=== RankMetric - SERP Rank Tracker for Google Search, Maps, AI Overview & AI Mode ===
Contributors: rankmetricio
Plugin URI: https://rankmetricwp.com
Author URI: https://rankmetricwp.com
Tags: rank tracker, seo, google rank tracker, keyword rank tracker, local seo
Requires at least: 6.5
Tested up to: 7.1
Requires PHP: 8.0
Stable tag: 1.0.5
License: GPLv2 or later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

The best SERP rank tracker for WordPress. Unlimited Google Search rank tracking is free, forever. Upgrade to Pro for Google Maps, AI Overview & AI Mode tracking.

== Description ==

RankMetric is a serp rank tracker built directly into your WordPress dashboard, designed for site owners, SEO consultants, and agencies who want a **keyword rank tracker** that shows exactly where they stand on Google without logging into a separate SaaS dashboard. If you've been searching for the **best serp rank tracker**, a reliable **google rank tracker**, or a **best serp keyword rank tracker** that doesn't require you to leave WordPress, [RankMetric](https://rankmetricwp.com/) was built for exactly that job.

Most rank tracking tools live outside of WordPress entirely — a separate login, a separate dashboard, and a separate subscription that has nothing to do with the site you're actually optimizing. RankMetric takes a different approach. It's a real **wordpress seo plugin**: your projects, your keywords, your competitors, and your reports all live inside `wp-admin`, right next to the content you're trying to rank.

= Free vs Pro =

**This free plugin includes unlimited Google Search rank tracking** — unlimited projects, unlimited keywords, competitor tracking, Share of Voice, SERP feature detection, PDF/CSV reports, and email/Slack alerts, with no artificial caps and no trial period.

Three additional Google result types are part of [RankMetric Pro](https://rankmetric.io/appsumo):

* **Google Maps / Local Pack tracking** — your business's position in the local 3-pack, with a competitor map view.
* **Google AI Overview tracking** — whether your site is cited in Google's AI-generated answer box, and who else got cited.
* **Google AI Mode tracking** — URL citations and brand mentions inside Google's AI Mode answers.

You'll see these three marked with a lock icon on the Add Project screen; clicking one shows what Pro unlocks. Everything else in this plugin — every feature listed above for Google Search — is free and unlimited, not a limited trial.

Whether you need a straightforward **google keyword rank tracker** for organic Search results, a **google maps rank tracker** for local SEO, or visibility into how often your site is cited in Google's AI Overview and AI Mode answers, RankMetric covers all four of Google's major result types from one place — Search free forever, the other three available in Pro.

At the core of RankMetric is a genuine **rank tracker for serp tracking** at scale — powered by SerpApi's real-time Google data (see the SerpApi section below), so what you see in your dashboard reflects what a real searcher sees on Google right now, not a cached or estimated position from a third-party index.

= Why RankMetric? =

There is no shortage of SEO plugins in the WordPress space, but very few of them actually track rankings — most focus on on-page optimization (titles, meta descriptions, readability) and stop there. RankMetric picks up exactly where those plugins leave off: it tells you whether your on-page work is actually moving the needle in the search results.

Here's what sets RankMetric apart from a typical **serp rank tracker**:

* **It's native to WordPress.** No separate login, no separate app, no context-switching. Your rank tracking dashboard is a tab in `wp-admin`, styled to feel like it belongs there.
* **It covers four Google surfaces, not just one.** Most rank trackers only check classic Google Search. RankMetric also tracks Google Maps local pack rankings, Google AI Overview citations, and Google AI Mode citations — the two newest and fastest-growing ways people find businesses on Google.
* **It tracks competitors, not just you.** A rank tracker that only shows your own position is half the picture. RankMetric's Competitor Tracking and Share of Voice features show you exactly how you stack up against the sites you're actually competing with for each keyword.
* **It surfaces SERP features, not just the blue links.** Featured snippets and "People Also Ask" boxes change how much traffic a #1 ranking actually sends you. RankMetric flags both automatically, at no extra cost, because that data comes back in the same API call used to check your rank.
* **It exports professional, branded reports.** If you run an agency, or just want to share progress with a client, boss, or business partner, RankMetric generates polished PDF reports and raw CSV exports directly from the Reports screen — no copy-pasting numbers into a spreadsheet.
* **It alerts you the moment something changes.** Email and Slack alerts fire the instant a keyword drops past a threshold you set, or the moment you lose an AI Overview or AI Mode citation — so you find out from RankMetric, not from a client asking why traffic dropped.

= Built for Real SEO Work, Not Just Vanity Metrics =

A **keyword rank tracker** is only useful if the numbers it shows you are numbers you can act on. RankMetric was built around that idea from day one. Every project — whether it's a Google Search project, a Google Maps listing, an AI Overview query, or an AI Mode query — gets its own Reports page with:

* A full rank history chart with 7-day, 30-day, 90-day, and all-time views
* A rank delta badge on every keyword, so you can see at a glance whether it moved up, down, or dropped out entirely since the last check
* Best-rank-ever and days-tracked stats per keyword
* A project-level summary strip (average rank, keywords ranked #1-3, keywords not ranking at all)
* A visual ranking distribution chart showing how your keyword portfolio breaks down across top-3, 4-10, 11-50, and unranked buckets

This isn't a plugin that shows you one number and calls it a day. It's a genuine **rank tracker for serp tracking** across the full lifecycle of a keyword — from the day you start tracking it to the day it finally lands in position #1.

= Accurate, Exact-Match Tracking =

One of the most common complaints about rank tracking tools — WordPress-based or otherwise — is inaccurate matching. A lot of tools will report you as "ranking" for a keyword because *some* page on your domain shows up somewhere in the results, even if it's the wrong page entirely. RankMetric checks for the exact URL you're tracking first, and only falls back to a domain-wide match (including subdomains) if the exact page isn't the one that ranked. Either way, you'll know which one happened, because Reports clearly distinguish "your tracked page" from "a different page on your site."

== SerpApi: The Real-Time Data Engine Behind RankMetric ==

RankMetric doesn't scrape Google directly, and it doesn't rely on stale, cached ranking databases the way a lot of "keyword rank tracker" tools do. Instead, every single check RankMetric performs — Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode — is powered by [SerpApi](https://serpapi.com/?utm_source=rankmetric), a real-time search engine results API trusted by SEO tools, data teams, and developers around the world.

Why does this matter? Because scraping Google directly is against Google's Terms of Service, unreliable at scale, and prone to getting your server's IP address blocked. SerpApi solves all three problems: it handles the actual retrieval of Google's search results pages, parses them into clean structured data, and returns that data to RankMetric in milliseconds — no scraping infrastructure, no proxies, no CAPTCHAs, and no compliance headaches for you.

You'll need your own [SerpApi account](https://serpapi.com/?utm_source=rankmetric) to use RankMetric — new accounts include a free monthly search credit, which is enough to get a real feel for the plugin before committing to a paid plan. One SerpApi key powers every tracking engine in RankMetric: Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode all draw from the same subscription, so you're not juggling multiple API accounts for different features.

Setting it up takes about a minute: create a SerpApi account, copy your Private API Key from your SerpApi dashboard, and paste it into RankMetric's Settings page. From that point on, every scheduled check, every manual refresh, and every new project you add runs through your own SerpApi key — your data, your account, your usage limits.

== Google Search Rank Tracker ==

At its foundation, RankMetric is a **google rank tracker** for classic organic Search results — the ten (or a hundred) blue links most people still think of when they picture "Google rankings." Add a project, paste in the URL you want to track (a homepage, a blog post, a product page — any URL on your site), add your target keywords, and RankMetric checks your position on the schedule you choose: every 5 minutes, every 3 hours, daily, or weekly.

As a **google keyword rank tracker**, RankMetric goes beyond a bare position number. Every Search project's Reports page shows:

* Your exact rank for each keyword, with up to the top 100 organic results captured per check
* A full historical rank chart so you can see whether a keyword is trending up, trending down, or holding steady over weeks or months
* Featured snippet detection — RankMetric tells you not just whether a featured snippet exists for a keyword, but whether *you* hold it
* "People Also Ask" box detection, so you know when a keyword's search results include a PAA box that could be sending clicks elsewhere
* Best-rank-ever tracking, so you always know your personal best for every keyword you've ever tracked

Because RankMetric is a genuine **serp rank tracker** rather than a simple position checker, it matches against the exact URL you're tracking first, falling back to your wider domain (including subdomains) only if the specific page you entered isn't the one that actually ranked. That distinction is shown clearly in your reports, so you're never left guessing which page on your site is doing the ranking work.

If you've been comparing options and looking for the **best serp keyword rank tracker** that lives inside WordPress rather than a separate SaaS dashboard, this is the core feature RankMetric was built around.

== Google Maps Rank Tracker (Local SEO) ==

Local businesses don't just compete for organic blue-link rankings — they compete for a spot in Google's local 3-pack, the map and business listings that show up for "near me" and city-specific searches. RankMetric's Google Maps project type is a dedicated **google maps rank tracker** for exactly that.

Add a Maps project with your Business Name (matched exactly as it appears on your Google Business Profile) and the search terms you want to monitor — things like "plumber in [city]" or "best coffee shop downtown." RankMetric checks your position in the local pack on your chosen schedule and reports back:

* Your local pack position for every search term, tracked up to the top 30 local results per check
* A "Local Pack Share" metric — the percentage of recent checks where you actually landed in the top 3 (the visible local pack), since local rankings are naturally noisier day-to-day than organic Search, and a percentage over time tells a more honest story than any single snapshot
* An interactive map (powered by Leaflet + OpenStreetMap, no extra API key required) showing exactly where you and nearby competitors are positioned
* Full business details for every competing local listing — rating, review count, address, and website — pulled straight from the same local pack results

As a **local seo tracker**, this feature is aimed squarely at agencies and business owners who live and die by local visibility: contractors, restaurants, medical practices, law firms, and any other business where "near me" searches are the difference between a new customer and a missed opportunity.

== Google AI Overview Tracker ==

Google's AI Overview — the AI-generated summary box that now appears above traditional organic results for a huge and growing share of searches — has changed what "ranking #1" even means. You can hold the top organic position and still lose the click if the AI Overview above it answers the question (and cites someone else) before the user ever scrolls down.

RankMetric's AI Overview project type is a dedicated **ai overview tracker** that monitors exactly this. Add your target queries, and RankMetric checks:

* Whether an AI Overview appears for that query at all
* Whether your site is cited as a source within it
* The full text snippet of the AI Overview response, so you can see exactly what Google is telling searchers
* Every other source cited alongside (or instead of) you, so you can see who's winning the citation you're not

Because citation status is inherently binary — you're either cited on a given check or you're not — RankMetric also calculates a **Citation Streak**: the percentage of checks over the last 30 days where you were cited. That single number tells you far more about your actual AI visibility trend than any one-off screenshot ever could.

If you're researching how to become a **google ai tracker** power user before this becomes standard practice across the SEO industry, AI Overview tracking is where to start — visibility here is still wide open for sites willing to measure and optimize for it early.

== Google AI Mode Tracker ==

Google AI Mode takes the AI Overview concept further: a fully conversational search experience where Google synthesizes a complete answer, drawing on multiple sources, in a chat-style interface. It's a separate surface from AI Overview, with its own citation behavior, and RankMetric tracks it as its own project type for exactly that reason.

An AI Mode project works the same way as AI Overview tracking — add your queries, and RankMetric reports whether you're cited, the reconstructed answer text, your full list of cited sources, and your 30-day citation streak. Because AI Mode and AI Overview don't always cite the same sources for the same query, tracking both separately (rather than assuming they behave identically) is the only way to get an accurate read on your actual AI search visibility.

Together, AI Overview and AI Mode tracking make RankMetric one of the few **google ai tracker** tools built specifically for WordPress, at a time when most rank tracking tools still only measure classic organic results.

== Competitor Tracking ==

A rank tracker that only shows your own position tells you half the story. RankMetric's Competitor Tracking page lets you **track competitor serp rankings** side by side with your own, for every keyword in a Google Search or Google Maps project, in one sortable table.

Add competitor URLs (for Search) or competitor business names (for Maps) when you create a project — or manage them anytime from the Competitors page itself, no need to recreate a project just to add or remove a competitor — and RankMetric shows:

* Every competitor's rank for every tracked keyword, in the same table as your own
* Trend arrows showing whether each competitor is moving up or down since the last check
* A win/loss count per competitor — how many keywords you currently beat them on versus how many they beat you on
* Ties are highlighted correctly, so if you and a competitor share the top spot for a keyword, both are shown as winning it
* A per-competitor detail view — click any competitor's row to see a direct trend comparison between your average rank and theirs, charted over time

This is **competitor tracking** built for people who actually act on the data: not just a snapshot of where things stand today, but a trend you can bring into a strategy conversation or a client report.

== Share of Voice ==

Individual keyword rankings tell you about one keyword at a time. Share of Voice rolls your entire keyword portfolio — and every tracked competitor's — into a single weighted score, trended over time, so you can answer the bigger question: "Across everything we're tracking, who's actually winning?"

RankMetric weights each keyword's contribution by position (a #1 ranking counts for more than a #8 ranking), sums that across your whole keyword set, and calculates what percentage of the total "visibility pie" belongs to you versus each tracked competitor. The result is a single trend line that's far more resistant to the noise of any one keyword's day-to-day fluctuation than eyeballing a table of individual ranks.

If you're managing a keyword portfolio with more than a handful of terms, Share of Voice is usually the fastest way to answer "are we winning overall?" without scrolling through dozens of individual rows.

== SERP Features ==

Ranking #1 doesn't always mean what it used to. Featured snippets, "People Also Ask" boxes, local packs, and AI Overviews can all push traditional organic results further down the page — sometimes below the fold entirely, even at position #1. RankMetric detects and reports on the SERP features that actually affect click-through rates, automatically, as part of every Search check:

* **Featured snippets** — whether one exists for a keyword, and whether it's yours
* **People Also Ask** — how many PAA questions appear, since a large PAA box can meaningfully compress the visible space above the fold
* **AI Overview presence** — even on Search projects (not just dedicated AI Overview projects), RankMetric flags when an AI Overview appears and whether you're cited in it

None of this requires extra API calls or extra SerpApi credits — it's parsed from the exact same response RankMetric already fetches to check your rank, so SERP feature detection is effectively free.

== Professional Reports ==

The Reports page is where RankMetric brings everything together, per project: rank history, SERP features, AI citation data, local pack results, and competitor context, all in one filterable, sortable, exportable view. Every keyword gets its own expandable row with a full rank chart (with adjustable date ranges), and the project-level summary strip at the top gives you an instant health check — average rank, how many keywords are ranked in the top 3, and how many aren't ranking at all — without opening a single row.

For agencies and consultants producing **seo reports** for clients, this page is designed to be screenshot-worthy on its own, and export-ready when a screenshot isn't enough (see PDF Reports and CSV Export below).

== PDF Reports ==

RankMetric generates four distinct, professionally designed PDF report templates — one automatically selected for each project type (Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode) — so the report you export always matches the kind of tracking it's reporting on, rather than forcing every project type through one generic table.

Every PDF report includes a branded cover section with your project name and generation date, a row of key summary statistics, a visual distribution chart specific to the project type (ranking distribution for Search and Maps, a citation-overview breakdown for AI Overview and AI Mode), and a detailed results table. Reports are generated entirely client-side, on demand, with one click — no waiting on a server-side rendering queue, and no data leaving your WordPress install to generate them.

These aren't throwaway exports. They're built to be the kind of document you can attach directly to a client email or a monthly stakeholder update without editing them first.

**White-label them with your own logo.** If you run an agency, upload your logo on the Settings page and flip on white-label reports — every PDF export swaps RankMetric's branding for yours, top to bottom. Leave it off, or don't upload a logo, and reports export with standard RankMetric branding, exactly as before.

== CSV Export ==

For anyone who wants the raw numbers — to build a custom chart, feed a client dashboard, or archive historical performance outside of WordPress — every Reports page includes a one-click CSV export. It includes each keyword's current rank, previous rank, best rank ever recorded, days tracked, and last-checked timestamp, ready to open directly in Excel, Google Sheets, or any data tool of your choice.

== Alerts (Email & Slack) ==

Waiting for someone to notice a ranking drop is a bad way to run SEO. RankMetric can notify you the moment it happens instead. Turn on email alerts, Slack alerts (via an incoming webhook), or both, from the Settings page, and set a rank-drop threshold that fits how sensitive you want notifications to be. RankMetric will alert you when a Search or Maps keyword drops by your chosen number of positions or falls out of the tracked results entirely, and — separately — the moment an AI Overview or AI Mode project loses a citation it previously held.

== Free vs. Pro ==

RankMetric's free version gives you a genuinely useful **google keyword rank tracker** for Google Search projects: unlimited Search projects, unlimited keywords, competitor tracking, Share of Voice, SERP feature detection, PDF and CSV reports, and email/Slack alerts — all fully functional, no trial period, no feature drip.

**Google Maps rank tracking, AI Overview tracking, and AI Mode tracking are Pro features.** If your SEO work is entirely focused on classic organic Search results, the free version covers you completely. If you also need local pack tracking for a business's Google Maps presence, or visibility into whether your site is cited in Google's AI Overview and AI Mode answers, those three project types are part of RankMetric Pro.

== Installation ==

1. Upload the `rankmetric-serp-rank-tracker` folder to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory, or install directly through the WordPress Plugins screen.
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
3. Go to **RankMetric > Settings** and enter your [SerpApi](https://serpapi.com/?utm_source=rankmetric) key.
4. Go to **RankMetric > Add Project** to create your first project and start tracking rankings.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Do I need a SerpApi account? =

Yes. RankMetric uses [SerpApi](https://serpapi.com/?utm_source=rankmetric) to fetch real-time Google data for every check it performs. New SerpApi accounts include a free monthly search credit, which is enough to try RankMetric out before committing to a paid SerpApi plan. One SerpApi key powers Search, Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode tracking, so you only need to manage a single API subscription.

= What's the difference between the free version and Pro? =

The free version includes full Google Search rank tracking — unlimited projects and keywords, competitor tracking, Share of Voice, SERP feature detection, PDF/CSV reports, and alerts. Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode tracking are available in RankMetric Pro.

= How often are my rankings checked? =

You choose the frequency per project: every 5 minutes, every 3 hours, daily, or weekly. Checks run automatically via the WordPress cron system. Faster frequencies use more SerpApi credits, so daily is a good default for most sites.

= Why is a keyword showing "N/A" or "not ranking"? =

That means RankMetric didn't find your tracked page (or your domain, depending on the match type) within the tracked results on the last check — for Search projects, that's the top 100 organic results. It updates automatically on the next scheduled check and isn't a plugin error.

= Does RankMetric track the exact page I enter, or just my domain? =

Both, in that order. RankMetric checks for the exact URL you entered first. If a different page on your same domain (or a subdomain) ranks instead, RankMetric still reports the rank, but clearly labels it as a domain match rather than an exact match, so you always know which page is actually doing the work.

= Can I track competitors without a Pro license? =

Yes — Competitor Tracking and Share of Voice are both available for Google Search projects in the free version.

= Does tracking AI Overview or AI Mode cost extra SerpApi credits? =

AI Overview and AI Mode tracking use their own dedicated SerpApi engines, separate from standard Search checks, so yes, each check against those project types consumes SerpApi credits the same way a Search or Maps check does.

= Can I export a report to send to a client? =

Yes. Every project's Reports page has one-click PDF export (with a report template tailored to that project's type) and CSV export for raw data.

= Where do I get a SerpApi key? =

Create a free account at [serpapi.com](https://serpapi.com/?utm_source=rankmetric), then copy your Private API Key from your SerpApi account dashboard into RankMetric's Settings page.

== Screenshots ==

1. The main RankMetric dashboard — an overview of every tracked project across all four engine types: Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode.
2. Interactive dashboard walkthrough showing real-time navigation across multi-engine project cards and key performance metrics.
3. Add a new project in seconds — RankMetric supports Google Search rank tracking, Google Maps / Local Pack, Google AI Overview citations, and Google AI Mode tracking.
4. Fast project creation workflow demonstrating keyword entry, location targeting, and automated rank tracking activation.
5. The Reports page — comprehensive rank history, SERP feature captures, and AI citation data shown across all four supported project types.
6. Dynamic report filtering in motion — switching date ranges, toggling AI citation layers, and inspecting keyword specifics.
7. Competitor Tracking — compare your rankings against every competitor without a single horizontal scrollbar, plus an integrated Share of Voice trend chart.
8. Live competitor analysis breakdown — sorting keyword overlaps, filtering domain columns, and inspecting Share of Voice trend points.
9. One-click, white-label-ready PDF report export — generated directly from the Reports page and custom-branded with your agency logo.
10. Instant PDF report generation workflow — turning live dashboard data into a downloadable, client-ready document in under three seconds.
11. Settings panel — connect your SerpApi key, configure email/Slack rank-drop alerts, and white-label your PDF reports with your own logo.
12. Real-time settings configuration — instant SerpApi key verification, sending test Slack rank alerts, and uploading agency branding assets.

== Changelog ==

= 1.0.3 =
* Added license activation support (integrated with the RankMetric license server) for the AppSumo edition of this plugin: an activation wizard, a License section in Settings with plan/site info and a deactivate-this-site option, and a daily heartbeat that keeps license status and version telemetry current. This is inactive and invisible in the standard edition.

= 1.0.2 =
* White-label PDF reports. Upload your own logo in Settings and toggle it on to replace RankMetric's branding on every exported PDF report with your own. If no logo is uploaded, or the toggle is off, reports export with default RankMetric branding as always -- nothing changes unless you opt in.

= 1.0.1 =
* Google Maps projects now support competitor tracking. Add competitor business names (matched exactly as they appear on Google) when creating a Maps project, or manage them anytime from the Competitors page. Trend arrows, win/loss counts, and Share of Voice all work for Maps projects the same way they already did for Google Search.
* Google Search projects now paginate automatically to collect up to the full top 100 organic results per check, when Google/SerpApi has that many results available. Previously a single request could silently return as few as 8-10 results even when 100 were requested, with no way to know more existed. Result positions are correctly renumbered sequentially (1-100) across pages.
* Organic results in Reports now show each result's meta description snippet under the title and link, not just the title and URL.
* AI Mode projects can now track a Target URL, a Brand / Keyword Name, or both. RankMetric checks for URL citations and for text mentions of your brand name anywhere in the AI Mode response independently, and reports both signals separately in Reports.
* Rewrote the plugin readme with full documentation for every feature: Google Search, Google Maps, AI Overview, and AI Mode tracking, Competitor Tracking, Share of Voice, SERP Features, PDF Reports, and CSV Export.

= 1.0.0 =
* Initial release of the RankMetric plugin.

== Upgrade Notice ==

= 1.0.6 =
Adds Target URL + Brand/Keyword tracking for AI Mode, and full top-100 organic result pagination for Search projects. Safe to update from 1.0.0.