A local pack is not one result set. It is thousands of them, one for every coordinate a searcher might stand on. Grid radar queries a lattice of points around your business and draws the real shape of your visibility.
How a grid check works
You pick a centroid, normally your storefront or service-area hub, and a lattice: 49 points in a 7 × 7 square or 81 points in a 9 × 9. Spacing is configurable; the samples below use 1 km. Every point is queried from its own geographic coordinate, and we record your rank in the local pack and the maps list, or 20+ when you are absent. Cells brighten as rank improves. Numbers stay in every cell so the map never relies on colour alone. Every run is stamped with its collection time, so you can compare two grids from different weeks cell by cell.
49-point grid
Emergency plumber, 1 km pitch. The outlined cell is the centroid.
1–34–78–1213–2020+
Rank holds near the centroid and falls away smoothly with distance.
81-point grid
Plumber, 1 km pitch. The outlined cell is the centroid.
1–34–78–1213–2020+
Visibility collapses beyond roughly 2.5 km, where exact-match competitors take over.
Distance-decay gradient
Averaging rank by distance from the centroid produces a decay curve, and its slope is the useful number. A gentle slope means proximity is doing most of the work, so you can expand by adding locations or service pages. A cliff, like the one in the 81-point series, means something other than distance is capping you.
49-point, squares81-point, circles
Reading a grid
Read a grid from the outside in. The outer ring shows how far your reputation travels; the inner cells show whether you hold your home turf. A bright centre with dark edges is normal for a single location. A dim centre is the urgent finding: it usually points at a profile problem, such as a wrong category, a suspended listing or a competitor sharing the address, not at distance.
Multi-location brands use grids to place new branches by finding dark pockets between existing ones. Service-area businesses check whether a hub address overstates their reach. Agencies run the same grid monthly and show clients the picture rather than the average, because a map of changing cells makes the case for local work faster than any rank table.
GBP category suppression
Google Business Profile categories decide which searches your listing is eligible for. When the primary category is a near miss for the query, the listing can rank at the centroid and still vanish a few kilometres out, because competitors with the exact category outrank distance.
We detect suppression by comparing decay curves across categories for the same business, then flag the radius where the curves part. Fixes are usually dull and cheap: correct the primary category, align services and the website’s headings to it, and re-run the grid a week later.
Cadence and quotas
Analyst plans run 49-point grids weekly. Growth Team runs 49 or 81-point grids daily. Enterprise Firehose runs any grid hourly. Grid points are metered separately from keyword checks, so a large grid never eats your keyword allowance. See pricing for quotas.