Core concepts

This page defines the objects and rules the rest of the docs build on. Each section stands on its own, so you, or an AI agent, can quote it without the surrounding context.

Account

A Rankbox account is one login: an email address with a password, or a Google account. The account holds one subscription and one or more sites.

• An account has exactly one subscription, billed by Stripe, whatever the number of sites.
• An account has one primary site, created in onboarding, and can add more sites with Studio.
• An account has one login. Rankbox has no team seats, roles or member invitations.
• Your name comes from sign-up and is used in the dashboard greeting. Your email receives receipts and account emails.

Site

A site is one website on your account, with its own brand, settings, keywords, articles, credits, API keys and connections. Almost everything in the dashboard belongs to one site, and the dashboard shows one site at a time.

Primary and Studio sites

A Studio site is pending while its first payment is processed, active while it runs, and archived after it leaves Studio. A site scheduled to leave keeps working until its removal date, then stops. An archived site keeps its articles and settings and can be restored from Studio. See Studio: run several sites.

Keywords and the content plan

Keywords are the searches a site's articles target. Rankbox proposes them in onboarding from a read of your website, and you confirm, remove or add to the list before planning.

The content plan is the set of articles Rankbox has planned for a site: one article per confirmed keyword, up to 30, ordered quick wins first. Confirming onboarding saves the plan. The first 4 articles become ideas and the rest are scheduled one a day, starting the next day.

• Keyword search volumes are AI estimates. Rankbox has no search-volume data source.
• The first 4 keywords are tracked; the rest are saved as discovered. The Rank page lists both.
• A keyword with no article is a gap. On the Rank page, Plan it creates an idea for it.

See Content plan and calendar.

Article

An article is one planned or written piece for a site. It has a title, a target keyword, a meta description, a body in Markdown, tags, a score, an estimated traffic figure, a competition rating, an AI signal, an optional scheduled date and queue position, and, once known, a live URL.

Article statuses

"Published" in Rankbox means the article is finished and ready for your site. Whether it is on your site yet depends on your connection: an API site has it after its next sync, and a Webflow or Shopify site receives it straight after writing. See How publishing works.

Credits

Credits meter the work Rankbox does for each site. Every credit belongs to one site, not to the account.

• An article credit is reserved when writing starts and returned if writing fails.
• A backlink credit moves only when a link is verified live on the host page.
• Editing by hand, the editor's AI actions on a selection, scoring, planning and publishing never spend a credit.
• A Studio site added part-way through a period receives a prorated share of each allowance for that period.
• Credit balances are read-only from the browser; only Rankbox's server processes can change them.

See Plans and credits.

Autopilot and the queue

Autopilot is the engine that writes a site's scheduled articles for you. It is switched on for every new site, with a pace of 7 articles a week ("Every day").

• Pace is the number of articles a week, from 1 to 7. Autopilot waits 7 ÷ pace days between articles for a site: one day at 7 a week, a week at 1 a week.
• The queue is the site's scheduled articles in order. Order is set by queue position, which the calendar keeps in step with the scheduled dates; moving an article on the calendar reorders the queue to match.
• What it writes: when a site is due, autopilot writes the scheduled article with the lowest queue position, which is the earliest one on the calendar. It writes one article per site each time it runs.
• When it skips a site: the site has no trial or paid plan, the site isn't live (for example a Studio site past its removal date), the site has no article credits left, or nothing is scheduled.
• Pausing: switching Write automatically off in Settings → Autopilot stops new writing. Scheduled articles wait; nothing is lost.

The engine's state appears on Overview (Autopilot On or Off) and above the article list as one of: "Autopilot is on", "Autopilot is paused", "Autopilot is ready when you are" (no trial yet) or "Autopilot has used this month's articles". See Autopilot and the publishing schedule.

SEO and GEO score

The SEO and GEO score is a number from 0 to 100 that Rankbox computes from an article's title, target keyword, meta description and body. It is deterministic: the same text always gets the same score, in the editor, in the article list and on the Rank page.

The score is a weighted checklist: keyword in the title, keyword in the introduction, keyword density, content length, section structure, sub-headings, lists, an FAQ section for AI engines, links, meta description length and readability. Each check passes, warns or fails. The score measures how ready an article is to rank and be quoted; it is not a ranking position and not a measured citation. See The SEO and GEO score.

API key

An API key is a secret that lets one site's code read that site's published articles through the REST API. Keys start with rv_live_, for example rv_live_xxxxxxxxxxxx.

• One key, one site. A key belongs to exactly one site and only ever returns that site's articles. A site can have several keys, for example one per environment.
• Shown once. The full key appears once, when you create it. Rankbox stores only a hash and shows a short prefix afterwards.
• Needs a plan. Creating a key needs a trial or paid plan. A valid key stops working, with HTTP 402, while its site has no plan or isn't live.
• Revocable. Revoking a key stops it at once and can't be undone. Replace key makes a new one so you can swap it in first.

See Authentication and API keys.

Connections and the MCP server

A connection is how a site receives its articles or how an AI tool reaches Rankbox. You manage them in Dashboard → Integrations.

A site's overall connection status is the best of its keys and platform connections: Live, Not syncing, Waiting or Not connected, shown on Overview under Your site. See How publishing works and The Rankbox MCP server.

Live URL

A live URL is the public address where a published article lives on your site. Rankbox stores one per article.

• Sources, in practice: your site reporting it with PATCH /api/public/v1/articles/{id}, a Webflow or Shopify publish, your sitemap, or a URL pasted in Backlinks → Give links.
• A reported live URL must be a public http or https address on the site's own domain: the website in Settings, or the domain verified for the backlink exchange.
• The backlink exchange verifies hosted links at the live URL, so an article without one can't settle a link.

See Live URLs and verification.

Trial and paid plan

The free trial and the paid plan unlock different things. Rankbox decides from your subscription's status, checked on the server for every action.

The trial converts to the paid plan automatically on day 8 unless you cancel. Unlock everything now in Plan & Billing ends the trial early and takes the first payment straight away. See The free trial.

Estimates and measured data

Some numbers in Rankbox are measured from your content; others are modeled. The docs and the dashboard label estimates as estimates.

Related

• How Rankbox works: how these objects move through the pipeline.
• A tour of the dashboard: where each concept appears on screen.
• Plans and credits: credit grants and resets in full.
• API overview: the article shape your site receives.
• FAQ: short answers built on these definitions.