TL;DR: What Drains Tracking Accuracy Over Time
- GSC averages mislead: Search Console reports a blended position across all search locations, not your actual Maps rank.
- Grid drift kills comparability: Change the grid size or centre between scans, and your "trend" is no trend at all.
- Scan timing matters: Friday evening and Tuesday morning produce different local packs for restaurants, services, and retail.
- Keyword set hygiene: Adding or removing tracked keywords mid-engagement invalidates the trend line.
- Single scans are noisy: Use a 3-scan rolling median, not the latest number. Mark algorithm updates and resets the baseline.
- Self-audit: If you can answer "yes" to all six questions in the audit at the bottom of this guide, you are tracking accurately.
To track Google Maps rankings accurately, you have to fight two things: Google's per-search personalisation and your own tracking habits. The first is structural; the second is fixable, and the difference between a tracking setup that produces decisions and one that produces noise is a small set of process choices. Read more →
