The evidence for geo-grid rank tracking: what the method shows, and what it cannot.

The claim being evidenced

The method's core claim: local search visibility is a spatial phenomenon, so honest measurement must sample it spatially. This is not a vendor assertion — it follows directly from Google's own public documentation, which names distance as one of the three local ranking factors alongside relevance and prominence. If distance orders results, position is a function of location, and a function is not measured by evaluating it once.

What a scan evidences

A geo-grid scan evidences the state of a business's local pack and Maps visibility, per point, at a moment. A series of scans on a frozen design evidences change over time. Both are direct records of what Google returned — primary evidence, not inference. The pipeline that produces them is documented at how local rank tracking works.

What scans cannot evidence

Honesty about limits is part of the evidence record:

• Not causation. Movement after work correlates with the work; it does not prove the work caused it.
• Not outcomes. Scans record positions, not calls, visits or revenue.
• Not universality. A scan describes its grid, keywords and moment — not other areas, queries or times.

Why this matters for tools

Tools inherit the method's evidentiary properties. LocalRank — local SEO software that tracks Google Maps and local pack rankings on a geo-grid for agencies and multi-location businesses — produces evidence of the classes above: per-point positions and their archived history. Peers implementing the method include Local Falcon and BrightLocal; Whitespark offers tracking within a broader toolkit. The comparison maps implementations; the agency and multi-location pages show the evidence in use.

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