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app.athenahq.ai/site-health/keywords

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Purpose

The Keywords and rankings page bridges traditional search engine optimization (SEO) with Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). It allows marketers to research new keyword ideas, view estimated search volumes, and monitor how their brand ranks in traditional Google search results side-by-side with their visibility in AI search engines. Customers use this page to discover what their audience is searching for and seamlessly convert those insights into tracked AI prompts. By monitoring Google ranks weekly, teams can directly compare how their traditional SEO performance correlates with their AI response coverage over time.

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What’s on the page

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Page Header

Features the title, a brief description of the page’s capabilities, and a Back to Site Health button to return to your primary site audit overview.

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View tabs

The page is split into two main tabs:
  • Keyword research: A tool to generate keyword ideas based on a starting topic.
  • Google rankings: A dashboard displaying all the keywords you are actively monitoring.

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Keyword research tab

  • Search Form: Contains a Topic or seed keyword text input, a Market dropdown to select the target country, and a Find keywords button to submit the search.
  • Information text: Explains that searches are in English, monthly volume describes consumer search demand, and paid competition describes advertiser activity (not SEO difficulty).
  • Recent keyword research: A row of pill-shaped buttons showing your past searches (e.g., seed · market). Clicking one loads the cached results.
  • Bulk action toolbar: Appears above the results table. It shows the number of selected keywords and includes buttons for Add to AI monitoring and Track Google rankings. When tracking Google rankings, you must also set the Choose crawl scope dropdown, the Device dropdown (Desktop/Mobile), and optionally check Brand navigational keywords.
  • Keyword research results table:
    • Select: A checkbox to pick this keyword for bulk monitoring actions.
    • Keyword: The suggested keyword idea phrase.
    • Monthly searches: Estimated consumer search demand per month. Shows “No data” if unavailable.
    • Paid competition: A score out of 100 showing how competitive the keyword is for paid advertisers. Shows “No data” if unavailable.

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Google rankings tab

  • Tracking Form: A quick-add form containing a Crawl scope dropdown, Keyword input, Market dropdown, Device dropdown, a Brand navigational checkbox, and a Track keyword button.
  • Budget & Info text: Displays how many manual rank refreshes you have left for the month, and explains that weekly collections automatically run for tracked keywords.
  • Monitored Google keywords table:
    • Keyword and market: The tracked keyword phrase, the selected market/device, the target root domain, and whether it’s flagged as a brand navigational search.
    • Google rank: The latest recorded organic rank (e.g., “rank 4”, “Outside top 100”, or “Queued”). Also shows the change since the last check (Up/Down/Unchanged), a clickable link to the landing page URL, and the date the rank was collected.
    • AI visibility: The estimated percentage of AI responses where this keyword was visible over the last 28 days, the total response count, and a View monitored prompt link if the keyword is also being tracked in AI search.
    • History and collection: Contains the Refresh rank and Pause / Resume buttons, status text regarding the next scheduled collection, and a Recent history section that expands to show past collection results.

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What you can do here

  • Find keywords: Enter a seed topic and select a market, then click Find keywords to pull search volume data. This reserves a portion of your daily request limit.
  • Load a recent search: Click any pill under “Recent keyword research” to instantly view data from a search you previously ran.
  • Use this search again: If you select a recent search that is older than 30 days, click Use this search again to pull fresh volume data.
  • Add to AI monitoring: Select checkboxes next to keyword ideas, then click Add to AI monitoring to automatically create and track them as prompts in your Athena workspace.
  • Track Google rankings (Bulk): Select keyword checkboxes, pick a crawl scope and device, and click Track Google rankings to add them to your weekly SEO monitoring schedule.
  • Track keyword (Single): On the Google rankings tab, fill out the top form and click Track keyword to manually add a specific phrase to your monitoring list.
  • Refresh rank: Click Refresh rank on any monitored keyword row to pull a live Google ranking immediately (subject to a 24-hour cooldown).
  • Pause / Resume: Click Pause on a monitored keyword row to stop checking its Google rank weekly. Click Resume to start collecting again.
  • View monitored prompt: Click the linked text in the AI visibility column to jump directly to the Prompts page and see how that keyword performs across AI engines.

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Data shown

Keyword ideas, search volume, and paid competition metrics are sourced securely from Google Ads search data. Organic Google rankings are pulled by an automated provider that checks the top 100 search results for your chosen market and device. AI visibility percentages and response counts are generated from your own tracked Athena prompt data over the last 28 complete days. Crawl scopes mirror the properties you have set up in your Site Health configuration.

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Common workflows

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Researching and monitoring new keywords

  1. Go to the Keyword research tab.
  2. Enter a relevant topic in the Topic or seed keyword field and choose your target Market.
  3. Click Find keywords and wait for the results to populate.
  4. Check the boxes next to the keywords with the best search volume.
  5. Click Add to AI monitoring to automatically set them up as tracked prompts.

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Manually tracking an important SEO keyword

  1. Open the Google rankings tab.
  2. In the top form, select the appropriate Crawl scope, type your exact phrase into the Keyword field, and set your market and device.
  3. If this keyword is specifically meant to find your website (like your brand name), check Brand navigational.
  4. Click Track keyword to add it to your weekly monitoring schedule.

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Refreshing a stale ranking

  1. On the Google rankings tab, locate a keyword you want an immediate update on.
  2. Check the status text in the right-most column to ensure it is not on a 24-hour cooldown.
  3. Click Refresh rank. The status will change to “Queued” and the new rank will appear once the collection finishes.

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • Empty states: If a keyword research query yields no results, you will see “No keyword ideas came back for this topic and market. Try a broader topic.” If you have not tracked any rankings yet, you will see an empty state titled “No Google keywords monitored yet” with instructions to add one. If the feature is not active for your account, an empty state reads “Keywords are not available here.”
  • Loading states: Gray skeleton placeholders appear while tables are fetching data. When research is actively running, status text reads “Research is running. Results appear here when it finishes.”
  • Error states: If a page section fails to load, a red callout appears stating “Keyword research could not be loaded” or “Rank history could not be loaded,” reassuring you that saved data is safe, alongside a Try again button. If an individual keyword fails to pull a rank, the rank column will display “Provider error.”
  • Linked from: You can reach this page from the Site Health overview page, or via navigation options/tabs across the Site Health suite.
  • Links to: The Back to Site Health button returns you to the main Site Health dashboard. Clicking View monitored prompt takes you to the Prompts workspace. Landing page URLs in the rankings table open external live web pages in a new browser tab.

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Common support questions

Why is the “Find keywords” button disabled? The button disables if a research job is currently running, if your seed keyword is shorter than 2 characters, or if you only have “viewer” (read-only) permissions for analytics. Why is the “Refresh rank” button disabled? To prevent budget exhaustion, keywords have a strict 24-hour cooldown after a refresh. The button will also disable if you are out of monthly manual refreshes, if the keyword is paused, or if a refresh is already currently queued. What does “Brand navigational” mean? This is a flag for keywords where the searcher’s explicit intent is to navigate directly to your website (e.g., searching for your exact company name). Tagging them helps contextualize why you expect to rank #1.