Amazon rank tracking · last checked 13 October 2026
Amazon rank tracking by hand: keyword rank, Best Sellers Rank, and a worked log.
What Amazon itself says BSR measures, why it isn't the same as search position, and a four-week keyword rank log for a fictional product with each move explained. Free template included.
Amazon's own description of Best Sellers Rank on this page comes from Amazon, Guide to Amazon sales rank: Best Sellers Rank (BSR) (published 3 September 2025, read 13 October 2026). The rank logs below use a fictional product and ASIN to show the method. They are not real data.
Two different ranks, and sellers mix them up all the time
"Amazon rank" means two different numbers, and a tracker that only gives you one of them leaves out half the picture.
| Best Sellers Rank (BSR) | Keyword (search) rank | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Amazon says BSR "indicates a product's sales rank compared to similar products in the Amazon store", within a category. | Where your listing appears in search results for one exact phrase, at one time, in one location. |
| What moves it | Amazon calculates it "using sales volume data". Recent and all-time sales both count, recent ones more. Page views and reviews don't affect it. | Amazon doesn't publish the formula. Relevance and sales history both play a part, and so do your ads. |
| Where you see it | The "Product information" section of the detail page. | Only by searching, or with a tracker that searches for you. |
| How many you have | One per category. Amazon's example is a tumbler at #1 in Tumblers & Water Glasses and #2 in Kitchen & Dining. | One per keyword, per marketplace, per delivery location. |
| Across stores | Different in each store. Amazon's example: #1 in the US and #23 in the UK or Japan. | Different in each store too. |
Amazon puts the link between them plainly: "a top BSR doesn't always equal a high organic search ranking, and a high organic ranking isn't guaranteed to have a high BSR score. But both rankings relate to sales volume." In practice BSR tells you whether you're selling, and keyword rank tells you which searches the sales come from. Track both.
How to track BSR by hand
Open the product page at the same time every day and copy the BSR for the main category, not the subcategory, into a sheet. Recent sales weigh more, so a single good afternoon can move a mid-ranking product a long way. Never judge on one reading. Here is a week for a fictional product in Kitchen & Dining:
| Day (09:00 check) | Main category BSR |
|---|---|
| Mon | 4,820 |
| Tue | 5,310 |
| Wed | 1,950 |
| Thu | 3,400 |
| Fri | 4,960 |
| Sat | 5,120 |
| Sun | 4,700 |
Wednesday's 1,950 looks like a breakthrough. It is one bulk order. Sort the seven readings and take the middle one: 1,950, 3,400, 4,700, 4,820, 4,960, 5,120, 5,310. The weekly median is 4,820. The average (4,323) gets dragged down by the spike, so the median is the number to compare week on week. If next week's median is 3,900, sales really have moved. If it is 4,750, they haven't, whatever Wednesday said.
Two more rules. Compare BSR only within the same category, because #2,000 in Kitchen is a different volume from #2,000 in Office Products. And if your variations share one detail page, the BSR covers the whole parent, not the colour you are looking at.
How to track keyword rank by hand
The full checklist is on the Amazon rank tracker page: a private window, a fixed delivery postcode, organic and sponsored counted separately, and positions written as page and position (P1-7 means page 1, seventh organic result). The short version: the same keywords, the same weekday, the same time, the same postcode, every time. Log what you changed since last week, or the numbers can't be explained.
A worked four-week log
Fictional espresso tamper, three keywords, checked Mondays at 09:00 on amazon.com, desktop, postcode 10001. The columns are a subset of the free rank log template (CSV).
| Date | Keyword | Organic | Sponsored seen | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-05 | espresso tamper 51mm | P2-5 | N | none |
| 2026-10-05 | coffee tamper | P4-11 | N | none |
| 2026-10-05 | 51mm tamper calibrated | P1-9 | Y, top of search | none |
| 2026-10-12 | espresso tamper 51mm | P1-14 | N | title now leads with "51mm espresso tamper" (8 Oct) |
| 2026-10-12 | coffee tamper | P4-3 | N | title change |
| 2026-10-12 | 51mm tamper calibrated | P1-4 | Y, top of search | title change |
| 2026-10-19 | espresso tamper 51mm | P1-12 | N | none |
| 2026-10-19 | coffee tamper | >P3 | N | out of stock 15 to 17 Oct |
| 2026-10-19 | 51mm tamper calibrated | P1-6 | N | paused top-of-search bid adjustment (16 Oct) |
How to read it:
- "espresso tamper 51mm" went from P2-5 to P1-14 and held at P1-12. That is a real move: it started after the title change and held for a second week with nothing else changed. Moving onto page 1 matters more than any move within page 3.
- "coffee tamper" dropped off the first three pages on 19 Oct. The listing was out of stock from 15 to 17 Oct. Re-check before you change anything else. A rank lost to a stock-out usually tells you nothing about the listing.
- "51mm tamper calibrated" slipped from P1-4 to P1-6 after the top-of-search bid adjustment was paused. Two places for no ad spend is the trade you want to see. If organic rank had fallen to page 2 instead, the paid slot was holding it up, and you'd price that with the PPC bid worked example.
How often to check
| Situation | Keyword rank | BSR |
|---|---|---|
| Launch, or within two weeks of a title, image or price change | Daily, 3 to 10 keywords | Daily, judge on the 7-day median |
| Running a ranking push with ads | Daily for the pushed terms | Daily |
| Stable product | Weekly, same weekday and time | Weekly median of daily readings, or one weekly reading at a fixed time |
| Long-tail terms that rarely move | Every two to four weeks | n/a |
The time adds up. If one keyword check takes you about 90 seconds, 10 keywords daily is 15 minutes a day, or 105 minutes a week, for one product in one marketplace. Past roughly that point a scheduled tracker earns its cost, and that's when Helium 10, Jungle Scout or Data Dive are worth comparing. The rank tracker comparison sets them out from their own pages.
"Scout rank" on Amazon: what people usually mean
People searching "scout rank amazon" usually mean one of two Jungle Scout numbers. One is Jungle Scout's estimated monthly sales, which it works out from BSR and category. The other is the keyword position shown in Jungle Scout's Rank Tracker. Neither is an Amazon number. The estimate is a model built on BSR, and the rank tracker shows the same keyword rank you can check by hand above. The Jungle Scout rank tracker and BSR page covers what each one measures and four checks before you trust a BSR-based estimate.
Where CEILR fits, stated plainly
CEILR's scheduled rank tracking is gated. It runs only on workspaces where licensed data access and the scheduler have been switched on, so not every US$39.95/month account has it. The manual method and the CSV template on this page are free and work today. Where tracking is on, CEILR records organic and sponsored positions separately, timestamps each one, never backfills missing days, and shows each keyword's rank beside the max CPC your margin supports. That max CPC comes from your fees, for example the Amazon Australia seller fees or FBA fees by size tier, and from the break-even ACoS for your category.
Questions sellers ask
How do I track my Amazon keyword rank?
Search the exact keyword in a private window with a fixed delivery postcode. Count organic results only, write the position as page and position (P1-7), note separately whether you appeared in a sponsored slot, and log the date, time and anything you changed. Repeat at the same time each week, or daily during a launch.
What is the difference between BSR and keyword rank?
Best Sellers Rank is Amazon's sales rank for a product within a category, calculated from recent and all-time sales. Keyword rank is where the product appears in search results for one phrase. Amazon says a top BSR doesn't always mean a high organic search ranking.
How often does Amazon BSR update?
Amazon says Best Sellers lists are frequently updated and that recent sales count more than older sales. Because one day's orders can swing it, compare the median of seven daily readings rather than any single reading.
Do reviews or page views affect BSR?
No. Amazon says BSRs aren't influenced by page views or customer reviews. BSR comes from sales volume.
Is there a free Amazon rank tracker?
Doing it by hand with a spreadsheet is free. CEILR's rank log template is a free CSV. CEILR's scheduled rank tracking is gated and only runs on workspaces where it has been enabled.
What does scout rank mean on Amazon?
It usually refers to Jungle Scout figures: its estimated monthly sales, which are modelled from BSR, or the keyword position in its Rank Tracker. Amazon itself publishes Best Sellers Rank, not a "scout rank".
Sources, last checked 13 October 2026
- Amazon, Guide to Amazon sales rank: Best Sellers Rank (BSR): BSR definition, calculation, multiple and per-store ranks, BSR versus search ranking. Published 3 September 2025, read 13 October 2026.
- CEILR rank log template (CSV): column definitions used in the worked log.
CEILR is independent from Amazon. Nothing here is advice from Amazon. Amazon controls search and can change how it ranks results.
From fees to a bid