Keyword Tracking

Keyword tracking lets you monitor your search engine rankings over time for the terms that matter most to your business. By tracking specific keywords, you can:

• Measure the impact of SEO changes — See whether your optimizations are actually moving the needle on rankings.
• Catch ranking drops early — Spot declining positions before they significantly impact your traffic.
• Validate your content strategy — Confirm that new content is ranking for the keywords you targeted.
• Track progress over time — Build a history of ranking data that shows your SEO trajectory.

There are two ways to add keywords to your tracking list:

• Manual entry — Navigate to the Rankings tab in your dashboard and type in the keywords you want to track. Press enter or click the add button to add each keyword.
• From competitor gap analysis — When viewing keyword gaps in the Competitor Analysis tab, click the add button next to any keyword to start tracking it. This is a fast way to build a tracking list based on competitive intelligence.

To fetch current SERP (Search Engine Results Page) positions for all your tracked keywords, click the “Check Rankings” button. Align queries search engine results for each keyword and records your current position.

This process may take a moment depending on how many keywords you track. Once complete, each keyword in your list will display its updated ranking position.

Each tracked keyword displays ranking data that helps you understand your performance trajectory:

• Current position — Your latest ranking position in search results.
• Previous position — Your ranking position from the last check.
• Change indicator — An up or down arrow showing whether your position improved or declined. Green arrows indicate improvement (moving up in rankings), while red arrows indicate decline (moving down).

This at-a-glance view makes it easy to spot trends and react quickly to ranking changes across all your keywords.

For each tracked keyword, Align also shows the ranking URL — the specific page on your site that currently ranks for that keyword. This is valuable because:

• It confirms which page Google is serving for each keyword, which may not always be the page you intended.
• It helps you identify keyword cannibalization — when multiple pages compete for the same keyword.
• It shows you exactly which page to optimize if you want to improve your ranking for a specific term.

To remove a keyword from your tracking list, click the remove button next to the keyword in the Rankings tab. This removes the keyword and its ranking history from your list. You can always re-add the keyword later, but previous history will not be restored.

The number of keywords you can track depends on your Align plan:

• Free — Up to 10 keywords.
• Pro — Up to 100 keywords.
• Agency — Unlimited keywords.

If you need to track more keywords than your plan allows, see Plans & Pricing to compare upgrade options.

Expand your keyword strategy:

• Keyword Spy — Compare your keyword rankings directly against a competitor's.
• Competitor Analysis — Discover new keywords through gap analysis.
• Growth Analytics — Track your overall SEO and GEO score trends alongside keyword data.
• Authority Map — Find content gaps to target with new keywords.