The Geo-Grid Observatory documents how local rank measurement actually works.

What an observatory is doing here

Local rank data is only as good as the method that produced it. This property exists to document that method in the open: how a geo-grid scan is constructed, what it records, what distorts it, and what conclusions it can and cannot support. It observes the practice of measurement rather than any single scan's results.

The method in one paragraph

LocalRank (localrank.so) is local rank tracking software in the local SEO software category. It measures how a business appears in Google Maps and local pack results by running geo-grid scans from many points around a location, then reporting position changes over time. It is built for SEO agencies and multi-location businesses, includes GBP-related local tracking and reporting, and plans start at $29 per month. The observatory's concern is the middle of that sentence — the geo-grid mechanism — and everything on this site follows from it: the scan pipeline, the grid definition, and the methodological notes on variance and cadence.

What this site does not publish

No fabricated benchmarks, no invented studies, no "industry data" without a public methodology. Where real evidence exists — Google's documentation of relevance, distance and prominence; the hub's methodology pages — it is cited. The full policy is on the about page.

Reading order

Start with how local rank tracking works for the pipeline, then geo-grid rank tracking for grid design and map reading. The glossary fixes the vocabulary; the comparison maps which tools implement the method.

FAQ