Rank Tracking API, Google Rank Tracking API and SERP Tracking API
Send a keyword, a US city and a device and get the live Google result page back as JSON: every organic position with its URL and title, the ads, the local pack and the features that push results down. Schedule the whole keyword set to run every morning and land in your webhook. One results page is one request, whatever the keyword.
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This console sends a real request and shows you the real response. Five live fetches per session, and the sample targets run as often as you like.
What a rank tracking API gives you
A rank tracking API fetches the real Google results page for a keyword, from the location and device you choose, and returns each domain's position as structured JSON. You store the positions yourself, so rankings end up in your own database, client dashboards and reports instead of locked inside a subscription tool that charges per tracked keyword.
The people who buy this are usually one of three: an SEO agency that has outgrown its rank tracker's keyword cap and wants white label reporting, a SaaS team building rank data into its own product, or an in-house growth team that needs positions next to revenue in the warehouse. All three have the same problem. The per keyword seat price of a finished tool stops making sense past a few thousand keywords, and building the Google fetch in house means owning proxies, CAPTCHAs and a parser that breaks every time the result page changes shape.
This endpoint is the middle path. You keep the data and the reporting, we keep the fetching working.
What tracking depth costs since Google dropped num=100
In September 2025 Google stopped honoring the num=100 parameter, which let a tracker pull the top 100 results in a single request. The top 100 now takes ten paginated requests. Every provider that bills per request either raised its effective price tenfold for deep tracking or quietly cut depth to the top 10. Here is the real arithmetic for 1,000 keywords tracked daily, on one device, in one location.
| Depth tracked | Pages per keyword | Requests per month | Plan it fits | Cost per keyword per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top 10 | 1 | 30,000 | Starter, 49 USD | about 0.05 USD |
| Top 20 | 2 | 60,000 | Growth, 149 USD | about 0.15 USD |
| Top 50 | 5 | 150,000 | Growth, 149 USD | about 0.15 USD |
| Top 100 | 10 | 300,000 | Scale, 499 USD | about 0.50 USD |
The honest takeaway: very few keywords are worth tracking to position 100 every day. Most agencies we see track money keywords daily to the top 20, where a move actually changes clicks, and run a weekly top 100 sweep to catch pages climbing out of the deep results. On 1,000 keywords that mix is about 60,000 daily requests plus roughly 43,000 weekly ones a month, comfortably inside Growth.
Cost per keyword in the table is the plan fee divided by 1,000 keywords, with the rest of the plan left over for other jobs. Because pricing is flat per request, a Google results page costs exactly what any other page costs on the account.
What comes back for every keyword
Positions alone do not explain a traffic drop. A page can hold position three and lose half its clicks because an AI Overview, four ads and a local pack now sit above it. So every result page comes back whole, with the features that decide how far down the fold position one really is.
- Organic results with absolute position, title, URL, displayed link and snippet
- Paid results with position and advertiser domain, top and bottom of the page
- SERP features present on the page: featured snippet, People Also Ask, images, videos, top stories and related searches
- Local pack entries with name, rating, review count and category
- The query as Google interpreted it, the location it was served to and the device
How daily rank tracking runs in four steps
01
Load the keyword set
Each keyword with its location, language and device. A client in Denver and a client in Tampa are two locations, not one national average.
02
Choose the depth
Set pages from 1 to 10. One page is the top 10, ten pages is the top 100. You pay for the pages you ask for and nothing else.
03
Schedule it
On Growth and above the same set runs on a schedule, daily or weekly, and posts the parsed JSON to your webhook. Nobody exports a report by hand.
04
Store and compare
Write positions to your warehouse with the timestamp and compare day over day. Failed fetches are retried and never billed, so gaps in history are rare.
Who runs rank tracking through an API
SEO agencies
Thousands of keywords across dozens of client accounts on one invoice, reported inside your own white label dashboard. Local clients get tracked from their own city, which is what their customers actually see.
SEO and marketing platforms
Rank data as a feature of your product without running a proxy fleet. You set the depth and frequency per customer tier and your cost per tracked keyword is a number you can price against.
In-house growth teams
Positions for your own and your competitors' pages next to revenue and conversion data in the warehouse, so a ranking drop shows up in the same chart as the pipeline it cost you.
Choosing between a rank tracker, Search Console and a rank tracking API
These three get confused all the time, and each is the right answer for somebody. The deciding questions are whether you need competitor positions, whether you need exact location, and who owns the reporting.
| Option | Good at | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console and its API | Free, first party average position, clicks and impressions for sites you have verified | No competitor positions, averages across every location and device, and data lands a few days late |
| Finished rank tracker app | Charts, alerts and client reports out of the box, nothing to build | Priced per tracked keyword, capped per plan, and the data lives in their interface rather than yours |
| In-house scraper | Full control of what gets fetched and how it is parsed | Google blocks plain requests quickly, and you own the proxies, the CAPTCHAs and a parser that breaks with each layout change |
| Rank tracking API | Live positions for any domain, any US city, either device, as JSON in your own database at a per page price | You build storage, history and charts yourself. If you want a finished dashboard and nothing else, a rank tracker app is simpler |
What a keyword check costs here, against credit pricing
A Google results page is one successful request, the same unit as any other page. There is no search surcharge and no per keyword fee.
| Plan | Per month | Result pages | Per 1,000 result pages | Keywords daily, top 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 49 USD | 50,000 | 0.98 USD | about 1,650 |
| Growth | 149 USD | 250,000 | 0.60 USD | about 8,300 |
| Scale | 499 USD | 1,500,000 | 0.33 USD | about 50,000 |
Credit based scraping APIs usually charge a Google search at many times a normal page. On ScraperAPI a Google request costs 25 credits, so the 49 USD Hobby plan's 100,000 credits buy about 4,000 searches, roughly 12 USD per 1,000. Oxylabs lists Google at 1.00 USD per 1,000 results on its entry plan, which is close to our Starter rate and above Growth and Scale. The full conversions are in our breakdowns of ScraperAPI pricing per 1,000 pages and Oxylabs pricing per 1,000 pages.
Where others win: dedicated SERP specialists sell prepaid search bundles that go lower than 0.33 USD per 1,000 at very high volume, and a few return more exotic SERP types. If your only job is tens of millions of Google searches a month, price them too. If rank tracking is one job among several, one account that also fetches competitor pages, Amazon listings and Google Maps places at the same flat rate is simpler to run and to budget.
Getting positions you can trust
Most arguments about whose rank tracker is right come down to location. Google serves a searcher in Phoenix a different page than one in Boston, and a local pack changes from one side of a city to the other. Track each client from the market it sells into, keep that location fixed from run to run, and your history will mean something.
Device is the second trap. Mobile results carry more features above the first organic link, so the same position three is worth fewer clicks on a phone. Track mobile for local and consumer terms and desktop for B2B software terms, or both where it matters.
And never compare an API position with the one you saw in your own logged in browser. Personal history changes what Google shows you. The API searches clean every time, which is the point.
Rank tracking API questions
What is a rank tracking API?
A rank tracking API runs a search for a keyword in a chosen location and device and returns where each domain appears, as JSON your code can store. Instead of logging into a rank tracker and exporting a report, you call an endpoint on a schedule and write positions straight into your own database, dashboard or client reporting.
How much does a rank tracking API cost?
On WebScrap one Google results page is one request, billed at 0.98 USD per 1,000 on Starter, 0.60 on Growth and 0.33 on Scale. Tracking 1,000 keywords daily in the top 10 is about 30,000 requests a month, which fits inside the 49 USD Starter plan. Tracking the top 100 needs ten pages per keyword, so the same set costs ten times as much.
Can I track Google rankings with an API?
Yes. Google has no official rankings API for search results, and Search Console only reports average positions for your own verified sites with a delay of a few days. A SERP or rank tracking API fetches the live results page for any keyword and any domain, including competitors, and parses the positions for you.
Does Google have a rank tracking API?
No. The Search Console API returns average position, clicks and impressions for queries on sites you have verified, but it cannot tell you where a competitor ranks or what the page looked like in a given city this morning. The Custom Search JSON API searches a configured index rather than returning the real Google results page.
Why did my rank tracking costs go up after Google removed num=100?
Until September 2025 a tracker could ask Google for 100 results in one request with the num=100 parameter. Google stopped honoring it, so the top 100 now takes ten paginated requests. Any provider that bills per request either passed a tenfold cost increase to customers or cut tracking depth to the top 10 or 20.
How often should you track keyword rankings?
Daily for money keywords, client reporting and anything you are actively optimizing, because a drop caught on Tuesday can be fixed before the weekly report. Weekly is enough for long tail sets and competitive research. Daily tracking costs about 30 requests per keyword per month at top 10 depth, weekly about four or five.
How do I track local rankings by city?
Pass the city with the request. Google serves different results and a different local pack in Chicago than in Dallas, so a tracker that searches from one national location reports positions no customer in either city actually sees. WebScrap accepts city level locations across the United States and country level locations in 90 countries.
What is the difference between a rank tracker and a SERP API?
A rank tracker is a finished app: you enter keywords and it shows charts. A SERP API returns the raw parsed result page and leaves storage, history and reporting to you. Agencies and SEO platforms use the API when they want rankings inside their own product, dashboards or white label reports rather than in someone else's interface.
Is a rank tracking API accurate?
It is as accurate as the location, device and language you send. Most disagreements between trackers come from searching from the wrong city or the wrong device, not from parsing errors. Use the same location and device every run, record the timestamp, and compare like with like rather than against a rank you saw in your own logged in browser.
Can I track mobile and desktop rankings separately?
Yes, and you should. Google ranks mobile and desktop result sets differently, and SERP features like the local pack and People Also Ask take up more of the screen on a phone. Set the device parameter to mobile or desktop, and budget one request per device per results page per keyword.
Track your first keyword set from the right city
Send a keyword, a location and a device and see live Google positions come back as JSON. Flat 0.98 USD per 1,000 result pages, falling to 0.33 on Scale, failed fetches never billed.