I’m obsessed with rank, and you are, too, unless you’ve surfed here by accident. I use rank-tracking software to see how my pages are performing for searches on relevant keywords.

Unfortunately, it lies to me. Check out the top 10 items it finds in Google for the search [green living]; the Care2 site is listed at #7 and #8:

1. www.green-living.com/
2. www.thegreenguide.com/
3. www.thegreenguide.com/doc/122/collegetransport
4. www.nrdc.org/greenliving/
5. www.nrdc.org/greenliving/toolkit.asp
6. www.greenlivingtips.com/
7. www.care2.com/greenliving/
8. www.care2.com/greenliving/make-your-own-non-toxic-cleaning-kit.html
9. www.greenlivingjournal.com/
10. www.gliving.tv/

But look at what I get when I go to the actual Google search results — Care2 has only a single result, at #5:

1. www.green-living.com/
2. www.thegreenguide.com/
3. www.nrdc.org/greenliving/
4. www.greenlivingtips.com/
5. www.care2.com/greenliving/
6. www.greenlivingjournal.com/
7. www.gliving.tv/
8. greenliving.suite101.com/
9. greenlivingideas.com/
10. ecomall.com/greenshopping/

What’s going on?

My rank-tracker is apparently requesting 100 results at a time. Google serves different results if you request 100 of them. Not just more results — different results too.

I think that’s a problem, because the vast majority of Google users will only see 10 results. Which means my rank-tracking software is not telling me the truth.