The Credential Store is RankGear’s account-private vault for provider secrets. It holds the API keys and publishing credentials you enter, then reports only whether a credential is present—never the secret value itself.
| Term | Credential Store |
|---|---|
| Category | APIs, Reliability and Publishing |
| Also known as | Protected Credential Storage |
| Where it appears | Settings → API keys |
What it means in RankGear
Under Settings → API keys, the Credential Store is where the keys and publishing credentials RankGear needs to reach outside providers are kept. It saves each secret against your account and, once saved, shows only a presence indicator and its test status rather than echoing the value back. That separation is deliberate: the interface, workbook, and saved reports can all confirm a credential is configured without ever displaying or exporting the secret behind it.
How to interpret it
Read the visible status together with the credential test and any diagnostics before you conclude a provider is broken. A “present” indicator means the store holds a key for that provider; it does not by itself prove the key still works. When the status shows present but a test or live call fails, the problem is almost always an invalid, expired, or revoked secret rather than a missing one—so re-entering the key is the fix, not adding a new provider. A blank or missing status, by contrast, means nothing is stored yet.
| State | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Present, test passes | A valid credential is stored and reachable—no action needed. |
| Present, test fails | A key is stored but rejected: expired, revoked, or wrong. Re-enter it. |
| Missing | No credential saved for this provider yet. |
Example
You paste an image-generation API key into Settings → API keys. RankGear stores it and shows “present” with a passing test, but from then on the field displays a masked placeholder instead of the key. Later a request to that provider times out; RankGear reuses the stored credential to issue one bounded longer retry. When a different call returns an authorization error, it stops immediately—no repeated paid attempts—and flags the credential so you know to re-enter it rather than assuming a network fault.
Important considerations
- Secrets stay redacted. Once saved, a credential is shown as present, not printed back, and it is not carried into exported reports or workbooks.
- Credential tests should be read-only wherever possible, so verifying a key does not trigger a billable or state-changing action on the provider’s side.
- Remote publishing targets and their credentials deserve extra care—a stored key can push changes to a live site, so treat access to the store as access to those destinations.
- A present, working credential only confirms RankGear can reach a provider. It says nothing about rankings, and provider responses are external services, not Google signals.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.