Your rank isn't a number. It's a map. (49 points prove it.)
Ask any rank tracker "where do I rank for plumber near me" and it hands you a number. Here is the uncomfortable truth: that number is only true in one spot.
Google answers "near me" differently on every street, because the searcher's location is half the query. Stand outside your shop: you're #2. Drive eight minutes west: you're #14. Same business, same minute, same search.
So we stopped asking once. We ask from 49 places.
A grid scan lays a 7×7 lattice over a service area and runs one REAL search from every point, recording the map position at each. Not estimated, not interpolated: 49 searches, 49 answers. Drawn as a map, it looks like this:
A real case: "we rank fine" met 25 pins
A junk-removal company we measure believed it "ranked fine". And at its front door, it did. The 25-point scan told the whole story: top-3 at 4 points, outside the top 10 at 21. Four green dots by the shop; a red field everywhere the trucks actually drive. That is not a ranking problem, it is a GEOGRAPHY problem, and you cannot see it, let alone fix it, from a single number.
The three numbers that describe a map honestly
SoLV (share of local visibility): at what percent of points are you top-3?
ARP (average rank where present): how strong are you where you show up at all?
ATRP (average total rank position): the same average with absent points counted worst-case, so it can never flatter you.
Tools that quote only the flattering one are selling you a feeling. Ask for all three.
What to do with a red map
Find the cold zone's cause: usually distance from the pin plus thin presence signals on that side (no reviews mentioning those neighborhoods, no service-area pages, weak citations).
Fight where it's cheap: amber points (4-10) move with small pushes; deep-red corners may be honest geography. Spend where the map says the fight is winnable.
Re-scan weekly: a map that updates every Saturday turns "did the work help" from a debate into a picture.
Want your map?
The free Lighthouse Grade shows where you stand, and the full weekly scan draws all 49 points, every week.
Get your free grade