Geo grid rank tracking
A geo grid scan turns a Google Maps ranking into a map: dozens of points across town, each one showing what a searcher standing there would see. It's the most honest measurement local SEO has — and most tools run it on preset squares. Maprank lets you shape the grid to the market: any odd size up to 13×13, any spacing in miles.
The method
A geo grid scan measures a business's Google Maps ranking from many points on a map at once. The tracker lays a grid over the area — 49 points in a 7×7, 169 in a 13×13 — and runs the same search from each point, exactly as a person standing there would. Each point records the business's position; together they draw a picture of ranking coverage.
The reason the method exists: Google Maps ranks by proximity, so a business's position is different on every block. A single "you rank #3" is only true at one spot on the map. A local grid scan replaces that number with the truth — #1 across the downtown core, #7 by the highway, absent entirely across the river.
That geography is actionable in a way a number never is. A weak northeast quadrant is a real place — with competitors you can name, citations you can build, and customers you're currently not getting.
Grid rank tracker, without the presets
Run any odd grid size at any spacing, up to 13×13 — tight quarter-mile blocks for a dense downtown, five-mile spacing for a rural service area, defaults saved per business. Smaller grids cost fewer credits, so a quick check-in doesn't cost a deep audit.
Geogrid SEO in practice
Top-3 positions cluster around the business address — that's proximity working for you. The question is how far the green reaches before it fades.
Where green turns amber is where relevance and prominence stop carrying you past nearer competitors. Reviews, categories and content move this line.
Points where the business misses the top 20 entirely. Every one is a neighborhood of searches you're not in — the clearest before/after story a re-scan can tell.
Doing it well
Scanning the brand name."Smith & Sons Roofing" ranks #1 for "smith and sons roofing" everywhere — and the grid glows green while the phone stays quiet. Scan the category phrase a stranger types; that's the market you're fighting for.
Spacing that ignores the market.A quarter-mile grid on a rural contractor measures one field; a five-mile grid on a coffee shop measures three other towns. Set spacing to the distance a real customer travels, per business — it's the single biggest factor in whether the map means anything.
Changing the grid between scans.Grid rank tracking earns its keep in the comparison, and a comparison needs identical points. Pick the size and spacing once, save them as the business's defaults, and let every monthly scan land on the same coordinates.
Reading one scan as a verdict. A single grid is a snapshot with all the usual local-search wobble in it. The pattern across two or three scans — the core widening, a dead zone shrinking — is the signal; a one-time red dot two towns over is usually just Tuesday.
One scan, read out loud
Say you run a 7×7 at one-mile spacing for a dentist, on the keyword "dentist". Forty-nine pins come back. The twelve around the office are green — top 3, proximity doing its job. West side: solid 4s and 5s, close enough that a few more reviews plausibly tip them. Then the whole northeast quadrant is orange fading to grey, eleven points where the practice is seventh or worse or simply absent.
Now the interesting part. Pull up Maps and look at what sits in that quadrant — usually a competitor, sometimes two, whose own green halo is exactly the hole in yours. Suddenly the vague brief ("do local SEO") has a shape: their review count is the target to pass, the neighborhoods they own are where your next content and citations aim, and the follow-up scans will referee the fight month by month. One scan, 49 credits, and the strategy wrote itself. That's the whole reason this method took over local SEO — and why we'd rather you learn it on free credits than take our word for it.
From here: the Google Maps rank tracker page covers the map-pack side in depth, the local rank tracker page handles territories and service areas, and the tool-shopping homework is done in Maprank vs Local Falcon and our honest ranking of the grid trackers.
Stop overpaying for rank trackers
A scan costs exactly its pin count — 25, 49, 81, 169 — and nothing else on the bill moves. We built the pricing so you could estimate a month on a napkin and be right. See the full plans.
Maprank Solo: 4,500 credits — 91 scans at 7×7 — with white label and unlimited businesses included, not gated.
Adding a business costs nothing on any plan. Only scans spend credits, so a fifty-location roster doesn't need a fifty-location budget.
About 10 scans at 7×7, no card required. The credits run out when spent, not on a date.
A geo grid scan checks a business's Google Maps ranking from a grid of points laid across a real map — say 49 points in a 7×7 square around the business. Each point asks Google the same search a person standing there would, and records the position. Plotted together, the points show ranking as geography: strong areas, weak areas, and invisible areas.
You scan the same grid on a schedule that suits the client — monthly is typical — and compare. Because every scan measures the identical points, movement is real movement: a neighborhood turning green means the business genuinely climbed there, not that the measurement moved.
Start at 7×7 — 49 points is enough to show the pattern in most markets at a reasonable credit cost. Go tighter (5×5) for quick check-ins, wider (9×9 to 13×13) for audits and sprawling service areas. In Maprank any odd size up to your plan's maximum works, at any spacing in miles.
It's shorthand for this method: geographic grid rank tracking. When local SEOs say a listing 'looks good on the geogrid', they mean its grid scan shows top-3 positions across most of the map, not just at the business's own address.
On Maprank, exactly its point count: 1 credit per grid point, so a 5×5 is 25 credits, a 7×7 is 49, a 13×13 is 169. Plans start at $19 a month for 4,500 credits, and a new account gets 500 free credits — about ten 7×7 scans — with no card.
Proximity is a heavyweight factor in Maps rankings, and competitors sit at fixed locations — so crossing the street toward one of them can genuinely change who Google shows first. Sharp local swings usually mark the boundary of a competitor's stronghold, which is exactly the intelligence a single-point tracker can't give you.
The category phrase a stranger would type — "dentist", "emergency plumber", "personal injury lawyer" — not the business's own name. A brand-name scan mostly measures whether Google can find the listing at all; a category scan measures whether you're winning customers who haven't heard of you, which is the growth that tracking is for.
Only up to the edge of the real market. Points beyond where customers would actually travel add credits, not insight — a 13×13 at five-mile spacing over a business that serves one town is mostly measuring noise. Size the grid to the service area, then spend the saved credits on scanning more keywords or scanning more often.
Pick a business you know, scan a 7×7, and see how much one map tells you. 500 free credits, no card.