Rank tracking

Rank tracking checks where your site ranks in Google's results for each keyword you track, on desktop, mobile or both, in a country or a city. Checks run on a schedule or when you start one, and each check uses credits.

Set up a trackerCopy Anchor Link

1. Open Rank Tracking in the project sidebar, under My Site.
2. Click Add Domain.
3. Fill in the form:
   • Target Domain: the site whose rankings you want.
   • Country and Language: these start from your project's market.
   • Search Targeting: National for the whole country, or Local to search for a city, county or region in that country.
   • Devices: Mobile only (the default), Desktop only or Desktop + Mobile. Tracking both devices costs twice as much.
   • Schedule: see below.
   • Search Depth: how many results to look through, from the top 10 to the top 100. The default is the top 40. A ranking below that depth isn't found.
4. Click Add Domain.
5. OpenSEO suggests keywords the domain already ranks for, with the top 20 by traffic selected. Click Save Keywords, or Skip to add your own.

To add keywords later, open the tracker, click Add Keywords, and enter one per line. Keywords are saved in lowercase unless you tick Match case. A tracker holds up to 1,000 keywords. New keywords are checked straight away, which uses credits. If a scheduled check is due within the hour, they wait for it instead.

For help choosing keywords, see Which keywords to track.

Schedule checksCopy Anchor Link

Choose Daily, Weekly (the default), Monthly (end of month) or Manual only. Click change next to the schedule to pick the weekday and time, in your own timezone. Daily checks use 7 times the credits of weekly ones.

To check now, open the ⋯ menu on the tracker and choose Check rankings. The dialog shows how many keywords and devices it covers and what it costs at most. A check usually takes about an hour, and at most 2 hours. Starting a check doesn't change the schedule.

To change any setting later, click Configure on the tracker.

CreditsCopy Anchor Link

The app shows the most a check can cost before you set up a tracker or start a check, so you approve the maximum. The setup form shows the price per keyword per check, and for scheduled trackers what 50 keywords would cost a month.

The most a check costs per keyword:

For example, 100 keywords on mobile at the default depth cost up to $1.50 a check. Checked weekly, that's up to $6 a month; checked daily, up to about $45. A keyword that contains a search operator such as site: or intitle: costs 5 times as much.

A check starts only if you have enough credits to cover its maximum. If you don't, it doesn't run, and a scheduled check is skipped until you add credits.

On the free plan you can set up trackers and keywords, but no checks run until you upgrade. See Plans, credits and billing.

Read the resultsCopy Anchor Link

Each tracker shows a table with each keyword's position, the ranking URL, search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC and the SERP features on the page, such as AI Overviews, People Also Ask and local packs.

• Position shows the change, such as "8 → 5", against the comparison you pick: vs yesterday, vs last week, vs last month or vs 90 days ago. "lost" means the page dropped out of the results you're tracking.
• Desktop + Mobile trackers have a toggle to switch between devices.
• The Position distribution chart groups keywords into the top 3, 4 to 10, 11 to 20 and beyond, over 30 days, 90 days or all time.
• After two full checks, switch to History to see each keyword across the last 12 checks.
• Click a keyword to see its position over time, or open its results on Google.
• Click the star to pin a keyword. Pinned keywords stay at the top.
• Use Filters to narrow by keyword text, position, volume, difficulty or CPC, and Export to send the rows to Google Sheets or a CSV file.

Keywords marked "Not checked"Copy Anchor Link

Sometimes Google returns no result for a keyword on a check. The keyword shows as Not checked, keeps its last known position, and the tracker says "Some keywords couldn't be checked."

A keyword that wasn't checked hasn't lost its ranking. Before you report gains and losses, check that the latest check covered the keywords you're comparing. For a second opinion on your own site, compare with Search Console, which shows the average position Google measured. Rank tracking changes explains how OpenSEO handles unreliable results.

Remove keywords or archive a trackerCopy Anchor Link

• Remove keywords: select them in the table and click Remove. Their history is kept but no longer shown.
• Archive a tracker: click the archive icon on its row in the Tracked Domains list. Scheduled checks stop and the tracker is hidden, but its history is kept. Add the same domain again to bring back its keywords and history.

Use your assistantCopy Anchor Link

With OpenSEO MCP connected, your agent can create trackers, add and remove keywords, pin keywords, estimate a check's cost for free, run checks and read positions and history. Trackers it creates are manual, mobile and top 40 unless you ask for something else. Adding keywords through the agent doesn't start a check; it asks you to approve the cost before running one. Changing a schedule or archiving a tracker happens in the app.

For a ranking report template, see Keyword ranking report.

Self-hostingCopy Anchor Link

Self-hosted rank tracking uses your own DataForSEO key, with no plan or credit checks. Schedules run the same way. See Self-hosting.