Understanding Competitive Domain Analysis
-
I'm finding this site great for getting at the information that I need but I am having trouble understanding what I see as conflicting Competitive Domain Analysis and keyword research results for companies in my sector.
My company is new to the sector we are in and I am tracking two really well established leaders (Moma and Poppa bear) and one company that is new to the sector (baby Bear) too.
When looking at the competitive domain analysis the Momma and Poppa Bear wipe the floor with baby bear (and of course me!) on every single criteria; but when I see who is actually ranking best for the most competitive keywords for our sector who wins...baby bear; I just dont understand it. What is the reason for the disparity between the domain analysis and actual performance?
Many thanks,
Sinead
-
Many thanks - very clear
-
If a post on this topic appears over there it will get a lot of links from Q&A.
-
I bet I know a couple of people over at the help desk who would love you to post an expanded version on the help hub.
-
Thanks for explaining this, Cyrus.
This question is asked in Q&A over and over and over again.
The people asking believe that the SEOmoz results should match the SERPs. When they don't they think that the results are flawed or Google isn't treating them fairly.
Maybe your answer could be posted somewhere and linked to from the tool results with anchor text..... "What do these results mean?".......... or......"How to use these results?"
-
Hi Sinead,
The most likely reason is that Competitive Domain analysis looks at link factors, and not keyword factors. For example, competitive domain analysis doesn't look at important factors such as title tags or incoming anchor text.
The way to think about competitive domain analysis is that all things being equal, the site with the better metrics, especially Domain Authority, one site will rank higher than the other.
Unfortunately, in the real world, nothing is ever equal.
One thing you can do for a deeper understanding is to check each keyword using the SEOmoz Keyword Analysis tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty
This takes on-page factors into account, as well as link metrics, and might give you some insight into why one site ranks above another.
-
Hi Egol - thanks for the answer - I must have an incorrect understanding of what the competitive analysis does - my thinking was that the competitive analysis looks at what industrry experts considered to be the building blocks for an optimized site and they compared companies on this basis - but critically that this analysis suggested who would rank higher on SERPs
i.e if Company A and B are in direct competition but company A had far superior # of external linking sites, # of externally linking C- Blocks, Far superior total links that company A will rank higher for the most competitive search terms for that sector.
Am I right in thinking then that a domain authority score isn't what I should be looking to emulate if I want to achieve the same or better SERP ranking?
Thanks again,
Sinead
-
What is the reason for the disparity between the domain analysis and actual performance?
They measure different things.
If you want to know who is accumulating the most Google Swack then just check the SERPs. You get a really simple presentation there.
Not trying to be a wise guy... just sayin'.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What are some good SEO tactics to defend our position against an upcoming competition in a near monopolistic market?
I'm doing SEO for a medium sized client whose area of business is targeting a very niche audience, in an almost monopolistic market. We're currently in top 3 ranks in our head terms. However, market research has indicated the threat from an upcoming competitor. The competitor is relatively larger and is well established in other countries. Is there something I could do from my end to defend/maintain our current position?
Competitive Research | | iQuanti0 -
How can you rank nr 1 for high competitive keyword with low DA and only 1 backlink?
Hi! Was wondering if anyone can explain this a bit clearer...
Competitive Research | | AleksanderOlsen
Image attatched... How is it possible to rank on Google Norway for spot nr.1 (page in English language) and spot nr.2 (page in Norwegian language) , when all you competitors have higher PA, DA and a lot more backlinks and better on-page optimization according to MOZ? Is there something I´m misunderstanding?
Just when I thought SEO started to make sense 😞 7sXH00d0 -
Trying to understand the sporadic and not relevant search results from Google?
Trying to understand the sporadic search results from Google I have been searching for answers to my situation for two
Competitive Research | | rdominey
months now with little results. I have had numerous answers and various
solutions to the issue, and I have followed through with them trying to solve
this problem but the results are the same. Beginning in late April our SERP went down drastically. I
have checked and cleaned the website of any errors and issues that I can find with
no change in the results. I have submitted a request to Google to be
reconsidered and have been told now three times that we are not being manually
penalized. The last request I asked for
any specific reason that we were seeing these very unusual SERP results and got
no answer. The best way that I can explain the issues is with a specific example. These results are similar with other pages throughout the website: www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/ If you search for a specific page Title you get some really strange results: Search for: Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas The results vary from day to day but for the most part remain very similar: ·** Black and White Photos on Canvas make Amazing
Wall Art** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/.../black-and-white-photos-on-can... Mar 20, 2012 – ... shots to Black and White. What a great way to display your photos on canvas. ... Gallery Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters
That WOW! #53 | PR: ·** Sitemap - Get Your Photos on Canvas** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/sitemap/ Use our Sitemap to help locate exactly what you are looking for and navigate directly to that ... FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs. #54 | PR: ·** Like Get Your Photos on Canvas on Facebook** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/like-us-on-facebook/ Like Us on Facebook and keep in touch with Special Offers and information about Get Your **...**FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs. #56 | PR: ·** [Help Get Your Photos on Canvas](http://www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/help/)** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/help/ Our Help Pages have information about Get Your Photos on Canvas, our Gift Cards, What our ... FREE Enhancements · MORE Enhancements · Gallery Wrap vs. #62 | PR: ·** Free Convert to Black and White for Your Photo on
Canvas Prints.** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/free-black-and-white-adjustments/ ... OF CHARGE. We produce the very best quality Black and White Photos on Canvas in the business. ... Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters That WOW! #67 | PR ·** Large Format Photographic Canvas Wall Displays - Get Your Photos ...** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/wall-displays/ Photo on Canvas Wall Displays or Wall Groupings can be produced in a wide variety of Layouts including ... Wrap vs. Museum Wrap · Before & Afters That WOW! #73 | PR The target page does not show up in the top 350 search results yet all of the above pages are listed in the top 100. It is important to note that most of these pages do not even contain the keywords allery Wrap vs Museum Wrap or any variation of those keywords. Yet, they appear in the displayed results? If you search just Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap our title page appears as #2 on Google? ·** Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Photos on Canvas** www.getyourphotosoncanvas.com/gallery-wraps-vs-museum-wraps/ Gallery Wrap vs Museum Wrap Canvas, two options for your photo on canvas prints. Find out the difference between Gallery Wrap and Museum Wrap. #2 | PR Just as a point of interest, both keyword phrases score A in on page results. I would be grateful for any ideas or assistance on what might be causing these results and of course guidance on what I need to do to correct the problem. Thank You.0 -
Competitive Domain Analysis
What is the best way to improve this in reference to my competition? My site(s) are formatted well, returning no errors or warnings. I have removed my keyword meta-tag and tested my sites against the keywords that we want to appear under. Now I need to close the gap on the competition.
Competitive Research | | bobbabuoy0 -
How come the results in Google vary with domains
Hello, How is everyone doing? My question is about the google search engine results page. How come some results have the www. in front of them and some don't. Also what are the SEO implications of having www. in front of your search results vs. not. Is this something to do with canonical? I have included a screen shot so you will see what I mean. One result is www.gearyi.com and the result without the www is ingenexdigital.com. R6GLL.png
Competitive Research | | digitalops0 -
Best Way to Consolidate Domains/Rankings After Purchase of Competitor
One of my customers is buying a competitor. The competitor has a site that usually ranks just 1-2 spots below the main site that we manage for them (our site has been up for about a year, and their's is 15-years old). I am wondering what is the best way to consolidate the rankings/websites to take advantage of the purchase of the competitor's web assets. I would love to leave both sites up and just get 2 top-25 links to our products, but with no more marketing being done under the competitor's name, I assume their rankings will degrade. Would a basic 301 re-direct on a page-by-page basis be enough to 'steal' all of the juice their domain name/site has built? Is there some other method of using an older domain to boost the rankings of a newer one (I am assuming they only rank as well as we do because of how long they've been active - all of our metrics are better than theirs across the board). Thanks for any help/advice the community here can provide!
Competitive Research | | dschapira0 -
My Competition is using some Strange Achord Text and Inbound Links
I was doing some research and a lot of my competition are websites from Universities, but I got surprised when I saw that a lot of their Anchor Text where things like Buy Viagra , Play poker , Buy Cialis , a lot of their inbound links where about things like that , one of the sites I was doing research on was www.imba.ie.edu , this site was #1 for the keyword I want that is related to education. Also other sites on the #1 page of google for this keyword (universities websites) had the same kind of inbound links and achord texts. Whats going on here??
Competitive Research | | globalcampus0 -
Does SEOMoz (or anyone) offer a measurement of "overlapping" links between 2+ domains?
I'm trying to judge how much incremental value we'd see from 301'ing an old domain vs. revitalizing the old domain's content. My gut feeling is that most of the links to the two sites are from the same set of websites so it wouldn't add much value to 301 the old domain. I've seen the opposite of this done with Competitive Link Analysis (e.g show links that you don't have that your competitor does have). Is there a tool available that can take 2 or more sites and tell me for instance - 72% of the inbound links or linking root domains are the same?
Competitive Research | | Jeff_DomainTools0