Ahrefs Rank Tracker: complete guide to features and workflow

Executive overview

Most rank trackers show you positions. Ahrefs Rank Tracker shows you positions, SERP features, competitor share, and traffic trends — all updated daily or weekly depending on your plan.

The tool is built around four sections: Overview, Competitors, Metrics, and Grossing. Each section layers additional context on top of raw rankings, turning position data into actionable SEO decisions.

Raw rank data becomes useful only when filtered, compared, and read against SERP feature trends.

Project setup

• Set protocol to HTTP + HTTPS to capture all rankings accurately.
• Add keywords manually, paste a comma-separated list, or upload a TXT/CSV file.
• Use tags to group keywords by topic or content type (e.g. blog, product).
• Select up to 170 countries for location-specific tracking; updates are daily or weekly by plan.
• Add up to 5 competitors — required to unlock the Competitors report.

Overview page: filters

• Toggle between desktop and mobile rankings.
• Filter by tag to isolate keyword groups.
• Filter by country to see location-specific position data.
• Positions filter lets you isolate any rank range (e.g. positions 11–15 = top of page 2).
• SERP features filter: use "You Don't Rank" + "Only Featured Snippets" to find position-zero opportunities.

Overview page: graphs

• Traffic graph shows growth trend across all tracked keywords; flags mark when keywords were added or removed.
• SERP features graph shows the percentage of features you own vs. those owned by organic competitors.
• Rising featured snippet counts signal content worth optimizing for position zero.
• Growing AdWords top/bottom numbers indicate competitors are bidding on your keywords.
• High video SERP feature presence suggests adding video content alongside written posts.
• People Also Ask growth signals that users want short answers — adjust content structure accordingly.
• Positions graph shows rank distribution over time, color-coded by position cluster.

Overview page: raw data and tabs

• SERP feature icons: blue = you own it; gray = a competitor owns it.
• Graph icon per keyword: plots desktop and mobile rankings over time on one chart.
• SERP dropdown: shows the top 10 (or up to 100) Google results for that keyword, with your site highlighted.
• Tags tab: snapshot of keyword group performance for the selected timeframe.
• Pages tab: shows which URLs are driving rankings; traffic figures reflect tracked keywords only.
• Use the organic keywords dropdown to find additional keywords a page ranks for and add them to your project.

Competitors report

• Displays the same three-part layout: filters, graphs, data table.
• Graphs are interactive and overlay your performance against each competitor on the same chart.
• Data table shows each competitor's position for every tracked keyword as of the last update.
• Click the positions explorer icon on any keyword to see day-by-day ranking history for all tracked sites.
• Switch between positions, traffic, and SERP features views within the explorer.
• Pages tab aggregates market share across all pages found in top-100 results for your tracked keywords.
• Domains subfilter surfaces organic competitors not in your tracked list — add them directly from this view.

Metrics and Grossing sections

• Metrics section pulls keyword data (volume, clicks) from Keywords Explorer into one table; updated monthly.
• Grossing section shows position increases and decreases over set time periods — takes under a minute to scan.
• Email reports (weekly or monthly) deliver a rankings summary without requiring a manual login.