## **🧭 Overview**

If your **Rank Tracker** shows **NR (Not Ranked)** for a keyword but you can see your site ranking on Google manually, don't worry — your rankings are real. This discrepancy is almost always caused by a mismatch between how the tracker is configured and how Google is serving results to you personally. This article explains the most common causes and how to resolve them.

## **⚙️ Why This Happens**

Rank Tracker checks your keyword positions using specific, standardised settings: a fixed location, device type, and search engine. When those settings don't match the conditions of your manual search, the results will differ. Here are the most frequent causes:

- **Personalised search results:** Google tailors results based on your browsing history, Google account activity, and location. A manual search while logged into Google will often show your site higher than it actually ranks for an anonymous user.
- **Device mismatch:** If you searched on mobile but the tracker is set to desktop (or vice versa), rankings can differ significantly. Google maintains separate rankings for desktop and mobile.
- **Location mismatch:** Rank Tracker checks rankings from a specific geographic location. If you searched from a different city, region, or country, Google may have returned a different set of localised results.
- **Local Pack vs. organic results:** You may have seen your business appear in the **Google Local Pack** (the map results), while Rank Tracker measures standard organic positions only. These are two different result types.
- **Search engine variant:** Ensure the tracker is set to the correct Google domain (e.g., google.com vs. google.co.uk) that matches your target market.

## **🛠️ How to Check and Fix Your Tracker Settings**

1. Open **Rank Tracker** via the left sidebar → **Keywords** → **Rank Tracker** (Keyword Rank Tracker).
2. Select the project that contains the affected keyword.
3. Review the tracking configuration for **location**, **device type** (desktop or mobile), and **search engine**.
4. Compare these settings against the conditions of your manual search. For example, if you searched on a mobile device in Sarasota, FL, confirm the tracker is set to **mobile** and **Sarasota, Florida, United States**.
5. If the settings don't match, update them to reflect your intended target audience — the location and device your customers actually use to search.
6. After saving your changes, allow **24–48 hours** for the tracker to re-crawl and update positions. Rankings are not rechecked in real time.

## **📋 How to Perform a Fair Manual Comparison**

To get a result that matches what Rank Tracker sees, follow these steps when searching manually:

- Open a browser in **private or incognito mode** to avoid personalised results.
- Make sure you are **not logged into a Google account**.
- Search from the same **location, device type, and Google domain** that the tracker is configured to use.

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.