What page of Google am I on? How to check honestly

You can find out roughly where you appear by searching in a private browser window, set to your customers' town, for the words a customer would type, and counting down the results. For a fuller answer, open Google Search Console and read the Average position for those searches: about 1 to 10 is usually the opening page of results, 11 to 20 the next, and so on. Your normal search on your own phone is the least reliable check of all, because Google shapes it around you.

Why your own search lies to you

Every owner has done it: typed "roofer Dayton" on their own phone, seen their business near the top, and felt fine. Or seen nothing and panicked. Neither result is a fair picture, for three reasons.

Your history. Google remembers what you click. You have visited your own website hundreds of times, so Google is happy to show it to you.
Your location. Results for local services change from street to street. Standing in your shop, you are at the center of your own map. A customer across town, or in the next suburb, sees a different list.
Your account. When you are signed in to Google, results can lean on what Google knows about you. The Google Business Profile you manage may also show up for you in ways a stranger never sees.

Google says this plainly in its own help pages: what someone sees depends on time, place, device and their recent history. So there is no single "page you are on". There is only where you appeared, for one person, for one search, at one moment.

Check one: a private window, from the customer's side

This takes ten minutes and gets you much closer to what a customer sees.

Open a private window. In Chrome it is called Incognito (the three dots at the top right, then New Incognito window). In Safari on an iPhone, open the tabs button and choose Private. A private window does not use your browsing history or your signed-in account.
Write down three to five searches a real customer would type. Not your business name: the job. "water heater repair Tulsa", "wedding cake bakery near me", "family dentist Marietta". If you are not sure what people type, how to find what customers search for shows a few free ways to find out.
Add the town to the search if your customers would. A private window still knows roughly where your computer is, so "near me" searches will be centered on you.
Count down the plain results. Skip the ads (they are marked Sponsored) and skip the map box with three businesses. Count the ordinary listings with a title and a short description until you find your website.
Write down the number, the date and the device. Phone and computer can differ.

On some devices Google shows numbered pages at the bottom; on others the list simply carries on as you scroll. Either way, around ten ordinary results fit before the "next page" point, though maps, questions boxes and videos push them down.

Ask someone in another part of town

The most honest check of all is a friend or family member who lives where your customers live. Ask them to search the same words on their own phone and send you a screenshot. It costs a text message and tells you more than an hour of your own searching.

Check two: Search Console's average position

Google Search Console is Google's free tool for site owners, and it records where your site actually appeared for real people, not for you. If it is not set up yet, Google Search Console for small business owners walks through adding your site.

Once you are in:

Click Performance (on some screens it reads Search results) in the menu on the left.
Above the chart, click the Average position box so it is switched on. It is off until you click it.
Scroll down to the table and stay on the Queries tab. Each row is a search people typed that showed your site.
Look along each row for the position number.

How to read the number

Google counts position 1 as the topmost result, 2 as the next and so on. For each search, it takes the highest spot your site reached, then averages those spots over every time it was shown. Ads do not take a position.

As a rough guide:

1 to 10. Usually the opening page of results.
11 to 20. The next page, or the second screenful on a phone.
20 and beyond. Further back, where few people look.

A row with a position like 24 and a handful of impressions (times your site was shown) means a few people searching that phrase scrolled far enough to see you. That is useful, honest information: Google does connect your site with that search, just not near the start.

What the number does not mean

It is an average. Your site may sit at 5 for some people and 30 for others. Nobody sees "position 12.4".
It is not your map ranking. The three businesses in the map box come from Google Business Profiles, and they are measured differently. A site can be far back in the plain results while its profile shows in the map box, and the other way round.
It is not a promise about tomorrow. Positions move a little every week. Look at a month or three months, not one day.

How to read the search terms report in Search Console goes deeper into that table, including how to see one page at a time.

Searching your own name is a separate question

If you type your business name and your website does not come first, that is a different and more urgent problem than where you stand for "plumber near me". Customers who already know your name should be able to find you. Google search results for your own business name explains what normally shows there and what to fix. And if your site does not show at all, even for its name, check whether Google has your website before anything else.

About promises

You will get emails and calls offering to put you in the top spots. Nobody can promise a ranking, because nobody outside Google decides it. What an honest helper can do is make sure Google can read every page, that the pages say clearly what you do and where, and that your Business Profile is accurate and yours. Then the number in Search Console tells you, every month, whether that work is being noticed.

What to do this week

Write down three to five searches a customer in your area would type.
Run each one in a private window on your phone and on a computer, and note where your site appears.
Ask one person in another part of your service area to do the same.
Open Search Console, switch on Average position, and note the number next to your three busiest searches.
Put the date on your notes and check the same searches again in a month.

If your site is far back for the searches that matter and you suspect the site itself is part of the reason, you can see your site rebuilt first and compare the two side by side before changing anything.