Google Reviews and Local Rank Tracking: The Correlation Map

What Is Google Places Rank Tracking?

Google Places rank tracking, also called Google local rank tracking, measures where a business listing appears in Google Maps and the local pack for a given keyword, searched from a given location. “Google Places” is the old name of what is now the Google Business Profile, so a Google Places rank tracker and a Google Business Profile rank tracker do the same job.

The catch is the location part. Google Maps orders results partly by the distance between the searcher and each business, so the same keyword gives a different rank a few streets away. A single check is one sample. Grid tracking repeats the check from many points around the business, which is what makes it possible to see whether something like a review campaign actually widens the area where the listing ranks. The method is explained in our guide to geo-location rank tracking, and the distance effect itself in how the proximity factor works.

Defining the Proximity Wall

Every Google Business Profile has what we call a "Proximity Wall". If you run a Geogrid scan spanning 5 miles around a business, you will likely see bright green nodes close to the physical location that eventually transition abruptly to red. This transition is your current algorithmic proximity limit. A quick way to see whether you hit one at all is to check your local rankings for free on a nine-point grid around the business.

You cannot physically move your business closer to searchers outside of your limit, so how do you expand the green radius algorithmically? The strongest localized signal available is a steady, dense flow of high-quality Google Reviews.

Keywords in Reviews: The Hyper-Local Boost

A review that says "Great service" helps your star rating but does practically nothing for your grid rankings. Conversely, a review that says, "The best personal injury lawyer in North Austin, highly recommend their team" is a massive indexing signal for Google Maps.

Review Velocity Outperforms Total Read Count

We frequently see businesses with 1,000 all-time reviews lose ranking grids to competitors with only 150 reviews. How? Velocity. Google strongly favors businesses generating new reviews consistently over those resting on historic data.

How to Track Google Local Rankings Through a Review Campaign

Reviews take weeks to show up in rankings, and rankings move for other reasons too. To know whether a campaign worked, the measurement has to be set up before it starts and kept identical until it ends.

1. Take a baseline before the first review request. Run a grid scan on the keyword the campaign targets, centered on the listing. A 7×7 grid costs 49 credits, a 13×13 costs 169.
2. Freeze the settings. Same keyword, same grid size, same radius for every later scan. Change one of them and the before-and-after comparison no longer means anything.
3. Schedule the re-scans. Weekly is enough to see a trend. The free plan includes one weekly or monthly schedule on grids up to 7×7; paid plans add more schedules and larger grids.
4. Read the edges, not the center. Near the business the listing usually ranks well already. The effect of reviews shows up as points at the edge of the grid turning from red to yellow or green, and as the visibility score rising while the center stays put.
5. Line the scans up against review dates. Note when reviews arrived and what they mentioned. A shift at the edges a few weeks after a burst of reviews naming a neighborhood is a much stronger signal than any single scan.

For the first look, you do not need an account: the free Google Maps rank checker runs a 3×3 grid around the listing and shows the first page of results at each point. For multi-branch businesses, see rank tracking across a city and multiple locations.