How the rank tracker works

Tracking a keyword is a standing instruction: from then on this product asks where your site ranks for it, once a week, for as long as you track it. That is a recurring cost rather than a one-off, which is why the allowance is a number of keywords rather than a number of checks.

A week counted from the keyword, not from a calendar

Each keyword falls due a week from the keyword’s own last check rather than on a shared day. Add one keyword today and another on Wednesday and the two keep being checked on different days, so no single date holds your whole list — which is why every comparison here is over a seven-day round rather than between two dates.

The one comparison that is safe between two dates is the one scoped to a single keyword. A mover is one keyword’s newest check against that same keyword’s previous one, and there is no subset problem there, because both readings are of the same keyword.

What one check asks

One check asks for one keyword, in the project’s market, on one device, and reads down the results it was given. It records your own position, every position each tracked rival held, every result page block it saw, and every address of yours that appeared — so the screen can say not only that you rank but which page of yours does, which is how two of your own pages competing for one phrase becomes visible.

Starting and stopping

Keywords are tracked from the worklist, from keyword research, or typed in. Untracking one stops the weekly check from then on and removes its tags; the checks already taken stay, and nothing about removing scheduled work is ever refused, whatever state a subscription is in.

What there is not

Nothing in this product is triggered by a single position moving. What exists is a weekly summary email to the workspace’s owners, on by default and switchable off from the People screen, whose rankings line says how many tracked keywords improved and how many declined.