AWR is a web-based rank tracking solution. As it’s one of the oldest SEO tools it used to be distributed as a desktop software but now it’s 100% online tool. It tracks your rankings and keeps all the data in the cloud. You don’t need to install it and you don’t need proxies to use it.
I’m going to take care of this aspect first, as it’s the biggest issue I have with AWR. They provide a solid tool for rank tracking but the prices are in my opinion waaay too high. Given the fact that AWR is not an all-in-one SEO platform, you could expect some savings, right?
Right, you could. But first a few words of explanation on how AWR pricing works. Let them speak for themselves:
“1 keyword unit = 1 keyword updated weekly, on 1 search engine unit, with a search depth of 5 pages (default update preferences)
1 search engine unit = first 3 different engines added to project (e.g. Google + Yahoo + Bing). Any 2 different versions of the same core engine (Google Desktop + Google Mobile) are counted as separate SE units.
Keyword units consumption depends on the following factors: number of keywords, the number and type of tracked search engines, search depth and project update frequency.”
But wait! On their pricing page, there is no distinction between keyword units and search engine units! Look at the picture above, there are only units!
This is what I’ve found on my free trial account:
“This project has 10 keywords, 1 search engine units and is updated daily (7 times per week): 10 x 1 x 7 = 70 keyword units.
This website uses a search depth of 10 pages : 70 x 2 = 140 keyword units.“
Ok, so this looks like both keyword units and search engine units are worth one unit from the pricing page.
So how to calculate how much the AWR will cost you?
The Starter plan costs $49/mo and includes 2000 units. It means $49 is enough to track 142 keywords on a daily basis with a density of 100.
To simplify things I prepared a pricing comparison table for AWR and few other popular rank trackers:
| AWR | MonitLabs | RankTracker | AuthorityLabs | AccuRanker | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Trial only | 25 keywords | Free Trial only | Free Trial only | Free Trial only | |
| 100 keywords | $49/mo | $6.90/mo | $14/mo | — | — |
| 250 keywords | $99/mo | — | $28/mo | $49/mo | — |
| 500 keywords | $99/mo | $19.90/mo | $39/mo | — | — |
| 1000 keywords | $199/mo | $29.90/mo | $69/mo | $99/mo | €99/mo |
| 2500 keywords | $499/mo | ($49.90/mo for 2000) | $169/mo | $225/mo | €279/mo |
| 5000 keywords | — | $109.90/mo | $239/mo | $450/mo | €389/mo |
AWR handles many more than just a standard set of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
With AWR you can track your rankings in:
The short answer is yes. Longer answer would be that it gives you depersonalized results. The type of results you probably have in mind when asking if the tool is accurate. Term “accuracy” used in the context of rank tracking can be misleading. You can read a more detailed explanation here.
The features are grouped into six blocks: Reports, Rankings, Competitive Intel, Comparison, Visibility, and Google data. All AWR features are focused on monitoring your performance in search engines. It is not an all-in-one SEO platform. Having that said, it has everything you can expect from a rank tracker.
The reporting feature is very flexible. You have several predefined report types but you can edit almost everything inside. This includes not only the widget you want to include but also section titles, descriptions, and even things like fonts and other formatting stuff. A regular text editor is at your disposal.
he default report template is SEO performance overview. In the reports tab, you can select a timeframe you are interested in, and the tool will produce the summary for the selected period.
On the first widget, you will have three KPI metrics: visibility percentage, total visits, and a click-through rate you had in organic search. You need to connect AWR with your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to have the last two.
Below, you have Keyword Rank Summary. There are two charts that show rankings distribution for your keywords. The first chart shows you how many of your phrases were in Top1, Top3, Top10, and so on. The second shows the same, but with the granularity of a single SERP page.
In sections placed below that, you have a breakdown of stats taken from Google Analytics: Organic vs Total traffic and CTR by device. Next, you can see a list of top-performing keywords (position-wise) and a list of opportunities. Opportunities are just those phrases that rank on the second page.
With AWR you can create sub-accounts for your customers or employees and assign different access levels to them. You can do it by sending an invitation via AWR interface. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to customize this message, the invitation will always look like in the picture below:
The default view on that feature group is Keywords. What it shows is a complete list of keywords you track along with various information about them. First and foremost is obviously the current position. Besides the position, there is also info about SERP features (like images, videos, featured snippet, etc.), search volume, and estimated daily traffic. When you expand any keyword you will see a position history chart. It is just a detail but you can switch between line graph and a bar chart if you want to.
AWR measures Google volatility for all the keywords you track and if big enough change occurs, it marks it as a Google algorithm change. You can display these algo changes on the position history charts. It may help you judge if the sudden drop in rankings is a result of a recent change on your website or is it just a matter of so-called “Google dance”.
Biased Note
MonitLabs also measures volatility for all tracked keywords. It also tracks all the domains and all the urls from Top100 – not only yours. You can spy on any competitor you like.
MonitLabs is the lowest-priced rank tracking solution on the market
MonitLabs offers a free plan for daily tracking of 25 keywords
This panel shows you how many keywords rank in the first place, how many on positions 2-5, 6-10, and so on.
I have a problem with this one. It’s clearly a view of your rankings but listed by url and not-by keywords. The thing I don’t get is it shows only one of my urls (and I know I have more urls that are ranking) and also it shows the ranking for only one keyword. I assume it has some sense but it’s just not very intuitive.
For me, it’s a bit too big word for what’s inside. It shows you your market share defined as the percentage of total visits for tracked phrases.
You can also see a few other metrics:
URLs – The number of URLs from your website that are within Top20 for all your keywords combined.
Keywords – The number of keywords that your website is ranking for in Top20
Click share – The estimated percentage of clicks your website gets from total available clicks for your tracked keywords. I’m not sure how it’s different from the market share.
Estimated visits – Estimated number of visits that your website gets in the selected period. Essentially it’s the same as market share but expressed not as a percentage value but as an absolute number.
It’s worth noting that this feature is not available in the Starter plan. You have to subscribe to at least Pro ($99/mo) plan to have this feature. I’m a bit surprised with such an approach. Tools that focus solely on rank tracking are rather narrow in terms of the number of features they offer. Given the fact that AWR is not the cheapest rank tracker (it starts from $49/mo), I don’t think limiting access to features like this one is a user-friendly move.
It’s a part of the Competitive intel feature. Basically, this is an overview of Top10 for any given keyword. The tool will tell you how many sites moved up, down, stayed the same, and how many new sites are in Top10.
This one is really useful. It shows you how many SERP features are visible on keywords you track. It also shows you how many of the SERP features you own.
You can also see historical data. When you click on any given SERP feature, the tool will show you for how many keywords it was displayed in the past. For example, let’s say you track 100 keywords and for 25 of them there is a people also ask displayed. You want to check if that was always the case or if Google recently started to show people also ask for more keywords. You can click on the people also ask like on the picture below and voila!
Red bars represent the number of keywords for which you owned this SERP feature.
You can compare rankings you have on two different search engines, i.e. Google desktop and mobile. Or Google and Bing. Or different Google locations. AWR will display a table with the different keyword in each row, and two columns with positions for compared search engines. The same you can do to compare different websites (picture below) if you defined any competitors.
In here you can see a bunch of metrics related to your general SEO visibility.
You can inspect it only for your website or compare with others, like below:
Here is a complete list of metrics available in the AWRs visibility section:
Here you can see how particular landing pages are performing. For how many keywords they rank, what is the highest position, what is the lowest and the like.
On this panel, you have your performance broken down into keyword groups. You have to define these groups on your own.
The last group of features is Google data. Here, AWR offers you its own unique presentation of your data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics. I was never a fan of giving away my Google Analytics/Search Console data to 3rd party tools. I prefer to dig this on my own. I know that when I’m directly in Google tool all the data gathered by Google is there. This is not always the case with 3rd party tools. But if you like to have everything under one roof then certainly there is an additional value in this.
As I mentioned above, AWR integrates with Google Analytics and with Google Search Console. There are no other integrations in AWR.
Advanced Web Ranking is a solid rank tracker but it doesn’t offer anything beyond the standard set of features. I’m always trying to come up with a balanced and fair judgement but this time the price is just way off. You have plenty of other, much cheaper options, some of them free.
