What standard rank tracking measures
A standard rank tracker takes a keyword, runs the search from one location setting, and records the position your site or listing holds. It repeats that daily or weekly and draws a line. The location is usually a city, a postcode or the centre of a town, because that is how the tools were built: to track organic web results, which do not move much across a city.
For a website, that is the right tool. The page that ranks fourth for “boiler repair Manchester” ranks roughly fourth whether the searcher is in Salford or Stockport. One line per keyword, checked on a schedule, tells you whether your content work is paying off.
The trouble starts when the same tracker is pointed at the map pack. It still returns one number. That number is real, but it is only the google map ranking seen from the one point the tool chose, and nobody told you which point that was.
What local SEO grid tracking measures
Grid tracking, also called a geogrid, lays a square grid of coordinates over your service area, centred on your business. A local rank checker runs the same Google Maps search from every point on that grid and records your position at each one. A 7×7 grid is 49 searches; a 13×13 grid is 169.
The output is a map, not a line. Each cell is coloured by the position found there, so you can see a green core around your address, amber cells where you are on page one but below the pack, and red cells where you are effectively absent. We covered how to set one up in how to track Google Maps rankings block by block; this post is about when it is worth doing instead of, or as well as, a standard check.
The grid also produces an average rank, which is handy for trend lines. Read it with the map, though. A grid can average position 8 while being position 1 across the whole eastern half and not found at all in the west, and those are two very different problems.
Side by side: the questions each one answers
The simplest way to compare them is to ask what question each result answers.
- “Where do we rank?” Standard tracking: one position, from one place. Grid tracking: a position for every block, plus the share of blocks where you are in the top three.
- “Where do we lose?” Standard tracking cannot say. Grid tracking shows the edge where a competitor takes over and the direction it faces.
- “Did last week’s change work?” Standard tracking shows a line moving one or two places, which is often noise. Grid tracking shows whether the green area grew, and towards which neighbourhood.
- “How are the service pages doing?” Standard tracking is the right tool. Grid tracking is wasted on organic web results that barely vary by street.
- “What does it cost?” Standard tracking is one search per keyword per check. Grid tracking is 49 to 169 searches per keyword per scan, so it is run weekly and on fewer keywords.
Why a single position misleads on Google Maps
Google ranks the map pack on relevance, prominence and distance. Distance is measured from the searcher, so each searcher is compared against a different set of nearby businesses. A dentist on the high street can be first for “dentist” on the high street and twelfth three streets over, where another clinic is closer. Both results are correct. A standard tracker reports one of them and hides the other.
That blind spot produces two common mistakes. The first is false comfort: the tracker is set to the city centre, you rank well there, and nobody notices that the suburb where most customers live shows a competitor instead. The second is false alarm: the tracker’s location setting sits on the wrong side of town, reports position 15, and you start fixing a profile that is already winning everywhere it matters.
If you only have a standard tracker today, at least find out which location it uses. If it is a city centroid and your business is not in the centre, the number it reports is for a place your customers may never search from.
Where grid tracking changes the decision
Grid tracking earns its cost when the map matters more than the number. Four situations come up again and again.
- Service-area businesses. A plumber or cleaning company sells to a whole district. The grid shows which parts of the district they can actually win and which are held by a competitor closer to those customers.
- Dense city centres. With a competitor on every block, the map pack changes every few hundred metres. A grid with points 300 to 500 metres apart shows that; a single position cannot.
- Measuring a profile change. After a new primary category or a batch of review replies, the question is whether the reach grew, not whether one number moved by one place. Compare the grid before and after.
- Agencies with several clients. A client who sees a map of their own streets understands the work being done. A client who sees a line from 7 to 6 does not.
In each case the grid turns the ranking into a target: the red edge facing the area you serve. Our guide on how to rank higher on Google Maps covers what to change once you know where that edge is.
Where standard tracking still earns its place
None of this makes standard tracking obsolete. It remains the right tool for three jobs.
- Website rankings. Service pages, location pages and blog posts rank in organic results that do not change block by block. One weekly check per keyword is enough, and a grid would add cost without adding information.
- Long keyword lists. You might track twenty keywords on the website and only grid-scan the three that drive calls from Maps. The cheap check covers the long tail.
- Catching sudden drops. A frequent, cheap check is a smoke alarm. If a keyword falls off page one overnight, the standard tracker tells you first and the grid tells you where.
NearPinn keeps both in one workspace: weekly checks for a set of tracked keywords, and geogrid scans of up to 13×13 points that use credits based on grid size. Unused credits roll over, so scanning weekly rather than daily does not waste them. The rank grid section on the home page shows what a finished scan looks like.
A simple way to run both without paying twice
Split the keywords by where the customer finds you, then give each group the tracking it needs.
- Maps keywords: the three to five searches that produce calls and direction requests, such as “dentist near me” or “emergency plumber”. Grid-scan these weekly, same day, same grid.
- Website keywords: everything your pages target, including the longer informational searches. Standard weekly checks, as many as your plan allows.
- One log for both. Note every change you make to the profile or the site with its date. When a grid edge moves or a line jumps, the log says why.
- Re-scan after big changes only. A new primary category or a moved pin justifies an extra grid scan. A new photo does not.
Keep the grid settings fixed. A 9×9 scan and a 13×13 scan of the same keyword cannot be compared cell for cell, and the comparison is the whole point.
What goes in the search engine ranking report
A monthly search engine ranking report that uses both looks like this, and fits on a page or two.
- For each Maps keyword: last month’s grid and this month’s grid side by side, the share of green cells then and now, and the average rank then and now.
- For the website keywords: a short table of positions then and now, with the biggest movers called out.
- The two or three changes made during the month, taken from the log.
- The next target: the grid edge or the page you will work on before the next report.
NearPinn exports ranking results as PDF reports, so the grids and the keyword table do not have to be rebuilt by hand each month. If you want to see what a grid shows for your own business before committing to a schedule, the free Google Maps rank checker page explains each part of the result.
Frequently asked questions
- Is grid tracking just a more expensive rank tracker?
- No, it answers a different question. A standard rank tracker tells you where one keyword ranks from one place. Grid tracking tells you where that keyword ranks from dozens of places around your business, which is how Google Maps actually behaves. The extra cost buys the map, not a more precise single number.
- Do I still need standard rank tracking if I run a geogrid?
- Usually yes, for your website. Organic rankings for service pages and blog posts do not change block by block the way the map pack does, so a weekly single-location check covers them well. Use the grid for Google Maps and the standard tracker for the website.
- How often should a geogrid be scanned compared with a standard check?
- Scan the grid weekly, on the same day, with the same centre, size and spacing. A standard check can run weekly as well, or more often if you watch a page closely. Daily grid scans mostly show noise and use credits that would be better spent on a second keyword.
- What does a local rank checker show that a standard tracker cannot?
- Where your ranking stops. A standard tracker reports a position; a local rank checker shows the shape of your reach, the streets where you are in the top three, the streets where a competitor takes over, and the edge that moved after you changed something on your profile.