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
-
Big drop in Domain authority : Languages school in Brazil
Hi, I notice today strange update on the DA of our website and competitors website as well. caminhoslanguages.com (our website) : drop from 26 to 19 bridgebrazil.com : drop from 29 to 26 rioandlearn.com : drop from 19 to 14 carioca-languages.com : drop from 22 to 15 DA drop affect all website, but bridgebrazil.com less than the other. bridgebrazil is close now. the website is rank first, but it is a business that no longer exist. thay rank first, only because it belong to an international company that have other languages schools in different countries, providing them a huge based of links high DA. Sorry to tell you, with this new update you totally miss the point. In which sense does the DA represent the quality of the websites ?? Is it not fair for small school, trying hard to get excelent website to get penalized like this, because it is really hard for them to get link from very high PA pages you know ? Could somebody give explication? If you would like to improve your algorithms, I would suggest to reduce the values of the links from companies internal linking. Because it provide unfair advantage for small business.
Competitive Research | | Bartbijen0 -
Ranking for Competitive Keywords vs. Less Competitive Keyword Variations
I'm curious about situations where a website ranks very well for query variations, but doesn't rank for the query itself (or the reverse of that). For Redfin (where I work), here is the situation with regard to keyword rankings on Google (searched today from USA, incognito)... real estate search - #4 real estate online - #4 real estate site - #5 find real estate - #9 get real estate - #16 real estate - #163 It stands to reason that a site ranking well for a competitive query should also rank well for less competitive query variations - especially query variations that are non-limiting and do not demand a custom landing page (for example, I would consider 'board games' to dramatically limit the query 'games' and be best targeted with a targeted page...not so with 'real estate site' and 'real estate'). So, my question is, what are some theories regarding situations like this? Why do some sites rank so well for competitive queries but not for non-limiting query variations? Why aren't the sites that are crushing us for 'real estate' also crushing us for 'real estate' variations (to be clear...the top sites are crushing us for both)? Is it anchor text? Is it social signals? Is it offline signals, co-occurrence, or citations? What about internal linking and site structure? I realize it's likely a mix of all this, but I'm hoping we can drum up some new ideas here. FYI, on Bing we also rank very well for 'real estate' variations, but leap up to 31st for 'real estate'. Thoughts?
Competitive Research | | RyanOD0 -
Competitive Link building
Hi Folks According to Site Explorer this link ... www.quotationspage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12032&p=98500 .... has a page Authority of 42 and a domain Authority of 87. Looking at this it seems to be 3 links embedded in a forum comment. What I would love to understand is... how valuable is this link? (Especially with Panda and Penguin?) ... How do i decide if I should also peruse a similar link for my site? Thank you in advance
Competitive Research | | PHD0 -
Slight keyword variation domain name
I have recently changed a clients domain name from a long (23 characters) to a shorter domain name that has a keyword plus a single character variation. For example and without revealing the clients real domain name, let say they are in housing. Ithe first letter in the company name is "p" so i created the doamin name as www.phousing.com It has only been two days since i submitted the new domain name and did a 301 redirect to the new page. When i do a google search i get back the result: housing.com and "did you mean housing.com Will this domain name cause me problems? Any input is greatly appreciated!
Competitive Research | | WebbyNabler0 -
Tool to compare which links competition has but i don't?
Is there a tool that I can use that will show me a list of my competition's links that I don't have?
Competitive Research | | ballhogjoni0 -
Can you track multiple domains with the same key words and not use up your keyword limit?
I have roughly 7 domains that I am trying to monitor with the same set of keywords. Is there a way to do this without using up your keyword limit. They are the same words just different sites.
Competitive Research | | sixthcents0 -
Your Favorite Tools for Competitive Analysis?
When you review your competitors online presence, what are some of your favorite tools? I like Open Site Explorer's domain comparison tool. SEMRush is great too but the data is often inaccurate.
Competitive Research | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Competitive Link Research Tool is not working
I receive a busy message each time I try. This has been out of commission the last several times I've tried it.
Competitive Research | | cmiller0