The method
How RankPane tells a ranking drop from broken tracking
RankPane divides the visits your analytics records from a search engine by the clicks that engine reports, for two equal periods. If that ratio moves by more than 15%, one side probably changed how it counts, so check tracking first. If the ratio holds and traffic falls, the drop is probably real, and comparing Google with Bing shows where to look.
This page describes RankPane 1.0.
The ratio
Ratio = analytics visits from the engine ÷ clicks reported by the engine
Clicks and visits are different events, so the ratio is rarely 1.0 and the gap alone means little. What matters is whether the ratio changes. RankPane calculates it separately for Google and Bing, using the same date range in each tool.
Example
| Period | Search Console clicks | Plausible visits from Google | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Previous 28 days | 11,240 | 10,450 | 0.93 |
| Last 28 days | 12,490 | 9,370 | 0.75 |
Example figures for illustration. Clicks rose while visits fell, and the ratio moved by about 20%, so RankPane would flag tracking drift rather than an SEO problem.
How to read the patterns
| What you see | What it points to | Check first |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks hold, visits fall, ratio drifts | Tracking or attribution | Analytics script, consent banner, redirects that drop the referrer, new templates |
| Google falls, Bing holds, ratio steady | Something specific to Google | A Google update, lost positions, Google-specific indexing |
| Google and Bing fall together, ratio steady | The site itself or demand | Removed pages, noindex tags, outages, slow templates, seasonality |
| Impressions rise, clicks fall | Lower click-through | Titles and descriptions, search features, growth from low positions |
The thresholds RankPane uses
| Signal | Rule |
|---|---|
| Ratio drifting | Ratio changes by more than 15% between two equal periods, with at least 20 clicks in each |
| Sessions dropped while clicks held | Google clicks change by no worse than −10% while sessions fall 30% or more, from at least 20 clicks |
| Both engines dropped | Google and Bing clicks both down 15% or more |
| Only one engine dropped | One engine down 15% or more while the other changes by no worse than −5% |
| Page lost rankings | Page clicks down 30% or more and average position at least 1.5 places worse |
| Page may be missing tracking | At least 20 Google clicks, but Google sessions below 30% of clicks |
| Traffic swing alert | Clicks or sessions move 30% or more over 7 days, from at least 50 in the previous 7 days |
These are practical rules of thumb set by us, not statistical guarantees or figures from Google, Bing or Plausible. We may adjust them as we learn from real sites.
What the cross-check cannot tell you
- It finds signals, not causes. A drifting ratio says where to look. You still need to confirm the cause on your site.
- A steady ratio does not prove tracking is correct. Tracking that has always been partly broken looks stable.
- Small sites produce noise. Below 20 clicks in a period, RankPane does not judge the ratio at all.
- Search Console clicks and analytics visits have different scopes, time zones and session rules, so they never match exactly.
- Changes in ad blockers, consent choices or referrer handling can move the ratio without anything being broken on your side.
- It needs Plausible today. Google Analytics 4 and Umami are planned but not available yet.
Dates and data delays
Every range ends three days ago and is compared with the previous period of the same length, because Search Console and Bing report with a delay. Comparing incomplete days would look like a drop that is not real. Bing page and query data is weekly, so RankPane aligns it to the same weeks.
How background alerts run
Alerts are checked on your iPhone, not on a server. RankPane asks iOS to wake it about every six hours, and iOS decides when that happens, usually a few times a day at most. Each check reads the last 7 days directly from your sources. An ongoing problem notifies once when it appears, not on every check.
Where the data goes
RankPane requests data directly from Google, Bing and your Plausible instance on your device. We run no server that receives it. Tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain, and Google access is limited to the read-only webmasters.readonly scope. Read the privacy policy.
Want to do this by hand? Read the step-by-step guide.
Sources
- What are impressions, position, and clicks? (Search Console Help)
- Debugging drops in Google Search traffic (Google Search Central)
- Using Search Console and Google Analytics data for SEO (Google Search Central)
- Traffic sources, referrers and UTM campaigns (Plausible docs)
- Bypass adblockers with a proxy (Plausible docs)
