What is grid size?
Grid size is the number of scan points in the geo-grid, usually described as rows by columns: 3×3 (9 points), 5×5 (25 points), 7×7 (49 points), and so on.
A larger grid samples the same radius more densely. It does not, by itself, reach farther. Density is useful when rankings flip over short distances, such as a café strip. It is wasted when neighbouring points would show the same result.
What is scan radius?
Scan radius is the distance from the grid centre to the outer scan points. It defines how much ground the grid covers, not how many checks you run.
Radius should follow realistic travel and demand. A restaurant’s dinner catchment is not a regional plumber’s catchment. A radius that includes places you will not serve produces “weak visibility” that is not a business problem.
What is the difference between grid size and radius?
Grid size is how many coordinates you check. Radius is how far those coordinates spread from the centre. You can run a dense grid over a small area, or a sparse grid over a large area. They are independent choices.
Grid size
How many points are checked. This panel is a 3×3 grid: 9 points.
Radius
How far the outer points sit from the centre. This panel is a 7×7 grid over a wider area — more points, not automatically better data.
Does a larger grid produce better data?
No. A larger grid produces more data points, not automatically better decisions. Extra points cost time (and, in credit-based tools, credits). They also tempt people to over-interpret noise: adjacent cells that differ by one rank on a volatile query.
Better data is data that matches the question. “Are we in the pack within a 10-minute drive?” may need a modest radius and a moderate grid. “Do we appear at all across a 40-kilometre service area?” needs more spread, not necessarily 21×21 density on day one.
How does business type affect scan radius?
Business type affects scan radius because customers travel different distances for different jobs. The following are illustrative starting considerations, not Google’s rules and not a ranking prescription.
| Business context | Starting consideration | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant or café | Small radius; denser grid if the street is competitive | Meals are usually chosen nearby; ranks can change over a few blocks |
| Dentist or salon | Neighbourhood to short-drive radius | Patients and clients often stay in a local cluster, but will travel for a preferred clinician |
| Plumber or HVAC | Wider radius aligned to where jobs are accepted | Customers hire from home; the relevant geography is the service area, not the shopfront |
| Home services (cleaning, pest) | Match the suburbs you actually book | Demand follows housing, not a high street |
| Regional service provider | Larger radius, often a coarser grid first | Towns are farther apart; dense urban grids waste points on empty land |
Keyword choice still matters. “Emergency dentist” and “teeth whitening” can have different competitive geographies even for the same clinic. Map keywords to pages first: local keyword mapping.
Urban vs suburban vs regional scanning
Urban scans usually need a shorter radius because competitors sit close together. Suburban scans often need more distance to cover the drive-time people actually use. Regional scans need enough radius to include the next town, but not so much that most points fall in farmland with no searchers.
Local Falcon’s knowledge base currently suggests example starting points of about 2 miles urban, 5 miles suburban and 10 miles rural, with radius available from 0.1 to 100 miles and grids from 3×3 to 21×21. Those figures are Local Falcon’s product guidance, not Google’s. Use them as a first guess, then adjust to your catchment. Source: How to set the map scan radius and grid size.
How should a service-area business choose a radius?
A service-area business should choose a radius that covers where it accepts jobs, centred on a point that represents customer search geography — not an inflated blob meant to look like statewide coverage.
Google asks service-area businesses to hide an address when customers are not served at that address, and to set service areas as cities, postal codes or regions rather than a ranking radius. Your rank-tracking radius is a measurement setting. It is not the same as the Google Business Profile service-area list. See SAB rank tracking and GBP for service-area businesses.
Why should scan settings stay consistent over time?
Scan settings should stay consistent over time because a wider radius or a denser grid changes the sample. Average rank and coverage percentages will move even if Google’s results did not. That movement is a measurement change, not proof of SEO progress.
If you must change settings, start a new series and annotate the date. The same rule applies in tracking Local SEO over time.
When should you increase the radius?
Increase the radius when customers genuinely search and hire from farther away than the current grid covers, or when you have opened a real additional service area and need a new baseline for that geography.
Do not increase the radius because a competitor’s screenshot used a bigger map, or because empty outer cells look dramatic in a sales deck.
When should you reduce the radius?
Reduce the radius when most outer points sit where you do not trade, where you cannot fulfil jobs, or where the query has no realistic local demand. Reducing the frame makes the remaining cells more honest.
What happens if most scan points are outside realistic customer geography?
If most scan points sit outside realistic customer geography, averages fall, “not found” cells multiply, and reports start describing places you never intended to win. Teams then “fix” rankings with location pages, category stuffing or fake addresses — none of which is justified by a poorly aimed grid.
Rebuild the scan around the market you serve. Weak cells inside that market still deserve diagnosis. Weak cells outside it do not.
A practical starting framework
Use this table as a decision aid. It is not Google’s recommendation.
| Business context | Starting consideration | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dense urban storefront | Short radius, 5×5 or similar | See block-level flips without sampling the next city |
| Suburban clinic | Medium radius, 5×5 | Cover typical drive time with a readable number of points |
| Service-area trade | Radius = booked job geography; centre chosen, not assumed | Hidden-address listings still need a measurement centre |
| Regional provider | Larger radius, start coarser (3×3 or 5×5) | Confirm coverage of towns before paying for dense farmland points |
| Multi-location brand | Per-location grids, comparable settings within a market type | Company-wide one-grid reports hide branches; see multi-location tracking |
Configuring a Local Falcon scan
In Local Falcon, a map scan is configured with a business location, a keyword, a grid size and a radius. Current documented ranges are grid sizes from 3×3 to 21×21 and radius from 0.1 to 100 miles. Each scan point uses credits on Local Falcon’s credit-based plans. Campaigns can repeat the same configuration on a schedule so the settings do not drift.
For a hidden-address listing, Local Falcon’s help notes that the map may not place a grid until a centre point is set manually on the saved location. That is a configuration step, not a Google ranking tactic. Confirm the live UI against Local Falcon’s radius and grid-size guide.
Configure a Local Falcon scan once the geography is decided. Affiliate link.
Grid configuration checklist
- Write the business question before picking a radius (“pack within this drive time”, not “look bigger”).
- Set radius from customer geography and business type.
- Set grid size from how quickly ranks change across that area.
- Keep the centre honest: premises, or a chosen SAB centre — not a vanity pin.
- Drop points that fall outside where you fulfil work.
- Store grid size, radius, centre, keyword and date with the results.
- Do not change settings mid-series if you want a trend.
- Do not treat Local Falcon’s mile examples as Google policy.
Sources and further reading
- Local Falcon: How to set the map scan radius and grid size
- Local Falcon: Local rank tracking
- Google Business Profile Help: Manage your service areas
Build a Geographic Ranking Baseline
Once radius and grid size are chosen, a stored geo-grid configuration makes the first scan and later scans comparable.
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