Reading Your Dashboard
Reading Your Rankings
Once a week, on the same day each week, we look up where your site comes in Google's results, for each keyword you asked us to track. This walks down the Rankings screen from the top — what each number means, and what it cannot tell you.
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What Is on the Rankings Screen
Open Rankings from the menu down the left of your dashboard. The screen is five blocks, in this order down the page:
- Three numbers, then Tracked Keywords and Keywords Used. How your keywords stood at the latest check, where each one came up, and how many of your plan’s keywords you are using.
- Average Keyword Rankings. A chart of those positions over time.
- Keyword Results. A table of every keyword against every check, which is where the detail is.
- Google Search Console Results. The same question answered by Google’s own figures, if you have connected Search Console.
- Keyword Tracking. The list of keywords itself, where you add and remove them — covered in Choosing the Keywords We Track.
The rest of this article takes the first three in turn. If you have just subscribed and the screen is empty, nothing has gone wrong: the first check runs the night after you save your first keyword, and after that once a week, on the day the screen names.
How the Numbers Are Taken
The line above the chart states the method, and it is on the screen at all times rather than behind a tooltip, because every number below it depends on all five facts:
- We look at the top 100 results. Below that we report nothing rather than guessing.
- We check every week, overnight, on the same day each week.
- We ask from the place you set, not from wherever our computers are — where to search from.
- We ask with no search history. That is the one that surprises people: your own Google knows you and puts you higher for you than for a stranger.
- We check on desktop and on mobile, and the line says which one the numbers are — Desktop and Mobile above the chart switch between them. A position on a phone is not the same number as on a desktop.
The Top of the Screen
Everything at the top is read from the same check, and the date above it says which one. Three numbers come first:
- Average position
- Add up where you came for every keyword and divide by how many there are. One number for the whole list, with ▲ under it when it improved since the check before and ▼ when it slipped.
- Best position
- Your highest-placed keyword at the latest check — the single best result you had, and the keyword it was for.
- % in the top 10
- How many of the keywords we have checked put you on the first page, as a share, with the count under it. A share stays comparable when you add or remove keywords; one you have just added joins it after its first check.
Under them, the panel headed Tracked Keywords shows where the keywords you track on this site came up in Google. The strip across it is your whole list, split by position, and the table under it gives each part a row: its share of your keywords, how many that is, and how it moved since the check before.
- Top 3
- The first three results. These are the ones that actually bring visits.
- 4 to 10
- The rest of the first page of Google, which is roughly the first ten results.
- 11 to 100
- Past the first page, but still in the first 100 results.
- Not in the top 100
- The keyword did not come up at all in the first 100 results.
- Not checked yet
- Keywords you added since the last check. They have no position until the next one.
In the last column, ▲ and ▼ say how many more or fewer keywords a row has than at the check before. Only Top 3 and Not in the top 100 are green or red, because only there does the direction say whether it is good news. The rows between fill from both sides — a keyword climbing from fifth to second leaves 4 to 10 with one fewer — so their arrows stay plain. The Top 3 count is also usually a truer read of progress than Average position: one keyword dropping out of the top 100 can swing an average hard without anything real having happened to the rest.
Beside it, Keywords Used counts the keywords your plan covers that are in use — split into This site and Your other sites when your plan covers more than one — and how many are Left. Add keywords takes you down to the list where you add them.
The Chart: Average Keyword Rankings
The panel headed Average Keyword Rankings draws that average position over time, one point per weekly check, so you can see the direction rather than one check of it. A single check bounces for reasons that have nothing to do with your site — who else published that week, which of Google’s machines answered — so look for a direction held over several weeks rather than reacting to one point.
You can narrow the window, and draw up to four individual phrases beside the average when you want to see which one is moving.
Keyword Results: The Table of Every Check
Under the chart is the panel headed Keyword Results. It is a table: one row per keyword, one column per weekly check. The keyword and how often it is searched each month stay in view on the left, and the Net change stays on the right, however far across you scroll.
Three different things can appear in a cell, and keeping them apart is the point:
- A number
- We checked, and that is where you came.
- A dash
- We checked, and you were not in the top 100. That is a real answer rather than missing data.
- A dot
- We could not check that time. Nothing is being claimed about it at all.
The Net column compares the first and last check we actually made in the window shown. Where a phrase crossed into or out of the top 100 during that window it says entered or left rather than a number — there is no honest figure for a climb that started somewhere we cannot see.
Which Page of Yours Is Ranking
A position tells you where you came. It does not tell you which page of your site got you there — and that is usually the more useful half, because the page Google picked is the page worth improving. Beside every keyword in theKeyword Results table is a small page icon. Click it and it names the page Google showed.
It also names the top results at that check, above you or below, which is the fastest way to see who you are actually up against for that keyword.
Four things can be true when you open it, and they are kept apart on purpose:
- A page
- We checked, you came up, and that is the page Google showed.
- A position but no page
- We checked and you came up at, say, number nine — but the result Google gave us that time carried no address, so we can tell you where you came and not which page got you there. We ask again on the next check.
- Not in the top 100
- We checked and you were not in the results at all, so there is no page to show. That is an answer, not a gap.
- Nothing yet
- We have not checked that phrase yet. Nothing is being claimed about it.
Underneath, it says whether Google has been showing the same page each time. We compare the page it showed on each of the last 12 weekly checks. Most of the time it is the same page every week, which is what you want.
When it is not, there are two very different reasons, and we tell them apart. If the page changed once and stayed changed, you almost certainly replaced it or pointed the old address at a new one — an ordinary thing to do, so we simply say what changed and leave it there.
What we do flag is Google going back and forth between two of your pages — or wandering between three — for the same keyword. That means Google cannot tell which of your pages is the better answer, so your own pages are competing with each other. You generally want one strong page per keyword.
Which Movements Are Worth Reacting To
Two rules are built into how movement is described, and both exist to stop you acting on noise:
- A move of 3 places or fewer is called steady rather than up or down. At that size it is as likely to be the weather as anything you did.
- When a phrase both starts and ends past position 30, the move is shown greyed out however big it is. Thirteen places at position sixty is thirteen places and no extra customers.
What is genuinely worth reacting to is a phrase crossing into or out of the first page, a steady direction held over several weeks, and a phrase you rank nothing at all for that you thought you had a page for.
What This Screen Cannot Tell You
The Rankings screen cannot tell you why a position moved. Google does not publish that, and anybody who says they know is guessing at it. It measures where you came and leaves the explaining to the parts of the product that can actually check something — the audit, which reads your pages, and, on Pro, a competitor page analysis on the Competitors screen, which reads the top results for that keyword beside yours.
It also cannot tell you what a position is worth. A number one for a phrase nobody searches is worth less than a number eight for one they do, which is what the search volume column beside each phrase is there to keep visible.
Common Questions
I Searched and I'm Higher Than You Say. Who Is Right?
Both are worth watching, for different questions. Your own Google remembers what you have clicked and knows where you are sitting, so it shows you your own site higher than it shows a stranger. Our number is what somebody who has never heard of you would see from the place you set — which is the number that decides whether you get the call.
Why Is There No Number for This Week?
Either this week's check has not happened yet — positions are collected overnight, once a week, on the same day each week — or it did not finish, in which case the screen says so above the chart rather than quietly showing you an older number as though it were this week's.
You Say Two of My Pages Are Competing. Which One Should I Keep?
The one that already ranks better and reads more like an answer to that keyword. We can tell you the two pages are competing because we can see Google switching between them; we cannot tell you which to keep, because that depends on what is on them and what you sell. The audit reads both pages and will tell you what is weak about each.
Can You Improve My Position?
We measure it and explain it; we never claim to move it, and no honest tool can promise that. What we can do is tell you what is wrong with the pages competing for that keyword, which is the part actually within your control.