We adopted ab initio X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) modeling for structural refinement of local environments around metal impurities in a large variety of materials. Our method enables both direct modeling, where the candidate structures are known, and the inverse modeling, where the unknown structural motifs are deciphered from the experimental spectra. We present also estimates of systematic errors, and their influence on the stability and accuracy of the obtained results. We illustrate our approach by revealing the evolution of local environment of palladium atoms in palladium-doped gold thiolate clusters upon chemical and thermal treatments.