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's a good way to get started with competitive research?
Hi all, SEO noob here. I'm doing an audit for a firm that makes specialized accounting software. It's a relatively new firm, with a barebones website. My client has identified three direct business competitors. In addition, I see indirect competitors (such as product reviews) on the SERP for a relevant keyword phrase. I want to provide actionable advice for my client. What information should I present? I'd like to help my client understand: Why my client's competitors are outperforming them on the SERPs What my client needs to do to overtake their competitors What information should I present to my client? Thanks, all.
Competitive Research | | AndyKubrin0 -
Difficult to pinpoint competitive differences
Hi moz, Im currently working with a client that has a number of affiliates that work under similar URLs but operate independently. For example I work with client.com and we are concerned about SEO and ranking competition from affilate1.client.com, affiliate2.client.com etc. As it stands right now, the domain client.com has a higher DA, the homepage has a higher PA, and the equity passing links, both internal and external are much higher as well as number of linking domains, yet for whatever reason for many of the keywords we attempt to optimize for, the smaller affiliates often rank higher. The only things ive been able to pinpoint is that affiliate1.client.com has a spam score of 2 (rather than 4, for client.com) and the homepage has more total links. External anchor text is pretty branded across the web so i can't imagine it playing into keyword associations. Lastly the sites are constructed and appear very similar so basic on page keyword best practices have been taken care of. We worry that because affiliate.client.com has been at the SEO game longer, in addition to Google only linking two sites from a domain per search, we will never be able to rank for the keywords we want to rank for. How else can I go about a competitive analysis if I've taken into account everything said above? Any help will be very appreciated.
Competitive Research | | Resolute0 -
How to understand a site's current ranking
I know this is basic stuff, so sorry for the beginners post... I offer primarily web design services, and I need to know when taking on a new client, how can I assess the current 'lay of the land' for their site in terms of their SEO? I have had some issues in the past where launching a new design negatively affected their performance for their keywords, and obviously I would like to avoid this in future without having to go to 3rd parties. In particular I have an issue where the client themselves are very bad at giving information about what keywords they currently rank for, and what SEO activities they may have done in the past. How can I make these assessments myself? thanks for any help p
Competitive Research | | panamandm0 -
What's the value of Exact Match Keyword Domains vs. Company Name Domains?
Hey Mozers, I was in a discussion this morning about the value of Exact Match Keyword domains vs. a company name domain and wanted to get a little more clarification. Let's say we are doing a site for a company called Favored Dental, and they have had the domain favoredental.com for quite a while and have their authority built up in it. Is it better to have favored-dental.com or favoreddental.co or keep its current form? The reasoning behind the alternate domains would be they have the exact match keyterm, in this case lets say "Favored Dental" is the keyterm we were going after. To my knowledge EMDs aren't as relevant as they'd use to be as Google would rather branding of companies instead of keyterm domains? Is this correct, or do EMDs of keywords you're going after hold higher authority? Thanks for the clarification!
Competitive Research | | MonsterWeb280 -
Why do keyword competition rankings differ between Google and SeoMoz?
I am a novice at keyword ranking etc. so I appreciate your patience! I checked a longtail keyword - how do i get out of this relationship - in Google AdWords and it came back 'low competition.' When I entered it in SeoMoz it came back as 'very competitive.' Any thoughts? I appreciate your help.
Competitive Research | | UncleTodd0 -
Competitor analysis
Hi This is obviously a well worn question (I've read the great blog by Sam Crocker last year - see below), but I'm looking for an updated set of opinions on sources of competitor data. The competitor data I'm interested in is traffic volumes either aggregated or disaggregated by referral source (i.e. organic search, PPC, email, social etc.). The types of data I've checked so far are Google Trends for websites (no disaggregation), Alexa (some good sources of free data) and Experian's Hitwise (too expensive for my current needs). In addition I'm aware that Compete will be providing an interface for such data in the UK in January at reasonable rates for what I'm after. I'm interested in views on these and other sources in relation to experience of their relative accuracy, costs, pros, con etc. Ideally I'm looking for something that is free, comprehensive, and is not being used by the competition - is that too much to ask!!! 😉 Any inputs would be greatly appeciated. Thanks in advance! Neil Sam's great blog: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/monitor-competitor-traffic
Competitive Research | | mccormackmorrison0 -
Would buying the domain 'howtoget-a-girlfriend.com' help organically
for the exact search 'how to get a girlfriend' in google? How-to-get-a-girlfriend.com and howtogetagirlfriend.com are taken, so I just wanted to see if this was close enough to help google.
Competitive Research | | insitegoogle1 -
Question regarding back link analysis and anchor text
Hello, I am looking at my competitors back link analysis and comparing a range of link based metrics from the top 10 SERPS. I am then putting this data into excel and comparing our back link profiles. When looking at the anchor text distribution i am not sure whether to look at exact match anchor or phrase match anchor. For example, one of the companies I am looking at holds positions 3 and 4 in the SERPS. Looking at their linking profile I can see that only 1.7% of their links use the exact match anchor 'widget'. Looking at their phrase match anchor is an entirely different story, 93.5% of anchor links contain 'widget' somewhere. i.e. 'cheap widgets', 'widget sale', 'buy widgets at www.examplewidget.co.uk' etc. Obviously their exact match and phrase match anchor distribution tell a completely different story. THIS IS TRUE FOR MANY OF THE TOP 10 SERPS. Therefore, should I be looking at phrase match anchors instead of exact? Side note: would people recommend targeting anchors with 'brandname widget' based on predictions of Google giving weighted anchor more weight. Robert.
Competitive Research | | 87ROB0