What Are Baseline Metrics?
When you run your first site audit in Search Atlas, the platform captures a snapshot of your site's performance at that moment. This snapshot is your baseline — the starting point you can use to measure improvement, spot regressions, and demonstrate SEO progress over time.
Baseline data typically includes technical health scores, keyword rankings, organic traffic estimates, and on-page signals recorded during your initial audit run.
How to Access Your Audit Baseline and History
Because the exact location of audit history and baseline snapshot features can vary depending on your account setup and current platform version, the most reliable way to locate your baseline data is to:
- Log in to Search Atlas and navigate to the site auditing area of the platform.
- Look for a history, snapshots, or previous audits section within your site's audit or reporting view — this is where past audit runs are typically stored.
- Identify the earliest recorded audit entry for your site — this is your original baseline.
- Open that entry to review the metrics captured at the time of your first scan.
If you are unsure where audit history is located in your account, a support teammate can point you to the correct section for your plan and setup.
How to Compare Baseline Against Current Metrics
To measure progress, you will want to compare your baseline audit data against a more recent audit. The general approach is:
- Open your baseline audit entry and note the key metrics you want to track (for example, overall health score, number of issues, or crawl errors).
- Open your most recent audit entry for the same site.
- Compare the values side by side to identify improvements or regressions since your starting point.
If the platform surfaces a built-in comparison or date-range filter feature in your audit view, you can use that to generate a structured before-and-after report. A support teammate can confirm whether this option is available on your plan and walk you through how to use it.
How to Track Keyword Ranking Changes Over Time
For keyword-level progress, look for Left sidebar → Keywords → Rank Tracker within Search Atlas that allows you to filter by date range. Setting the start date to match your original baseline audit date will let you view how individual keyword positions have shifted since you began tracking.
If you are not sure which section of the platform contains rank history for your site, reach out to the support team for guidance specific to your account.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.