which plan you pick, the number of keywords that Ahrefs will report on is middle of the pack among its competitors.

However, Ahrefs has a huge range of keywords you can apply to your projects, meaning they probably have a dozen or more keywords that are relevant to your website already logged in their servers.

Accuracy

Ahrefs has more than just its keyword database to rely on.

The application relies on data from across 170 countries, with each one having a separate listing for the keywords indexed by users in that nation.

The application also compiles data from across ten search engines.

All of these factors combined mean that Ahrefs pulls from a larger segment of the Internet than any other SERP checker available.

Pricing

Ahrefs has four total pricing plans:

  • Lite: $99 per month
  • Standard: $199/month
  • Advanced: $399 per month
  • Enterprise: $999 per month

The higher up you go in cost, the more features you unlock and the larger number of keywords you can track with the application.

These prices are higher than the average SERP checker due to the number of features and tools built-in into Ahrefs.

Dashboard and User Interface

The dashboard for Ahrefs is simple and displays information for all of your projects in the center of the page.

This arrangement makes it easy to see how your websites perform at a glance right when you log in.

All of Ahref’s tools have links at the top of the dashboard.

The UI makes it easy to navigate between different tools and import data across these tools or export generated data as a local file.

Competition Analysis

Part of the analytics that Ahrefs offers its users is a keyword ranking and a domain rating.

The keyword rating is a number that shows how strongly your website correlates to that keyword set you defined.

The domain ranking is your authority on the topic, represented by your keyword relevance and ranking in search engines.

Additional Features Besides Rank Tracking

In addition to its SERP checker functions, Ahrefs has tools for content research and content idea generation.

Reviewing suggestion keywords by traffic rating can give you ideas on content to create for your website without having to compete in over-saturated search pages.

Why We Chose This for Runner-Up

AccuRanker is a keyword-focused SERP checker that provides info to users about their SERP results based on keyword usage.

While AccuRanker doesn’t have the same SEO tools that other SERP checkers can offer, the application can update results in seconds and provide faster keyword feedback than most other checkers.

Specs

These are the specs we want to cover for AccuRanker:

  • Keywords Included: 1,000 – 1,000,000
  • Pricing: $129/month to $2,769+/month
  • Ease of Use: Medium
  • Mobile Ranking Support: Yes

What We Like

These are the things that we like about AccuRanker:

  • Google integrations: AccuRanker integrates with Google Search Console and Google Analytics from within an option on the dashboard
  • Simple interface: The application features a simple interface that makes it clear where all of its tools are
  • On-demand keyword rankings: At any time, an AccuRanker user can refresh their keyword ratings for their websites from within the application to get new results and data
  • White-label report generation: For businesses and enterprises paying a higher price, you can generate reports to send to clients with just a few clicks
  • Search volume estimations: All of your tracked keywords have a search volume associated with them to see how often these keywords show up in queries

What We Don’t Like

These are the things we are not as keen about with AccuRanker:

  • Keyword focus: AccuRanker offers some useful tools, but not the same range as its competitor Ahrefs
  • Limited basic plans: The lower-cost plans don’t have the same depth of features and detail that the higher-priced plans provide.
  • Steep prices: While SERP checkers can be expensive, AccuRanker feels more expensive than it should be for the features it offers
  • Limited file export types: AccuRanker only exports reports in PDF format, requiring PDF editing software to change or add information to the document
  • Keyword information overload: AccuRanker offers a large amount of keyword data on its dashboard, which can clutter the screen if you are not used to the layout

Why We Chose AccuRanker As Our Runner-Up

Let’s cover our reasons why AccuRanker is our runner-up in this review now that we have the basics covered:

Number of Keywords Included in Plans

AccuRanker offers plenty of trackable keywords to its users.

They start at a higher minimum than what their competitor Ahrefs offer.

This fact, combined with all the information offered about those keywords, helps AccuRanker stand apart from its competition.

Accuracy

AccuRanker has a feature not seen in many SERP checkers: on-demand rankings for websites across their selected keywords.

The ability to set your research schedule means that you can review how a website stacks up on certain keywords in real time if desired.

That level of accuracy offers plenty of utility and opportunity for SEO improvements.

Pricing

AccuRanker starts at a higher price minimum than many other SERP checkers.

However, if you compare this price to Ahrefs, the two applications work out to be mostly even when it comes to the number of keywords tracked per dollar.

This ratio gets better as you scale up into the enterprise solutions AccuRanker offers that Ahrefs doesn’t.

Dashboard and User Interface

AccuRanker has a beautiful and easy-to-read UI for its dashboard and various keyword optimization tools.

The two-tone UI makes it easy to see where your data end and the tools and functions start.

Most of your options will be on the left-hand side of the screen and sit grounded together to avoid users having to search for their optimization tools.

Competition Analysis

AccuRanker estimates your ranking like any other high-quality SERP checker.

Even with the on-demand assessments, AccuRanker can get things wrong in the same ways any other SERP checker can fail.

Still, we saw except for some edge cases, AccuRanker could track websites across almost any keyword.

You can then compare your websites against the competition from within AccuRanker to see what changes need to be made.

Additional Features Besides Rank Tracking

In addition to its free Google Grump and live SERP ranker tools, AccuRanker also features integrations with a range of programs and applications.

Users can connect their AccuRanker account to services like Databox and Adobe Analytics in addition to the Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

However, AccuRanker doesn’t have the same level of additional features we saw with Ahrefs.

AccuRanker would still be great as an enterprise solution for a business or marketing company, thanks to its focus on keyword research, though.

Why We Chose This for Budget Pick

Nightwatch is a straightforward SERP checker with a few extra bells and whistles to go along with it.

The application costs less than most of its competition, making it our top pick for budget options.

The tools you’ll get with Nightwatch are not as extensive as with tools like Ahrefs or AccuRanker, but for a small business or blog, it will be enough without breaking the bank.  

Specs

Here is the spec summary for the Nightwatch SERP checker:

  • Keywords Included: 500 – 5,000
  • Pricing: $39/month to $369/month
  • Ease of Use: Easy
  • Mobile Ranking Support: No

What We Like

Here is what we like about Nightwatch:

  • Well-priced: We choose Nightwatch as our budget option for a reason – the applications cost much less per keyword than other SERP checks
  • Advanced tools for rank tracking: You can customize keyword reports with different widgets to get specific data from your keyword reports
  • Extra platform support: In addition to Google, Nightwatch also has keyword research for platforms like YouTube and DuckDuckGo
  • Ranking graph annotations: Keyword ranking graphs in Nightwatch accept comments and annotations like Google Analytics graphs
  • Ranking update emails: You can create email updates for keyword rankings that go out every day, week, or month.

What We Don’t Like

These are the things that we don’t like so much from Nightwatch:

  • Price jumps: Going above 1,000 keywords causes your price per month to shoot up significantly
  • Help section woes: The Help page for Nightwatch has a search bar, but it doesn’t work very well at finding keywords in their help articles
  • Live chat is slow: The workers manning the live customer support text chat take longer to respond than other SERP checker support teams
  • Dark UI: The UI for the entire website defaults to black with small, white text that is hard to read sometimes
  • Free trial duration: You can adopt a 14-day free trial of Nightwatch, but they limit the features regardless of which plan you want to purchase afterward

Why We Chose Nightwatch As Our Budget Pick

With the main synopsis of Nightwatch done, let’s go over the specifics of why this SERP checker is our top pick for budget buyers:

Number of Keywords Included in Plans

Nightwatch doesn’t have the same range of keyword options that Ahrefs and AccuRanker do.

However, the ranges they do offer work well for just about any small website or business looking to improve its SERP ranking.

So, while you won’t be able to handle a large client list with a Nightwatch plan, you can get some SEO help on a budget with their plans.

Accuracy

In addition to keyword references built into Nightwatch’s servers, the application also lets you follow a set number of competitor sites to review alongside your own.

This tool ensures that you stay up-to-date on what your competitors do to improve their sites so that you don’t get left behind.

Pricing

Overall, Nightwatch has three pricing plans for its services:

  • Starter: $32 per month
  • Optimize: $79 per month
  • Agency: $279 per month

The first two prices get you 500 and 1,000 keywords to review, respectively.

When it comes to keywords per dollar amount, these prices are hard to beat, especially for the quality SERP checks and comparisons you receive from Nightwatch’s features.

Dashboard and User Interface

Nightwatch’s UI might take some getting used to unless you are a big fan of dark themes on websites.

They feature a light theme, but the dark theme is dim and can be difficult to navigate at first.

Regardless of your preferred color scheme, the UI for the application is laid out well and all of your tools are clearly labeled and easy to find within the dashboard.

Competition Analysis

Unlike other SERP checkers, Nightwatch lets you set specific competitors to refer to during your keyword analysis.

This option lets a website owner review what their competition does to adapt to changing trends or search engine algorithm changes.

This is in addition to the standard SERP checker features that help you compare against the Internet as a whole.

Additional Features Besides Rank Tracking

In addition to the above features, Nightwatch also has a mobile ranking and local ranking tool to help you see how your websites stack up on mobile searches and in your local geographic area.

Capturing the mobile market is important for any website, while the local area matters more for businesses that have a physical location or service a geographic region of the world.

Alternatives

Semrush

Semrush is a comprehensive tool that covers a range of SEO and digital marketing needs. Its SERP checker provides up-to-date rankings and competitive insights for any target keyword across multiple geographic locations.

The platform is known for its in-depth analysis and large data sets, giving users actionable information on search engine rankings, traffic potential, and keyword difficulty.

With Semrush, users can also track daily ranking fluctuations and assess their position against competitors.

Alternative
SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a versatile SEO tool with a focus on rank tracking and SERP analysis. It allows users to monitor keyword rankings across Google, Yahoo, and Bing in real-time.

SE Ranking’s robust features include tracking keywords based on location and device, historical data comparisons, and visibility score calculations.

Users can also leverage SE Ranking’s other functionalities, like backlink tracking and site auditing, making it an ideal choice for small to mid-sized businesses seeking detailed ranking insights.

Alternative

Free Option

What’s My SERP

What’s My SERP is a free, lightweight tool that offers essential SERP tracking for those on a budget. It allows users to track keyword rankings on Google, providing results for multiple keywords with daily updates.

While it lacks the advanced features of paid tools, What’s My SERP is reliable for straightforward ranking checks, making it suitable for smaller projects or individuals looking to monitor basic keyword performance.

Free

About the Alternatives

For marketers needing a blend of versatility and depth, Semrush and SE Ranking provide powerful SERP checker options.

Semrush excels with extensive competitive analysis and location-based ranking data, ideal for businesses with diverse SEO needs and large-scale campaigns.

SE Ranking, on the other hand, offers many of these capabilities in a more user-friendly and affordable package, appealing to smaller businesses or agencies that still want detailed tracking across multiple search engines and device types.

For users prioritizing cost-efficiency, What’s My SERP offers essential rank-tracking capabilities at no cost.

While limited compared to premium tools, it’s perfect for individuals or teams seeking daily Google keyword rankings without the expense.

Together, these alternatives offer a range of features suited to different needs, from in-depth insights to budget-friendly options.

Other Options

Finally, we have some options that we don’t recommend strongly but could be worth it depending on your needs:

ProRankTracker

If SE Ranking offers a low keyword count, ProRankTracer offers a minuscule amount.

In addition to a free 20 keyword searches per day, ProRankTracer has plans that go up to 2,000 words per day.

The problem with ProRankTracer, in addition to its low keyword allowance, is the interface.

The UI for the application requires more exploring to find important information about your website than other, more streamlined applications like Ahrefs and AccuRanker.

Overall, ProRankTracer will be fine as another budget option for an independent business or creator willing to put in some extra effort.

SERPWatcher

SERPWatcher from Mangools offers many of the standard tools a SERP checker provides but doesn’t seem to innovate on them very much.

Additionally, the number of keywords you can search for is on the lower side, though not as low as choices like Nightwatch and ProRankTracer.

SERPWatcher offers some free uses of their keyword search though, meaning it could be a good place to start getting a feel for using a SERP checker.

SERPWoo

SERPWoo utilizes a deep SERP tracking system to analyze SERP ranking results for websites and render reports for users.

The tools included with SERPWoo allow you to also check into SEO practices you can use for a specified website to improve its ranking.

The problem with SERPWoo is that it doesn’t have the same depth of features that other checkers on our list have.

Combined with the slightly higher than average prices, SERPWoo doesn’t immediately offer a benefit to folks not already familiar with their platform.

Serpstat

Serpstat is a Ukrainian-based company that delivers SERP checking features and ranking reports over time for you.

In addition to its one-page and website audit options to review keyword usage, Serpstat has integrations and features that will look familiar to anyone accustomed to the average SERP checker.

Why is Serpstat a Great Option?

Serpstat offers some of the best growth reporting among the SERP checkers on the market right now.

The graphs made by Serpstat utilize color to accurately display your website’s ranking changes over time to show how your SEO changes affected your growth.

Drawbacks to Serpstat

Unfortunately, the reporting system for your keyword and ranking growth is all that is novel about Serpstat.

Serpstat uses a search allowance instead of a keyword allowance for its pricing, but it’s not clear that having thousands of searches or more each day is worth the prices.

Free SERP Checkers

In addition to the best SERP checkers listed above, we’ll now dive into some of the free options.

SERP Checker

This is one of the most popular SERP checker tools available to you.

On SERP Checker You can quickly review your SERP results with a few minutes, and it will bring up all of the Google results for a varied number of keywords.

The only criteria it uses is that your website ranks from 0-100 on Google.

You can use it to check out your website or your keywords.

It does give you limits only to check ten keywords daily, but you can bypass that by registering for a free account.

The best part is that it takes about 1 minute or less to sign up and get started.

Also, keep in mind that it is focussed primarily on Google and not others like Bing.

Features:

  • Free SERP Results tracking with minimal hassle
  • Sign up and get unlimited checks of keywords and SERP results
  • Speedy process, and has minimal wait times to get your rankings to you.
  • Keep in mind that you will only get a sense of your Google ranking with this SERP checker tool.

SERP Robot

SERP checkers like SERP Robot help you as you aim to improve your ranking and do better than your competitors.

This free tool will quickly gauge your place in the search engines and find out who is sitting at the top spot.

The results are accurate and structured, and you will get a real-time list showing your SERPs when you run this SERP checker.

You can also check out how your competitors are doing and understand their results for free with access to thousands of useful keywords.

You can check ranking between 0-100, and as with most free SERP checkers, it will merely show you “above 100”.

Features:

  • You can cross-check your SERP results for free
  • This SERP checker will let you test your SERPs for an unlimited amount of time.
  • Accurate results, and it does use real-time information for Google and other search engines.
  • Track your competitors with the SERP checker and understand what they are doing, so you can model this and do better.

Alternatives to SERP Checkers

It wouldn’t be fair to say that a SERP checker is the only way to see how your website ranks online or improve its ranking.

If you don’t think a SERP checker is the way to go for your website, here are some alternatives you can review:

1. WordPress SEO Plugins

Most website builders know that WordPress allows users to enable WordPress plugins.

These plugins can provide feedback and data on SEO practices.

Many of these plugins are among the most popular plugins used across all WordPress websites.

These plugins can help fill in gaps for users on budget SERP checkers.

However, outside of utilizing some of the expensive subscription plugins, a WordPress SEO plugin won’t replace a dedicated SERP checker due to their lack of keyword database references.

2. Google Search Console and Analytics

Google’s Search Console and Analytics tools offer users a way to look into how their websites stack up on Google’s search engine.

In particular, Google Analytics data can be charted over time and annotated to see how different changes in website SEO affect a website’s search results.

These tools work well for Google but don’t offer any insight into how your website ranks on other search engines.

So, unless you want to focus on Google SERPs, these tools won’t be the only ones you use in your SEO procedures.

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To ensure that we deliver the best suggestions possible, we have some criteria we look over to see what SERP checkers are the best.

These are the criteria we look at the most:

  • Number of Keywords Included in Plans: A higher number of keywords in a plan means more ways to get data about your website
  • Competition Analysis: Giving insights on how your competitors fare compared to your website is one way a SERP checker provides feedback.
  • Dashboard and User Interface: Clean dashboards with useful info and a UI that is easy to navigate will make getting info from your SERP checker faster.
  • Pricing: Everything you get from a SERP checker should be at a price that makes sense.
  • Accuracy: Good SERP checkers need to be accurate about your page ranking to be useful tools
  • Additional Features Besides Rank Tracing: Any other features that a SERP checker offers while providing the above feature can mean fewer tools needed by a website owner to take care of their website’s rankings.

Here are answers to the frequently asked questions about SERPs and SEO:

What are the ranking factors in SEO?

There are over 200 known ranking factors for Google’s search engine, let alone the other search engines out there.

Still, the main takeaways to improve a website’s SEO involve a consistent publication of quality content, keywords in title tags, and backlinks to authoritative pages.

Other technical details, like website security and mobile accessibility, also factor into SEO.

Are SEO and SERP the same?

Search engine result pages (SERPs) and search engine optimization (SEO) are different.

SEO refers to the act of improving content or websites so that they have a better chance of showing up in higher positions on a SERP.

While these two acronyms relate to each other, they are not the same thing.