As most people know, search results can vary from city to city or even from one zip code to another. If I search for [electrician] from my house, I will get slightly different SERPs compared to someone searching from another zip code within Phoenix. We’ve just rolled out the ability to track a URL at the city or zip code level, so you can now see that variation without having to do any workarounds such as adding a modifier. This feature has been in testing for a few months and we’re confident that it’s the best local search tracking available. Now you don’t have to settle for only country level tracking or average ranking data that doesn’t work for those wanting to segment their tracking by location.

Getting Started with Local Tracking

When you log into your account, you may notice a new icon next to the “Add a Domain” field. Clicking this icon will allow you to specify a location to track SERPs for.

In the box that pops up, start typing in a location and we will automatically suggest options for locations and zip codes.

Once you’ve set that, the icon will turn green and the next domain you add will be added for that location. We’ll automatically tag the domain with the location you’ve selected so you can filter by location from the dashboard. From there, it’s just like any other domain/locale combination in our interface and we’ll track it daily for you.

Keep in mind that since we count keywords on a domain/location combination, each new location you add a keyword for will count toward account keyword limits since a new SERP has to be processed for each location. If you run into any issues or have any questions, feel free to contact support through the link at the top of the interface and we’ll get you taken care of.

For those of you looking to get your historical data imported into our interface from Raven, we’re currently processing through those. If you have sent over your API keys and your keywords have been imported into our system, you’re ready to go for importing historical data for those keywords. In order to import that data, you will need to make sure to have a copy of the zip file of historical rankings from Raven Tools.

Once you have that zip file, log into your AuthorityLabs account, click on Account -> Overview in the navigation bar at the top of the interface, and scroll to the bottom of that page and look for the “Historical CSV Imports” headline. You will see a form for choosing the file to upload. Submit your zip file from Raven (make sure there are no edits to the files and that it’s the original zip as downloaded from Raven) and we’ll add it to our processing queue. Depending on how many files are submitted, it may take several hours to finish processing your data.

If you haven’t yet sent over your API keys to be imported, make sure you do that before going through the above steps or they will fail. The domains and keywords will need to be in our interface before the historical data is imported. You can submit those keys here and we will process them as they come in.

We’ve been pretty busy here lately and wanted to get everyone an update on the status of features being worked on and migrations for Raven Tools rank tracker users moving over to AuthorityLabs. Here’s a rundown on the latest developments.

More Locations

Our Partner API has supported a huge number of locations for a while and now that we’re importing Raven Tools users, we’ve had to finish adding those to our interface as well. We will now be supporting 255 different location/language combinations for rank tracking. That means that those of you who have been asking for locations such as Ireland, South Africa, and Vanuatu are in luck. This change is currently being rolled out and everyone should see it in their account soon.

Higher Domain Limits

For account types that have limits on the number of domains that can be tracked, we are going to double the limits for everyone. Keep an eye out for that change, which should go live today.

Account Imports

If you’ve already sent us your Raven Tools API key, you’re on our list of account imports and we’re working through the list right now. Initially, we’re running these imports manually so that we’re sure the locations, domains, and keywords are all matching up properly. It will take a little time to get through the list but will save a ton of time for those moving over.

Raven Tools Historical Ranking Data

After looking at the logistics of importing historical ranking data from the Raven Tools API and the time involved in that, we’ve decided that it would be a better long-term solution to build an importer for csv files with ranking data in them. If you’re looking to have your historical data imported from Raven, head on over and export your historical SERP data and we will let everyone know when that’s ready to be imported. Keep an eye out for a message in the interface and here on our blog. Eventually, we see this importer as something that will import from more than just Raven, so it will be a great feature for anyone looking to migrate over to our interface.

We’re wrapping up our importer to bring your sites and keywords over from Raven Tools. You can fill out the form here and we will get your account queued up for an import. This may take a few days to complete for everyone as we are being extra careful to make sure everything is accurate.

Historical Imports

We know that historical imports are extremely important and this is next up on our list. As you can imagine, there are many differences between Raven’s system and ours due to varied naming schemes for locations, daily data versus weekly data, and numerous other quirks we’re accounting for while migrating everyone.

If you have questions on other features and the timeline for those, check out our Raven Tools Rank Tracking Update

As most people know by now, Raven Tools announced last Friday that they will be removing rank tracking from their interface. As one of the rank tracking tools suggested by Raven, we have obviously received many inquiries about features and streamlining the migration of Raven users. Most of the features being requested were already on our road map and since learning of Raven’s plans on Friday, we have updated our priorities to help make the transition as smooth as possible. Here is a rundown of the current status of what we’re working on for everyone.

Importing Data from Raven Tools

Development on an importer is currently our highest priority. It is in progress and being tested right now. We should have it available for importing sites & keywords within the next day or two. Once that is complete, we will be moving on to importing historical data. Since Raven has been tracking on a weekly basis and only selected engines and we track daily across all three engines automatically, there are some kinks to work out but we do know how important historical data is and it is in the works.

PDF Ranking Reports

We are currently working on being able to generate basic PDF reports from within the interface and due to the number of inquiries for it, that is one of our higher priorities. We will also be setting up the reports to be generated and emailed to clients.

Account API

Being able to access your account via API is something we’ve planned to add and will be adding for those who prefer using that. For those who only need an API and not an interface, we typically recommend our Partner API as that has more flexibility and will be more cost effective for those who need to use it. If you’d like to get signed up on the Partner API, contact us for more information.

Tagging

Several people have asked about being able to tag keywords within the interface. This feature already exists but we’re open to hearing feedback on making it better for everyone.

Location Data

We currently support over 40 country/language combinations and are planning to add more very soon. Our Partner API supports all of Google’s locations and most of Bing & Yahoo. On top of that, we also have plans to add city/zip code level tracking in the near future.

Competitor Tracking

With the way our interface works, you can add as many competitors as you would like and track their rankings for a given list of keywords. We realize that this is a little different than what people are used to with Raven’s interface and we have plans to add in more flexibility for comparing data in a way that is more similar to Raven Tools.

As always, whether you’re coming over from Raven or a long time user of AuthorityLabs, feel free to let us know what you’re looking for in a rank tracking solution.