What is Rank Tracking?
Rank Tracking is the process of monitoring how specific keywords rank in search engine results pages (SERPs) over time. It helps website owners and marketers measure SEO performance by showing whether their pages are moving up or down in visibility for targeted search terms.
Rank tracking tools typically track keyword positions daily or weekly and often provide historical trends, competitor comparisons, and SERP feature insights.
Why Rank Tracking Matters
Rank tracking provides concrete feedback on how your SEO efforts are performing. It helps you evaluate the effectiveness of changes to content, on-page optimisation, backlink strategies, and technical improvements.
Key benefits include:
- Monitoring keyword position changes over time
- Identifying drops or spikes in rankings
- Measuring SEO progress against goals
- Spotting new opportunities and keyword cannibalisation
- Tracking competitors for the same terms
Ongoing rank tracking is essential for adapting strategies and reporting results to stakeholders or clients.
Example in Use
A marketing team adds schema markup to improve click-through rates on a set of product pages. They use a rank tracking tool to monitor keyword positions before and after the change. Over the next month, they observe steady ranking improvements, confirming that the update had a positive impact.
Rank tracking becomes part of their regular SEO performance reporting.
Related Terms
- Keyword
- SERP
- SEO Reporting
- Keyword Research
- SERP Features