How to read the Leader X-ray, and see why

Updated October 31, 2026

Short answer: the Leader X-ray is the first screen of your workspace. It finds the 3 businesses that lead Google Maps for your keyword near you and puts your Google profile next to theirs: categories, reviews and review pace, rating, photos, hours, website and distance. Each row says whether it is a gap, how urgent it is, and how to close it. The gaps become your Overtake plan. The X-ray uses no credits.

Who you are compared with

Pack Leader searches Google Maps for your main keyword (the first keyword of your audit) at your search point: your business's center if you set one for town scans, otherwise your address. The first 3 results, not counting you, are the top 3, and #1 leads. Competitors you saved in Brand identity are added as extra columns, up to 5 businesses in all. The top 3 are read again on every X-ray.

Run it

1. Open your workspace. The Leader X-ray is the first screen. The old Gap audit link opens it too.
2. Run it for your business. It uses no credits and counts toward your plan's daily audit limit. On Free, you can run 3 Leader X-rays a calendar month.

Besides the profile checks of the gap audit, the X-ray reads the newest 30 Google reviews of you and of each of the top 3, measures the straight-line miles from the search point to each business, and lists everyone's secondary categories.

The tabs

• Overview: the sentence that says where to start, the profile table and your plan.
• Listings #1 has and Links #1 has: the gap check: the directories where the top 3 are listed and we did not find you, and the websites that link to them and not to you.
• Overtake plan: your gaps as a to-do list, with progress.
• Categories: the categories you and the top 3 use. See the category check.

Every X-ray also looks for listings near you that may not match Google's rules, at no extra cost. You find them under Leader Watch > Listings worth checking: see how to read listings worth checking, and report one to Google.

Read the profile table

Each row compares you with #1, #2 and #3. A row counts as a gap when #1 is ahead by 10% or more, or has something you don't.

Where the tiers come from: a Pack Leader study of 499 Google Maps searches. Fix first means 97 to 100% of top 3 businesses have it. High means a clear difference between the top 3 and places 4 to 10, for example a median of 275 reviews against 140. Medium means a smaller difference, such as photos and extra categories. Low means a difference of 4 points or less, such as the city in the website title (75% against 71%). The table shows this as How often the top 3 have it. See the study and how we did it. Listings and links are not measured by that study yet, so their tier reads Our pick: gaps we can close for you.

Within a tier, the larger gap comes first.

Reviews: how long a gap takes

The review pace is how many reviews each business got in the last 30 days, counted from its newest 30 reviews. If all 30 are inside the 30 days, the pace shows 30+.

When you get reviews faster than #1, the row shows about how many months it takes to close the gap: the gap divided by the difference in pace. When they get reviews as fast as you or faster, it says so: "Not closing at today's pace: they get 11 a month, you get 3."

The sentence at the top

When you have a gap check from the last 30 days, its sentence leads the screen (see what #1 has that you don't). The profile table has its own sentence, built from the biggest gap. Examples for a sample business:

• "Example Plumbing Co. leads "plumber" near you. Their primary category is Plumber, yours is Contractor. Change your primary category first."
• "Example Plumbing Co. leads "plumber" near you with 412 reviews to your 96. They get 11 a month, you get 3. Start with review requests."
• "Example Plumbing Co. leads "plumber" near you. They are 0.4 miles from the search point, you are 6.2. Your profile gaps are small, so scan your towns next."
• "Example Plumbing Co. leads "plumber" near you. Your profile matches theirs on every row we check. Check the listings and links they have next."

The X-ray states facts, such as a review count, not causes. Distance is named only when no profile row is a gap and #1 is 2 or more miles closer. To see where you can win farther out, run a local grid.

Your Overtake plan

The plan lists your gaps in tier order. Listings and links are one row each, such as Listings #1 has, where we did not find you, and the count goes down as listings go live. Each row has Do it yourself and, where we offer it, We do it. Distance is never a row.

Progress reads Gaps closed: {k} of {m}:

• A row closes only when a new X-ray or gap check measures it closed.
• For a citation order, each listing counts once its live link is in the order report.
• A listing you marked I'm already listed still counts as open until a gap check finds you.
• When you have closed a gap yourself, click I did this on its row. It shows Done, waiting to measure and counts 0 until a new X-ray or gap check measures it closed. Not done yet undoes it.

When you run the X-ray again, every row keeps its status, new gaps go to the bottom of their tier, and a closed row never reopens.