Key takeaways
- A 7x7 grid runs the same search from 49 locations and shows your Map Pack rank at each one; a single check from your office is nearly meaningless.
- Average rank and top-3 share are the two numbers to track; both should be measured for the same keyword, same grid, same spacing every month.
- Green in the center and red at the edges is normal because distance from the searcher is one of Google's three ranking factors.
- Reviews, correct categories and a complete profile are what widen the green area; proximity sets the limit.
- Realistic monthly movement is a point or two of average rank and a few percentage points of top-3 share, with occasional jumps after a review campaign.
- Compare reports month to month, not day to day; a single bad scan is usually noise.
What a geo-grid is and why it exists
The Google Map Pack is built fresh for each searcher, and distance from that searcher is one of Google's three stated ranking factors. So there is no such thing as "my rank for plumber Pasadena." There is your rank for someone standing at Colorado and Lake, and a different rank for someone two miles north in Altadena.
A local rank grid report (also called a geo-grid, heat map or rank map) handles this by running the same search from many simulated locations at once. The most common layout is a 7 by 7 grid: 49 points, evenly spaced, centered on your business address or the middle of your service area. Spacing is set by the tool, typically half a mile to two miles for a Los Angeles contractor.
At each point the tool pretends to be a phone at that location, searches your keyword ("emergency plumber," "roof repair," "AC installation"), and records where your profile shows in the Maps results: 1, 2, 3, down to 20, or "20+" if you are not found. Then it colors the point.
Tools that do this include Local Falcon, BrightLocal, Local Viking and a few built into agency dashboards. They all read the same way.
The colors and the numbers
Most tools use a traffic-light scale:
- Green (1-3): you are in the Map Pack at that point. This is where calls come from.
- Yellow or orange (4-10): you show when someone taps "More businesses," which few homeowners do.
- Red (11-20): listed, effectively invisible.
- Dark red or gray (20+): not found.
Two summary numbers sit above the map, and these are what you track:
Average rank is the mean of all 49 positions. A grid with 10 green points, 15 yellow and 24 red might average around 11. Lower is better. Tools count "20+" differently, so do not compare average rank across tools.
Top-3 share (sometimes "share of local voice") is the percentage of grid points where you are green. Ten green points out of 49 is roughly 20 percent. This number tracks phone calls more closely than average rank, because only green points produce calls.
Most reports add a competitor view: tap any grid point and see the three businesses that hold the pack there. This is the most useful feature in the report, because it shows who you are actually losing to in each neighborhood and lets you compare review counts and categories.
Why the center is green and the edges are red
Almost every first grid report looks the same: a green blob around the business address, fading to yellow, then red at the corners. Owners sometimes read this as a problem. It is simply distance doing what Google says it does.
At the center point you are the closest option or nearly so, and relevance and prominence decide the rest. Two miles out, three other licensed shops with similar reviews are closer, so you slip to position 5. Five miles out, a dozen are closer, so you fall off entirely. In a county as dense as Los Angeles, the green area for a shop with 40 reviews is often only two to four miles across.
Things that shape the blob:
- Competitor density. A roofer in Santa Clarita may hold green across most of the valley; the same roofer in Mid-City holds a much smaller area.
- Address anchoring. Service-area businesses are anchored to a point, usually the registered address. If you registered at home in Northridge but work mostly in Burbank, the green will be around Northridge.
- Keyword. "Water heater installation" may show a bigger green area than "plumber" because fewer profiles compete for it.
The goal is not to turn the whole grid green; for most 1-10 truck shops that is not possible. The goal is a larger, denser green area over the neighborhoods where you make money.
What moves the grid
The changes that reliably expand the green area fall into a short list, and they map onto Google's three factors.
Reviews (prominence). Review count and recency are the strongest lever an owner controls. A past-customer campaign that adds 20-40 reviews over a month often shows on the next grid as yellow points turning green and the blob extending a point outward. Reviews that mention the service and neighborhood ("fixed our slab leak in Eagle Rock") also feed relevance.
Categories and services (relevance). Switching a primary category from "Contractor" to "Plumber" with the right secondaries, or adding "Air conditioning repair service" to an HVAC profile that only had "Heating contractor," can change a grid in a few weeks, because the profile was not eligible for that search before.
Profile completeness. Services filled in, description written, hours set, photos added weekly, Q&A seeded. Small individually; together they matter.
Website support. A service page matching the tracked keyword, and location pages for cities you want to grow into, help Google confirm relevance at those points.
Proximity (distance). This one you mostly cannot move. A real second location is the only legitimate way; a virtual office posing as a storefront is a common cause of suspension.
What does not move the grid much: Google Posts alone, bought backlinks, and keywords stuffed into the business name, which works briefly and then gets the profile suspended.
Setting up the report so it is comparable month to month
A grid report is only useful when the next one is built the same way. Before comparing two reports, confirm:
- Same keyword. Track two or three money terms, not twenty. For a plumber: "plumber," "drain cleaning," "water heater repair." For a roofer: "roofing contractor," "roof repair." Do not add the city name; the grid supplies the location.
- Same center and spacing. A 7x7 at one-mile spacing centered on your shop, every month.
- Same time of day where possible, since hours affect results for profiles that close.
- Same tool.
Run it once a month, around the same date, and keep the PDFs. Weekly scans tempt you to react to noise. Google's results wobble day to day, and a drop from 2 to 5 on a Tuesday is often back to 2 by Thursday.
If an agency sends you grids, ask what keyword and spacing they use and whether the spacing has changed. A grid tightened from two-mile to half-mile spacing looks greener without anything improving, because all 49 points are now closer to your address. The reverse is also true, so ask before celebrating or panicking.
Realistic expectations and what to do with the report
Month-to-month, a profile being worked properly tends to show:
- Average rank improving roughly one to two points per month early on, slower once you reach single digits.
- Top-3 share rising a few percentage points per month, with a larger jump the month after a review campaign or category fix.
- Occasional flat months with no clear cause. One flat month is not a trend.
A profile with 15 reviews and the wrong primary category can go from 10 percent to 40 percent top-3 share in 60-90 days of cleanup and a review push. A profile already at 60 percent fights for every additional point, because the remaining red points are far from the address and full of closer competitors.
Turn each report into a short to-do list:
- Note the two or three edge neighborhoods where you are yellow (4-6). Those are closest to flipping green.
- Open the competitor view there and compare review counts and categories.
- Pull past customers from those neighborhoods and send a review request batch.
- Add or improve a website page for that area if you want to grow there.
Red corners that stay red for a year are not a failure. They are a map of where it would take a second location to compete. For the background, see the Google Map Pack explained.
Questions contractors ask
What is a good top-3 share for a contractor?
It depends on the grid size and competitor density. On a 7x7 grid at one-mile spacing in a dense part of Los Angeles County, 30-50 percent is solid for a 1-10 truck shop and 60 percent or more is strong. In lower-density areas like the Antelope Valley, higher numbers are common. Track your own trend rather than chasing a benchmark.
Why did my rank grid get worse this month when I added reviews?
A single month of decline is usually noise, a competitor who did more than you, or a change in how the report was run. Check that the keyword, center and spacing match last month. Then look at the competitor view at the points you lost; if a nearby shop added 30 reviews or fixed its categories, that explains it. Give it another month before changing strategy.
Should I track "plumber Los Angeles" or just "plumber" in a grid report?
Just the service term. The grid tool already sets the searcher's location at each point, which is how most homeowners search on a phone. Adding a city name makes Google weight the city centroid instead of the searcher's position, so the results no longer reflect what a person at that spot would see. Track two or three service terms without city names.
How often should I run a local rank grid report?
Once a month is enough for an owner and is what most agencies report on. Daily or weekly scans show normal fluctuation and tempt you to react to it. The changes you make, reviews, categories, services and website pages, take weeks to show up. Run it on the same date, with the same settings, and compare three months at a time.
