A Rank Marker is a single symbol on RankGear’s Local Grid map that shows where the tracked business ranked — or whether it was found at all — when local results are measured from one specific geographic coordinate.
| Term | Rank Marker |
|---|---|
| Category | Local SEO and Maps |
| Also known as | Grid Marker |
| Where it appears | Local Grid report |
What it means in RankGear
The Local Grid report spreads a lattice of sample points across a map centered on a business location. Each point carries its own Rank Marker, and that marker records the position the tracked business held in local results as measured from that exact spot. Read together, the markers turn a spreadsheet of positions into a spatial picture, so you can see visibility strengthen near the storefront and fade as the sample points move outward.
How to interpret it
A marker only means something once you know what produced it. Before reading rank patterns, confirm the coordinate at the grid’s center, the data provider, the spacing between points, how deep the scan looked, and which business identity was being tracked. Markers from grids built with different settings are not comparable, even when they sit at similar positions. A marker is not always a number either: at one coordinate it can report a rank, at another a “not found,” and at a third a provider error — each is a distinct state, and treating a blank or errored point as a low rank will distort the whole map.
| Marker state | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Rank | The tracked business appeared at this coordinate at the recorded position. |
| Not found | The business was not returned within the scan depth from this coordinate — absence, not a poor rank. |
| Provider error | The provider did not return usable data for this point; the coordinate carries no rank reading. |
Example
A café runs a Local Grid across a five-by-five spread of points around its address. Near the center, several Rank Markers show positions in the top handful of local results; two points on the far edge come back marked not found; and one point returns a provider error rather than a rank. The pattern says the café is competitive close to home but drops out of the pack a few blocks away — and that the single errored point should be re-scanned rather than read as a failure.
Important considerations
- Local map rankings are highly proximity-sensitive: the same business can hold very different positions from coordinates only a short distance apart, so a marker describes one point, not the business overall.
- Marker values shift with the grid center, zoom, spacing, provider data, and the time of the scan; compare markers only within a consistent grid setup.
- Distinguish the states — a “not found” or provider error is not the same as a low rank, and folding them together misreads the map.
- Provider positions are comparative indicators of local visibility, not Google’s own scores; a strong marker reflects how the business compared in that provider’s local results, and does not by itself make the page rank.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.