The XLSX Workbook is the main Excel spreadsheet RankGear writes automatically at the end of a successful Full Analysis Run — a multi-sheet file whose ordered tabs hold the results, the recommendations, the diagnostics, and the raw source data those conclusions were built from.
| Term | XLSX Workbook |
|---|---|
| Category | Reports, Workbooks and Exports |
| Also known as | Workbook, Excel Workbook |
| Where it appears | Workbook export |
What it means in RankGear
When a Full Analysis Run finishes without errors, RankGear saves its findings as a single .xlsx file rather than leaving them only on screen. That file is the XLSX Workbook: the canonical, portable record of the run. Its sheets are arranged in a deliberate order so that the reading path moves from summary to detail — headline results first, then the prioritised recommendations, then the diagnostics that explain how each score was reached, and finally the source data that everything else was computed from. Because it is a real Excel file, you can open it offline, filter and sort it, and share it with people who never touch the RankGear interface.
How to interpret it
Read the workbook the way it is ordered. Start with the opening summary sheet and its legend so you know what each column means, then follow into the supporting sheets only for the rows you actually need to act on — the recommendations tell you what to change, the diagnostics show why, and the source-data sheets let you verify a number rather than take it on trust. Keep the run metadata (date, target page, competitor set, settings) attached when you hand the file to someone else; without it, two workbooks that look similar may have been produced under different settings and are not comparable.
| Sheet group | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Summary / results | Headline scores and the legend for reading them |
| Recommendations | Prioritised changes suggested by the run |
| Diagnostics | How each result was reached, for verification |
| Source data | The raw measurements the rest was computed from |
Example
You run a Full Analysis on a service page targeting “commercial roof repair.” RankGear finishes and drops commercial-roof-repair.xlsx into your output folder, optionally alongside a few HTML companion files. You open the summary sheet, see which factors sit below the competitor benchmark, jump to the recommendations tab to read the suggested edits, and cross-check a word-count figure against the source-data sheet before briefing the writer — all without re-running anything or opening the app.
Important considerations
- A workbook is a snapshot of one specific run at one moment; re-running later, or against a different competitor set, produces a different workbook.
- Compare like with like. Only hold two workbooks side by side when they were generated with the same settings, or the differences you see may come from the configuration rather than the pages.
- Formatting is presentation, not evidence — a highlighted cell or coloured tab is there to guide the eye, not to add weight to a number.
- The comparative figures in the workbook are indicators of how your page stacks up against the analysed competitors, not scores assigned by Google. A better relative position is correlated with stronger pages in the set; it does not by itself cause a page to rank.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.