To track keyword rankings in WeRankLab, you add your site, type or paste the keywords to follow, pick a country, city and device, and set a check frequency. Choose the frequency by what a keyword is worth: a handful of main keywords that bring in revenue can be checked hourly or daily, while a broad keyword list is covered well enough by weekly checks. Keep intervals measured in minutes for short observation windows after a site migration or a major update.
Every check uses credits, so frequency is the setting that affects your budget the most. If you want rank tracking to be part of a wider SEO routine, see cutting repetitive SEO work with automation as well.
How do you track keyword rankings in WeRankLab?
Assuming your account has credits, setup goes in this order:
- Sign in on weranklab.com and add the site you want to track. Each site is tracked separately; for agencies, that means every client’s results stay in their own list.
- Type keywords one by one or paste a list. Keywords you saved in keyword research can also go straight into rank tracking.
- Pick a country and city. Results are fetched as if searched from that location.
- Pick the device: desktop, mobile or both. Rankings for the two devices are kept separately.
- Set the check frequency: hourly, daily, weekly or a custom interval anywhere from 5 minutes to 7 days.
- Connect Telegram alerts. Different sites can go to different chats, and you can choose to get messages only for important changes.
After the first check, each keyword shows your position in Google’s top 100 results, the page of yours that ranks and how many places it moved since the previous check. Keywords outside the top 100 get no position number. That is no reason to drop them from the list; your page simply has not reached the top 100 for that keyword yet.
What does check frequency change?
Check frequency sets how often your Google position is read, and with it how early you see a change and how many checks run per month.
Each check runs a separate query for every keyword and every device. Tracking desktop and mobile together doubles the number of queries at the same interval. The table below shows how many times a single keyword is checked on a single device in a 30-day month:
| Check interval | Checks per day | Checks per month (30 days) |
|---|---|---|
| 5 minutes | 288 | 8,640 |
| 15 minutes | 96 | 2,880 |
| Hourly | 24 | 720 |
| Every 6 hours | 4 | 120 |
| Daily | 1 | 30 |
| Weekly | – | 4–5 |
A worked example: tracking 50 keywords on desktop and mobile once a day comes to 50 × 2 × 30 = 3,000 checks a month. Checking the same list hourly raises that to 72,000. That is 24 times as many, and for most keywords looking that often does not lead to a single extra decision. Credit amounts and packages are on the weranklab.com pricing page; credits never expire and are spent only when a check runs.
The real benefit of frequent checks is reaction time. When a revenue page drops off the first page, you find out within the hour instead of the next day. If nobody is there to act on that early warning, frequent checks only produce more data.
Which check frequency should you choose for which keywords?
Frequency is set per tracker, meaning for the whole keyword list of one site in one location. So the decision depends on what is in the list, and it comes down to two questions: how much do you lose if these keywords drop, and how fast can you respond once you see the drop?
| What the tracked list contains | Suggested frequency | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Only main keywords that bring sales or leads (5–20 keywords) | Hourly or daily | A drop is lost revenue, so noticing early pays off |
| Keywords for category and service pages | Daily | Daily data shows the trend clearly and spends credits evenly |
| Mostly blog posts and long-tail keywords | Weekly | Positions move slowly, so a weekly view gives the full picture |
| Keywords for a newly published page | Daily for the first weeks, then weekly | Whether the page starts ranking shows in the first days |
| A site migration, domain change or new URL structure | 15–60 minutes for a few days, then the old frequency | If there is a sudden loss, you catch the redirect error right away |
| Keywords where a competitor moved ahead | Daily | Within a few days you see whether the change sticks |
Do not leave the 5-minute interval on as a permanent setting. It makes sense in few situations, such as watching results for a few hours after a release or a migration. Once the observation is over, set the tracker back to its old frequency, or most of your credits end up on a handful of keywords.
If your list is mixed, set the interval for the bulk of the list rather than for the few most valuable keywords. Putting hundreds of long-tail keywords on hourly checks for the sake of five main ones spends most of your credits on queries that tell you little. Trackers you set up for different cities are configured separately, so each one can have its own interval.
How do you choose desktop, mobile and city?
Google can show different results for the same keyword on desktop and mobile; the gap may be a few places, or a page may be on the first page on one device and missing on the other. That is why WeRankLab keeps the two devices’ rankings separate.
Decide which device to track by where your visitors come from. If the device breakdown in Google Analytics 4 or Search Console shows most visits come from mobile, tracking mobile only cuts the number of checks in half. If the desktop share is not small, select both devices. You can connect Search Console and GA4 to WeRankLab with read-only access.
For keywords like “dental clinic” or “car dealership”, results vary noticeably from city to city; a check at country level does not show where a business in Izmir appears for searches in Izmir. Pick the city you serve. If you have branches in several cities, set up a separate tracker for each. For an online store selling nationwide, country-level tracking is usually enough.
How do you read ranking results and Telegram alerts?
After every check, Telegram receives your position for each keyword and how many places it moved. Look at three things when you read that message.
First, the size and duration of the change. Rankings move a little during the day; dropping 2–3 places in one check and coming back in the next is normal. Before you act, see whether the drop holds over several checks. Setting alerts to important changes only keeps these small moves from flooding the chat.
Second, the ranking page. If your position for a keyword stayed the same but the page that ranks changed, two pages on your site may be competing for the same keyword. Then you need to decide which one should own that keyword and either link to it from the other page or separate the content.
Third, the gap with Search Console. Average position in Search Console is the average of your site’s topmost result across the searches where it got impressions, and it combines impressions from different locations, devices and users (Google’s Performance report documentation). WeRankLab shows the result taken from the location and device you chose at a specific moment. So it is normal for the two numbers not to match exactly. If they move the same way, both showing a drop for example, the change is real.
What are common rank tracking mistakes?
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Credits run out faster than expected | A broad list is tracked hourly or every few minutes, on both devices | Lengthen the interval, remove low-value long-tail keywords from the list or track only the device your visitors use |
| Telegram keeps getting messages about small changes | Alerts are on for every move | Set alerts to important changes only |
| The position you see in your own search differs from the panel | Results in your browser depend on your location and history | Check that the country, city and device in the panel match your target audience |
| A local keyword looks well ranked but brings no searches | Tracking is at country level, customers are in one city | Pick the city you serve and set the tracker up again |
| A keyword never shows a position | The page is not in the top 100 or not in Google’s index | Check that the page is indexed; if it is not, look at noindex, robots.txt and the canonical setting first |
| The ranking page for a keyword keeps changing | Two pages compete for the same keyword | Choose the page that owns the keyword, link to it from the other or separate the content |
To follow how long new pages take to get indexed, weIndexer pulls URLs from your sitemap in bulk and monitors their index status. Every feature of rank tracking, keyword research and site audits is described on the WeRankLab page.
Frequently asked questions
Can I change the check frequency in WeRankLab later?
Yes. You change it in the tracker settings, so you can shorten the interval during a site migration and set it back when the work is done.
Does checking more often affect rankings?
No. A check only reads your Google position; it sends no visits to your site and does not change the ranking. Frequency decides how early you see a change and how many credits are spent.
How does tracking desktop and mobile together affect credit use?
Each keyword is checked separately for each device. Selecting both devices doubles the number of checks at the same interval.
How deep does WeRankLab check?
It looks at Google’s top 100 results for every keyword, so you also see keywords that sit beyond the first page but have started to climb.