HOW TO see how your web pages are ranking in realtime

Google tells us not to focus on PageRank or “PR”, the famous part of their ranking algorithm, as a metric for success. It acknowledges that PageRank being a number is easier to measure than relevance which is what actually counts. Google removed PageRank distribution data from Webmaster Tools but if you still want to see in real-time how your web pages are faring, use StatCounter analytics.

Note that the Search Rankings vary when searches are conducted from different parts of the world and at different times. The ranking you see displayed in your StatCounter account is the actual rank position that your visitor saw (for your web page) from the location they are in, at the time they did the search.

Currently, this information is only available for some Google searches so you will not see a ranking beside every Google query or beside non-Google queries.

In Google AJAX SERPs (Search Engine Results Page), when you click on a link Google redirects you to the search page and also passes some referrer information that analytics providers can use to track rank. For example, the cd= parameter contains the exact ranking position of the search listing within the SERP -
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEk.... [trimmed]

This is possibly the method that StatCounter uses to identify the rank of a page.

Related:
Comparison of free Web Analytics tools