TL;DR: Start with Google Search Console. It’s free, uses Google’s own data and shows the searches your site already appears for, with an average position for each. Add a paid rank tracker such as Semrush or Ahrefs when you need to follow a chosen list of keywords, in a specific town or on a specific device, or against competitors. Don’t rely on searching for yourself: Google’s results vary with location, device, time and sometimes search history. And read positions alongside clicks, traffic and enquiries. A ranking tells you where to look, not whether your SEO is working.
Once you know which keywords matter to your business, tracking where you rank for them is the easy part. The harder part is knowing which numbers to trust, why they never quite match, and when a change is worth acting on.
Google Search Console or a Rank Tracker: Which Do You Need?
There are two reliable ways to track keyword positions, and they answer slightly different questions.
Google Search Console shows how your site has performed in real Google searches: the queries people used when your pages appeared, the impressions and clicks each one got, and your average position. Because the data comes from Google itself, it reflects what happened rather than a simulated check. It does leave some queries out of the report to protect searchers’ privacy, so the list you see won’t be complete.
A rank tracker, such as Semrush’s Position Tracking or Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker, checks Google on a regular schedule for a list of keywords you choose, from a location and device you set. Both let you narrow the location to city or postal-code level and compare your positions with competitors. Google points out that third-party tools don’t have access to its internal ranking data, so a tracker’s numbers come from its own checks of the search results, not from Google.
| What you’re comparing | Google Search Console | Rank tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Usually a paid subscription |
| Which keywords | Searches you’ve already appeared for | A list you choose, including ones you don’t rank for yet |
| Location and device | Recorded search impressions, filterable by country and device | A location (as specific as a city or postcode area) and device you set |
| Competitors | Not available | Side-by-side comparison |
| What “position” means | The average topmost position of your site or page across recorded impressions in the selected report. | Where you appeared in each scheduled check, from the location and device you set |
For most businesses, we recommend starting with Search Console. If you mainly want to know which searches bring people to your site, and whether that’s growing, it’s enough. Add a rank tracker when you’re running an active SEO campaign with specific target keywords, when you need to know how you rank in particular towns (for a local business, that often matters more than a national figure), or when you want to see how you compare with named competitors.
“Once we’ve agreed a client’s priority services and target keywords, we use dedicated rank tracking to follow those terms consistently, including searches the site doesn’t appear for yet. Search Console then helps us understand the wider picture.” – Andrew Blanchard, SEO Account Manager
Why Your Rankings Look Different in Every Tool
It’s common to see different numbers for the same keyword: position 4 in Search Console, position 7 in a rank tracker and position 2 when you search yourself, for example. None of them is necessarily wrong. They measure different things.
- Search Console records the topmost result from your site for each impression, then averages those positions across the selected data. It is not your best ranking during the reporting period or a simple average of the keywords listed in the report. Unless you filter it, the figure combines countries, devices and dates.
- A rank tracker records each scheduled check from the one location and device you set.
- Your own search reflects you. Google explains that results differ from person to person because of location, language, device type, the time of the search and, where it’s switched on, your search history. Google still uses your location even when personalised results are turned off, so switching personalisation off won’t show you what a customer in the next town sees.
AI Overviews add another difference. Search Console treats an AI Overview as a single position, shared by every link inside it, while Semrush records a citation in an AI Overview as position 1, wherever your page ranks in the normal results below. Search Console also counts appearances in AI Overviews and AI Mode within its normal “Web” figures.
Use the same tool and settings to measure trends over time. When comparing tools, account for their different locations, devices and measurement methods.
Top tip: Don’t judge progress on your site-wide average position alone. It can get worse when new pages start earning impressions for additional queries at lower positions, even if existing rankings hold steady. For a more focused comparison, filter to a relevant query and page, select your target country and device where useful, and compare equivalent periods.
How to Set Up Keyword Tracking
- Check your keyword positions in Google Search Console
- Open your verified website property in Google Search Console.
- Go to Performance → Search results and keep the search type set to Web.
- Select Average position alongside clicks and impressions.
- Choose your date range and open the Queries tab to see the searches your site appeared for.
- Select a query, then use the Pages tab to see which pages appeared.
- Filter by your target country and device where relevant. Compare equivalent periods to assess the trend.
- Set up a rank tracker for your priority keywords
- Choose keywords that matter commercially. Start with the searches customers use for the services or products you most want to sell, and that your site can realistically compete for. Our guide to choosing which keywords to target covers how to weigh relevance, search volume and difficulty.
- Group them by page. For most businesses, we recommend tracking one main keyword for each important page, plus one or two close variations. A page about “SEO for small businesses”, for example, might also track “small business SEO services”. Tracking a small group like this shows how the page is doing across a topic, rather than leaving you reacting to one number.
- Match the location and device to your customers. A Sheffield plumber tracking national rankings learns very little. Set the tracker to the towns you serve, and to mobile if that’s how most of your customers search.
- Record a starting point. Note your positions and annotate important site changes, so you can assess subsequent movement in context. A before-and-after comparison alone does not establish what caused a change. Search Console’s Performance report provides up to 16 months of history.
- Check on a set rhythm. For most businesses, weekly or monthly is enough. Positions move by a few places from day to day as a matter of course, so look for trends over several weeks rather than reacting to a single day.
- Put rankings next to traffic and enquiries. A position only means something alongside clicks, visits and leads. Our guide to SEO reporting explains which of those to report on and how to explain them.
What Your Ranking Changes Are Telling You
Rankings are most useful as a diagnostic: they show you where to look. Google’s own guidance on traffic drops makes a similar point, advising that you shouldn’t focus too much on absolute position because impressions and clicks are ultimately the measure of success for your site. These are common patterns and what each one often points to.
| What you see | What it often points to | What to check first |
|---|---|---|
| Small moves of a few places up and down | Normal day-to-day movement | Nothing yet. Watch the trend over several weeks |
| A sudden, large drop across many keywords | A technical problem, a recent site change or a Google update | Search Console’s indexing reports, any recent changes to your site, and the Google Search Status Dashboard for confirmed updates |
| A gradual slide on a group of related keywords | Competitors improving their pages, or your content falling behind | Which sites have moved above you, and what their pages offer that yours don’t |
| Positions up, but no more traffic | Limited visibility, low search demand, or other results and features drawing the clicks | The keyword’s position, its search volume, and what else appears on the results page |
| More traffic, but no more enquiries | A mismatch between what searchers want and what the page offers, or a problem on the page itself | Whether the page answers the search, and whether the next step is clear |
If you’re dealing with a sudden drop, our guide on diagnosing a drop in keyword rankings walks through what to check, in order.
Rankings rising without traffic is a pattern that often causes confusion. Moving from position 25 to 15 can be progress without producing a noticeable increase in clicks. The traffic impact depends on search demand, the results shown above your page and how attractive your listing is to searchers. Low-volume keywords can still be worth targeting when they closely match what you sell.
For a serviced apartment rental client, Eviee found that a sharp decline in tracked first-page rankings didn’t coincide with a similar decline in YoY data for key events, such as contact form submissions. Looking beyond the ranking report revealed longer-tail queries in Search Console and traffic from other channels. The team continued working on the affected pages while reviewing wider performance. The lesson is to investigate rankings alongside analytics and business outcomes, rather than treating a ranking report as the whole picture. – Eviee Taylor, Senior SEO Executive
Keyword Tracking FAQs
How many keywords should I track?
There’s no fixed number. Start with the pages and services that matter most to your business, use the one main keyword plus one or two variations approach above, and add a keyword only when you’d act on what it shows. In our view, a short list you review regularly is more useful than a long one nobody looks at.
Can I track my rankings in AI Overviews and ChatGPT?
Partly. Rank-tracking tools can show whether AI Overviews appear for your keywords, and some also report citations or track visibility in ChatGPT Search and Google’s AI Mode. Availability depends on the tool and subscription. Google’s generative AI performance report in Search Console provides a separate view of impressions within its AI features. Treat these as additional visibility measures, alongside Google rankings, traffic and enquiries.
How Wildcat Handles Keyword Tracking
We treat rankings as one part of a bigger picture. On our SEO campaigns, we measure the success of our SEO work by the revenue it generates, not by positions alone.
One of the first things we do on a new SEO account is a specialist SEO audit of your website. If you would rather run the work in-house, our SEO consultancy includes reporting and tracking set-up and regular analysis and reporting, with your own team carrying out the tasks.
If you’d like to talk through which of your keyword positions are worth acting on, tell us which services and locations matter most and book a free 30-minute consultation with our team.
