# Time zones

> Ranqo's date ranges start at midnight in your browser's time zone. What that means for chart dates, and when a colleague elsewhere sees other figures.

Source: https://ranqo.ai/docs/methodology/time-zones

Ranqo shows dates by your calendar, not the server's. Date ranges start at midnight where you are, and chart points are dated by the day a run finished where you are. Most of the time you will not notice. It matters when you compare figures with someone in another time zone, or figures from two pages.

## Where your time zone applies

- **Date ranges.** A preset such as **Last 30 days** starts at midnight in your time zone and runs to the present. A custom range runs from the start of its first day to the end of its last day, also in your time zone. Pages read the date picker differently; see the table below.
- **Chart points.** A run is plotted on the calendar day it finished in your time zone. See [One point per run](https://ranqo.ai/docs/methodology/one-point-per-run).
- **Dates in labels**, such as the date after *As of* on a [carried value](https://ranqo.ai/docs/methodology/carried-values), or the run date on Source Trends.

Ranqo reads the time zone your browser reports. If it reports none, or one Ranqo does not recognise, UTC is used.

### How each page reads a date range

| Page | Presets | Custom range |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Visibility | Start at midnight that many days ago | As picked |
| Competitors | **Last 365 days** reads 90 days | Reads the last 7 days for a range of up to 14 days, 30 for up to 60, and 90 for anything longer, ending now |
| Sources | Include today in the count, so each starts one day later than on Visibility | As picked |
| Prompts, Tracking tab | **Last 7 days** reads 7 days; every other preset reads 30 days, and the tab's subtitle says which | Reads the last 30 days |
| A prompt's insights page | **Last 365 days** reads 90 days, while its changes are labelled against the previous 365 days | Runs from its first day to the present; the end date is not applied |

On the Competitors page, a competitor's detail starts its range exactly that many days before the current moment, not at midnight.

Visibility and Competitors place a run in a range by when it finished. The Tracking tab of Prompts and a prompt's insights page use when it started, so a run that crosses midnight where you are can fall inside a range on one page and outside it on the other.

## When runs happen

Ranqo checks for brands that are due at 00:00 UTC every day, and a brand is due once every 7 days. A run takes a while to finish, and its finish time is what dates it.

00:00 UTC is the evening of the previous day in the Americas and the morning of the same day in Asia. So a single run can be dated on different days for two people. Take a run that finishes at 01:30 UTC on 10 September:

| City | Local time | Dated |
| --- | --- | --- |
| New York | 21:30 on 9 September | 9 September |
| Berlin | 03:30 on 10 September | 10 September |
| Tokyo | 10:30 on 10 September | 10 September |

## Comparing with a colleague elsewhere

Two people looking at the same brand at the same moment can see different numbers when a run sits near the edge of the range. Say you are in Berlin and your colleague is in New York, and you both pick **Last 30 days**:

- **Your ranges start at different moments.** Midnight in Berlin comes six hours before midnight in New York. A run that finished between the two is inside one range and outside the other.
- **The figures follow the runs.** One of you may count that run and the other not, so visibility, Share of Voice and the change beside them can differ.
- **A carried value can appear for one of you only.** If the edge run is the only one in a short range, one person sees it and the other sees the previous run marked *As of*.
- **The same run carries a different date.** Your chart point and your colleague's can sit on neighbouring days.

Nothing is wrong in either view. Each is correct for its own calendar.

### To compare like for like

- **Pick a range whose ends fall between runs.** Runs are about a week apart, so a custom range that starts and ends a few days away from any run holds the same runs for everyone.
- **Compare single runs in [Snapshots](https://ranqo.ai/docs/guides/snapshots).** A run's own scores are calculated once, over that run, and are the same for everyone who opens it.
- **Name the run, not the day.** "The run of 9 September, New York time" is unambiguous; "last Tuesday's numbers" is not.

## What does not follow your time zone

- **Monthly allowances** reset by the calendar month on Ranqo's servers, which run on UTC. See [Plans and limits](https://ranqo.ai/docs/guides/plans-and-limits).
- **Site Tracking's daily charts** on the [Traffic](https://ranqo.ai/docs/guides/traffic) page group visits by UTC day.
- **Google Analytics figures** use the dates Google Analytics reports for your property.