Set Up Keyword Rank Tracking

Add the keywords you want to monitor, configure tracking, interpret position history, and resolve common data or synchronization issues.

What the Keyword Tracker does

The Keyword Tracker maintains a running history of where your site ranks for your most important keywords. Each tracked keyword shows its current position, how it's moved recently, and a historical chart so you can see long-term trends.

Daily position updates

Rankings are refreshed regularly so you always have a current view of where your site stands — not week-old data.

Position history charts

Every keyword shows a trend chart. Spot ranking improvements after content updates, identify drops caused by algorithm changes, and correlate SEO work with ranking movement.

Location-specific tracking

Track positions for specific countries or cities — critical for local SEO and international sites targeting multiple markets.

Competitor comparison

See where competing domains rank for the same keywords alongside your positions.

Adding keywords to track

1
Open the Keyword Tracker
Select Keywords → Keyword Tracker from the sidebar. This view shows all currently tracked keywords for your active project.
2
Add keywords
There are three ways to add keywords to track:
- Manually — click Add Keywords and type or paste a list of keywords, one per line.
- From Keyword Research — when viewing research results, select keywords and click Add to Tracker.
- From Domain Analysis — select keywords from your domain's ranking profile and start tracking them.
3
Choose a tracking location
Select the country and optionally a language. Ranking positions are location-specific — a keyword that ranks #3 in the United States may rank #12 in the United Kingdom.
Tip
Track keywords for each market you target independently. If you serve multiple countries, add each country's most important keywords as a separate tracking group.
4
Wait for the first position update
Newly added keywords show their first ranking data within 24 hours. After that, positions are refreshed on a regular schedule.

Reading your tracker data

Current position

The position column shows where your site currently ranks in organic search results for each keyword. Position 1 is the top result. Positions beyond 100 are generally outside the first 10 results pages and are shown as Not ranking.

Position change

The change column shows movement since the previous data point — a green arrow for gains, red for drops, and a dash if there's no change. Sort by change to quickly surface your biggest movers.

Trend chart

Click on any keyword to expand its detail view and see the full position history chart. This chart is your primary tool for correlating SEO actions with ranking outcomes — note the dates when you made content changes, deployed title updates, or built links, and compare them to the chart.

URL being ranked

For each keyword, the tracker shows which URL on your site Google is ranking. If the URL changes over time — a sign of keyword cannibalization or page consolidation — the chart records the URL history.

Organizing your tracked keywords

As your tracked keyword list grows, organizing it makes the data more actionable:

Filter by position range — e.g., show only keywords ranking positions 4–20 (page-one near misses with the best upside).
Filter by search volume — focus on keywords with meaningful demand.
Sort by change — see which keywords moved the most this week.
Group by URL — see all keywords where a specific page is the ranked URL.

Note

Keywords ranking in positions 4–20 are typically your best opportunity. They're already indexed and showing relevance signals — a targeted content improvement or title optimization can push them onto page one.

Free keyword tracker

SEO Core also offers a free keyword tracker with no account required. It tracks up to 5 keywords and is useful for quick checks or sharing ranking data with clients or stakeholders. Data from the free tracker can be imported into a full project if needed.