Rank tracking
Also called position tracking, SERP tracking
The practice of checking, on a schedule, where a domain appears in search results for a set of keywords, and keeping the results as a history. Each check is one observation of one SERP at one moment.
Today’s position tells you almost nothing. The history tells you whether what you did worked, which is the only question worth the money.
A useful check records four things:
- the position seen, or the fact that nothing was
- the URL that held it
- the market and device the check ran in
- the moment it ran
The URL is the one people leave out and regret. A keyword that holds position nine while the ranking URL quietly changes from your guide to your pricing page is a different situation from one that simply held, and only the URL column shows it.
Not ranking is a value. A week in which the domain did not appear is a category, not a zero and not a gap. Zero is a position; a gap means the check did not run. Drawing either in place of not ranking makes the chart say something that did not happen.
netweft’s rank tracking runs checks on a schedule through a background worker, or on demand, and stores each one as an immutable snapshot — why that matters.
Last reviewed . Also served as markdown at /glossary/rank-tracking.md.