Latitude and longitude are the two numeric coordinates — north-south and east-west — that pin the exact location where RankGear runs a Maps search, whether that is the center of a scan or a single point on a Local Grid.
| Term | Latitude and Longitude |
|---|---|
| Category | Local SEO and Maps |
| Also known as | Lat/Long, Coordinates |
| Where it appears | Google Maps analysis settings |
What it means in RankGear
When you set up a Google Maps analysis, RankGear needs to know precisely where to stand while it searches, because Maps results depend on the searcher’s location. Latitude and longitude supply that precision. Latitude is the north-south value and longitude is the east-west value; together they name one exact spot on the earth rather than a city or a postal region. RankGear uses these coordinates as the search center for a Maps scan, and every point in a Local Grid is itself a distinct latitude-and-longitude pair. Changing the coordinates moves the vantage point of the search, so they are the setting that decides which neighborhood’s version of the results you are looking at.
How to interpret it
Treat the coordinate pair as the anchor that gives a Maps result its meaning: a rank without a location behind it says very little. Before you read any Maps ranking, confirm the exact latitude and longitude the search was centered on, and check it against the other settings that shape the scan — the provider supplying the data, the grid spacing if a grid was used, the search depth, and the business identity being tracked. Small changes in coordinates can produce meaningfully different results, so two rankings are only comparable when they were taken from the same — or deliberately different — coordinates. When results look surprising, the coordinate center is the first thing to verify.
| Coordinate | What it defines |
|---|---|
| Latitude | The north-south position of the search point. |
| Longitude | The east-west position of the search point. |
Example
You want to measure a bakery’s Maps visibility from its own storefront, so you set the analysis center to the shop’s coordinates, roughly 40.7128 latitude and -74.0060 longitude. From that point the bakery ranks second. When a Local Grid then samples a point a mile north at a different latitude and longitude, the same bakery drops to eighth, and a third point returns a provider error and is left blank. Because each measurement carries its own coordinate pair, you can see that the strong ranking is tied to proximity to the storefront rather than being a single fixed position for the business.
Important considerations
- Map rankings are highly proximity-sensitive: the result at a given coordinate can change with the latitude and longitude chosen, the map zoom, the provider’s data, and the time the search ran, so re-running from slightly different coordinates may shift the outcome.
- A latitude-and-longitude pair records where a search was taken, not the quality of a business; setting different coordinates does not make a business rank higher or lower, it only changes the vantage point from which visibility is observed.
- The ranking measured at any coordinate is a comparative indicator drawn from a specific provider, not a Google ranking score, and the coordinate on its own does not explain or cause any ranking.
- Coordinates are only comparable in context: a rank from one latitude and longitude means something different from a rank at another, so always read a Maps result alongside the exact point it was measured from.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.