Keywords & Locations
How to add, remove, and rename tracked keywords and locations, and how to fix the "invalid data" that a direct edit can leave behind.
Keywords and locations are the two axes of the Dashboard grid. Every combination of one keyword and one location is a pair, and every pair gets its own rank checked once a day.
How do I add a new keyword?
Type it directly into a blank row in column A on the Dashboard, starting at row 6. That's the whole process: there's no separate "add keyword" dialog, it's a plain spreadsheet column, and the new keyword is picked up automatically the next time you fetch.
Add it directly on the Dashboard. Click any empty cell in column A below your existing keywords and type the new keyword.
Or add several at once from the Setup guide. Open the menu → Setup guide → the "Add keywords" box accepts a whole list, one per line or comma-separated. It skips anything already on the Dashboard, so pasting the same list twice never creates duplicate rows.
Fetch as usual. You don't need to run any sync step first. Fetching automatically creates a slot for the new keyword in today's date sheet, so the very next fetch checks it along with everything else.
Matching is case-insensitive
SEO Tools and seo tools are treated as the exact same tracked keyword.
A casing difference alone never creates two separate tracked pairs, since
every match is normalized (trimmed and lowercased) before comparison.
How do I stop tracking a keyword?
Delete its row on the Dashboard, then run Clean up removed keywords & locations from the menu to clear its history out of every date sheet. Skipping the second step is safe, but it leaves that keyword's old columns and rows sitting in your date sheets indefinitely.
Delete the row on the Dashboard. Right-click the row number for that keyword and choose Delete row. It disappears from the grid immediately and is no longer fetched.
Open the menu → Clean up removed keywords & locations. This permanently deletes that keyword's row from every date sheet where it still exists, since deleting it from the Dashboard alone doesn't touch historical data. Confirm when prompted.
Clean up is destructive
Clean up removed keywords & locations permanently deletes historical rank data for anything no longer on the Dashboard, across every date sheet. There's no undo beyond Google Sheets' own version history, so only run it once you're sure you don't need that history back.
Just pausing? Use X instead of deleting
If you might want this keyword back later, don't delete the row at all.
Type X into its rank cells to exclude it from fetching while keeping the
row and its history intact. See Excluding a pair.
Why editing a keyword directly can look like invalid data
Rank Tracker matches every keyword and location by exact text, so renaming one directly on the Dashboard is not the same as correcting a typo. It's treated as removing the old keyword and adding a brand-new one at the same time.
Here's the mechanism: your date sheets store history under the keyword's old text. The moment you retype that cell on the Dashboard, the Dashboard grid reads the new text immediately, but none of your date sheets have a column of history filed under that new spelling yet. The row now looks blank, shows no day-over-day comparison, and can appear broken or "invalid" even though nothing is actually wrong. Meanwhile, the old spelling's data is still sitting in every date sheet, now orphaned because nothing on the Dashboard points to it anymore.
Treat it as delete-and-add, not rename
Editing a keyword or location's text in place always starts a new, empty-history pair. If you meant to fix a typo, add the corrected keyword as described above, delete the old row, and run Clean up removed keywords & locations to remove the orphaned entries it left behind.
Adding locations
Open the menu → Add location. Type at least 2 characters of a city, region, or country, and matching SERPHouse locations appear live as you type. Click a result to add it as a new column on the Dashboard. It's also added automatically as an empty column to every existing date sheet, so there's a slot ready for it the next time you fetch.
Validation needs an API key
Live validation calls the SERPHouse locations API, so it only runs once you've saved an API key in Settings. Typing a location before that point is accepted without a check.
Removing a location follows the same rule as removing a keyword
Deleting a location's column from the Dashboard stops it from being fetched immediately, but its history stays behind in every date sheet, exactly like a removed keyword. The same two menu items apply to both:
| Menu item | Direction | What it actually changes |
|---|---|---|
| Add Dashboard locations & keywords to date sheets | Add-only | Scans every date sheet and adds a blank column for any Dashboard location, or a blank row for any Dashboard keyword, that sheet is missing. Never removes or overwrites existing data. |
| Clean up removed keywords & locations | Delete-only | Scans every date sheet and permanently deletes any column or row whose keyword or location text no longer appears on the Dashboard. Asks for confirmation, listing how many rows/columns will be removed, before doing it. |
When would I actually need to run "Add Dashboard locations & keywords to date sheets"?
Rarely during normal day-to-day use, because a fetch already extends today's date sheet automatically to match the Dashboard. It's useful in two specific situations:
- You add a keyword or location but don't fetch right away, and want every tab in sync before you forget which ones are new.
- You want past date sheets, not just today's, to already have a placeholder column or row ready for something you just added.
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