Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Competitive Research
Log in to post

Category: Competitive Research

Uncover new and exciting ways to conduct competitive analysis

  • AESEO


    Does anyone know of a good tool to drop a list of keywords into and get competitive and search volume results from? Don't want to have to enter them one by one to the Google KWT.

    | AESEO
    0
  • MattAntonino


    I'm doing research for a blog post on keyword stemming. Let me lay out a scenario that is baffling me. Queen's University campus bookstore and QueenClothing.com.au are my test sites. Queens University outranks QueenClothing for "queen clothing store" QueenClothing.com.au outranks Queen's University for "queens clothing store" IN WHAT UNIVERSE DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?!!??!? lol Why would Queen's rank higher on the singular and Queen rank higher  on the plural? This is what happens when I think I understand SEO.  (This is my first Pro Q&A question, pls be gentle if it's obvious...) ETA: I do know that Queen's University isn't plural ... but with an S it's a better match than one without.

    | MattAntonino
    0
  • Optimise


    My site has everything in the root - test.com.   www.test.com is redirected to test.com and all content is in the root; there are no subdomains. So I'm completely confused as to how the mozrank and moztrust are different.  They have the same number of links yet: Subdomain: MozRank - 3.72
    MozTrust - 3.23 Root Domain: MozRank - 3.05
    MozTrust - 2.79 This seems consistent with all my competitors too so just wondered if someone could explain why the root domain is usually/often lower?  Surely the root domain numbers should always be equal to or higher than the subdomain?

    | Optimise
    0
  • BrittanyHighland


    I'm trying to export a Xenu file to Excel, but Xenu is only giving me the option to save as a Xenu or txt file...which I can't open with Excel. What am I missing? Thanks!

    | BrittanyHighland
    0
  • cricmax


    For example, when I search in google for "Kookaburra Pro 600 wheelie kit bag", my site comes 9th on 1st page but 3rd link doesn't even match the exact key word rather it has few of the words. Can one of you expert please explain how it works? Thanks, CricMax

    | cricmax
    0
  • knielsen


    Is there any tool available in the market where there is a ranking list of fastest growth in Domain and Page Authority? I launched a job site 8 months ago and I am curious to see what % of websites (not just job specific) have experienced faster growth in a similar time frame in Domain and Page Authority to get a sense of what may have been accomplished. thank you very much,

    | knielsen
    0
  • Mrupp44


    This is a follow up to a previous question actually: My client has one domain that has 'hardwood flooring' in it and one that has 'concrete polishing' in it - both services they offer. **Would it be wise (for seo purposes) to have them both point to ONE domain (more general of course) ** **- They only have a few local competitors that aren't doing anything to rank well. ** **- They aren't trying to rank nationally. ** If the smart thing to do is to have them point to one (more general) domain using a 301 direct will there traffic drop significantly? (at least for a short time) Does it matter if they continue to keep the existing domains they are using now on their literature, business cards, etc. and let them continue pointing to the new domain or should they really start promoting the new domain name? (They do NOT want to do this). My only concern is saving them time and money by not having to build links, submit articles, social media, on and on for two different sites OK, that's like 3 questions Thank you VERY much for any thoughts or opinions on the matter! 🙂 Have a great week everybody! Matthew

    | Mrupp44
    0
  • cbrush


    Since Sep 2010 I have had a site up with minimal SEO optimization (www.chrisbrushmusic.com). Oct 29, 2012, I launched a new site on a new domain (www.chrisbrushdrums.com) with more content and tons of SEO work behind it. The content of the new site is significantly different from the old site, and I wish to keep the old site around. I have 301's in place for specific URLs on the old site that point to the new site. I have submitted xml sitemaps for the new site. As of now, the old site still outranks the new site (i.e. Google search for "nashville session drummer" and my old site is #9 - my new site is nowhere). What should I do? Thanks.

    | cbrush
    0
  • TylerReardon


    I'm looking for some great techniques to get .Gov and .Edu links. Please do not comment "Great content" because I know that. I'm looking for something beyond creating great linkworthy content.

    | TylerReardon
    0
  • starkSEO


    I'm trying to find out how much traffic a competitor gets. Is there an SEOmoz tool for this?

    | starkSEO
    0
  • 7decode


    Hello everyone, I've been busting my head now for a bit and for the life of me I can't understand how this website is ranked #1 or #2 for a moderately competitive keyword (45% According to the Keyword Difficulty Report). Anyone has any idea how is this possible or how are they doing it? Please note page and domain authority as well... Included: reports from SEOmoz and ahrefs Thank you in advance! With the purpose of protecting mi client's identity, I've hidden keywords and domains. Keyword Difficulty Report ahrefs_comp.png SEOmoz_comp.PNG

    | 7decode
    0
  • stevenbond


    Why is razorservers.com the #1 result on Google for dedicated server hosting?  The site also ranks well on Google for  the keyword dedicated server.  It outranks sites with a PageRank of 7 and 100k+ back-links. Thanks

    | stevenbond
    0
  • SCLTeamShip


    I discovered that one of my competitors, a new and mysterious company with a business name that reeks of spamming- is now on first page thanks to the few reviews received through Yelp. A few days ago, they were not even part of the game, and suddenly they are propelled to the top among big companies. I never heard of this company with a fishy business name such as I LoveKeyworddotcom. The key phrase I am talking about took me a lot of work, and we are still not on first page at this stage- there is a lot of competition for it.
    Curious to see how this new company got to the top for this key phrase, I investigated further.
    Our company is also on Yelp, minus the reviews. It would be no problem for our company to receive good reviews, but I don't know if that would be enough to help get us on 1st page, as well. So, I kept digging a bit more. I discovered  some strange things about this company on Yelp: 1. Their Yelp category was a specific keyword, which was not present in our category list. This keyword is part of the key phrase that everyone is aiming for. 2. Their business name also had another important keyword added to it, making it in fact, not the real business name. This other keyword is also part of the key phrase that everyone is fighting for. For example, I LoveKeyword1Keyword2dotcom 3. They are advertising through Yelp. 4. This particular category/keyword is not available for us (we do not advertise on Yelp). I am thinking this is a Yelp trick, but I don't want to jump to conclusions. What exactly is going on here? Is this fair?

    | SCLTeamShip
    0
  • swdmedia


    why would my campaign show duplicate content entries for www & non-www versions of my url? Here's an example I have a page called 'mydomain.com/resources/', and the campaign analysis shows it as being duplicate content, with the duplicate being 'www.mydomain.com/resources'. I don't know where I can adjust this or if it is perhaps related to some other setting, like Google Analytics or something else. /G

    | swdmedia
    0
  • eatyourveggies


    Hi all, This is a question about whether the top 10 ORGANIC Google results for a broad match is your competition, or whether it's the top 10 for a phrase match, or an exact match. I'm a newbie here but not a newbie to the world of SEO. I hope to be able answer just as many questions as I ask 🙂 QUESTION: If a customer comes to me and says, "hey, who's my (organic) competition for wedding present?" and I want to use Google to get the top 10 organic results, do I use a broad, phrase, or exact match? It seems many people think an exact match is the way to go but I think they were more referring to Adwords results / competition. I'm not trying to determine search volume for Adwords or even the search volume for organic results... I'm only interested in the top 10 competitors in the organic results. No one types in "wedding present" (with inverted commas" when doing a search in Google, so surely to see who ranks organically for wedding present I'd want to simply type in wedding present (no inverted commas, aka broad match). I understand all the concepts about how Google results cary whether you're logged in, etc, etc so I don't want to get distracted by that. And I know there's a bunch of tools we can use like the SEOMoz Keyword Analysis Tool. But I just want to know specifically what people would use (broad, phrase or exact) to look at the top 10 organic competitors are when doing a manual search in Google.

    | eatyourveggies
    1
  • lthompsonon


    I'm looking at a competitor analysis report. The number provided for 'external links' is 150. The number for 'external links to this domain' is 4860 and 'linking domains to this domain' is 232. What are the differences between these numbers?

    | lthompsonon
    0
  • homesonthesound


    I've been looking for a way to compare keywords amongst my competition websites.

    | homesonthesound
    0
  • ITRIX


    Hi All, What are the best ways to track a seo campaign successfully, other or including Google Analytic?

    | ITRIX
    0
  • FreightBoy


    I have a webpage http://freightmonster.com/free-freight-quote that currently ranks 19th in the Google SERP's for the keyword free freight quote. The keyword gets 59 exact match searches a month. Competition is high for this keyword. The keyword freight quote gets 8625 exact match searches a month and my home page http://freightmonster.com/ ranks 26th in the Google SERP for it. Competition is high for this keyword. Would I be better off creating another page http://freightmonster.com/freight-quote and doing a better job of on SEO optimization for it in the hopes of getting on page one, or given the fact that freight quote is such a highly competitive term should I just go after other long tailed keywords in my market like flatbed trucking freight quote, heavy haul trucking freight quote, RGN freight quote, etc? We have just started on SEO for organic keywords after spending over $500,000 on PPC in the last 5 years, which in our market niche is the norm. Thank you in advance!

    | FreightBoy
    0
  • CIEEwebTeam


    What has your experience been like with the API? Do you prefer a rank tracking tool? If so, which one? API: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview

    | CIEEwebTeam
    0
  • kadesmith


    I'm looking at the keyword "snow guards" for two competitor websites: snogem dot com (SG) snoshield dot com (SS) I've been watching these two for about 4 months. SG stays in the top 5 SERPs consistently, while SS bounces around from 15-20 on Google. I've looked at the competitive link comparison and SS appears to have a much better link profile when it comes to DA. Page specific metrics in OSE show SS with a higher mozrank, moztrust, internal followed links, linking root domains, total linking root domains, and linking C Blocks. It appears to me that SG has many more links, but their links seem to be many site wide exact match keyword links, and paid for advertisements on a major site in the metal roofing industry. Honestly the linking profile of SG surprises me that they rank so much higher than SS after the Panda/Penguin updates. I have two questions: 1.  When competing against these sites, should I model SG's link profile? I'm nervous to because of my previous statement thinking they will get hit with Panda/Penguin like updates. 2.  What would it take to bounce SS to competing with SG on the first page?  Is the number of links the only thing this site is missing, or is there something else to focus on.

    | kadesmith
    0
  • aalcocer2003


    Hello all, I have created a page and published it 2 days ago and it does not appear in the Google Search.How much time can usually/on average take to index a page by Google in order to appear in the search results of a web search? I have check the Google Webmaster tools and neither no urls have been reported to be blocked nor the content should be blocked. Thank you very much, Best regards, Antonio

    | aalcocer2003
    0
  • eastco


    Been getting into Local SEO a bit but still not completely up to speed on a few things. Would appreciate any input by experienced local SEO's to any parts of this: Ill ask my broader questions within the context of an example. I have a client who is a part of a keyword niche that isn't exactly what Google might consider "local". What i mean by this is that if you are a car accident lawyer and you type this into Google Google with spit out local results because it seems to know which terms are searched for with intent to find local results. This client makes essentially medical form software which I dont get any local results for when I search for their keywords. But they do have a local focus as in they have an address in a city which is a target market. The client told me they are looking to target other markets nationally as well down the road. However they don't have brick and mortar locations for these other cities so I am under the impression that it wouldn't be something we could target locally. This brings up a strange question in my mind though - if you need an address for a physical location  for each city you want target...if you want to target the whole country locally, you would need to have a location in every city? Is there any way to target local focus without purchasing a new office in every city you target? Or can you target a state with one office etc or is Google bond things down to cities or understood regions? Does it sound like this company should even be doing local? The last part to this is whether or not there is any way (tool?) to figure out what local areas are searching for you keywords? Why doesn't Google allow us to use the Keyword Search Tool to see traffic etc for more than just a nation or the globe? What I would love to see is, which cities get the most traffic for X keyword term and have the lowest competition. Then it might justify having to buy some Regis office in a random location. I feel like this doesn't exist but maybe some of you have some ideas to direct me...

    | eastco
    0
  • Thos003


    In theory, analyzing the top results for a given phrase and comparing the common words and phrases would indicate what google considers relative language to the query. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) was and still is a buzz phrase for some SEOs. But how much stock do you give to the idea that if you can determine the common language for top rankers and then duplicate that language and density of common words that your website will then rank for that query you desire? Has anyone here tested the theory of using semantic language from the results themselves to better rank?

    | Thos003
    0
  • plrkieran


    Hi, I'm a business owner who has been dabbling in SEO for years. I have a bright, capable employee with a development/coding background and I would like her to start doing full time SEO for me. (competitive analysis, link building and content marketing specifically - I like the strategy laid out here and would like her to implement it for me) What do you think is the best training resource for her to develop an in-depth understanding of SEO for my business? Any recommendations for specific courses she can take? Thanks.

    | plrkieran
    0
  • AndyHawkins


    If I am trying to assess the difficulty of ranking for a longtail keyword phrase that is 3 or more words long, should I put that phrase in quotes when I enter into the Keyword Analysis Tool or not? For example, let's say I want to see how hard it would be to rank for the phrase "best educational resources for teachers". Should I enter into the keywords analysis tool as "best educational resources for teachers" or just as best educational resources for teachers? Which one would give me the most accurate difficulty assessment for that phrase?

    | AndyHawkins
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, Is there any way to turn off personalized search in Google. I used to add &pws=0; to the search but that doesn't seem to work anymore. Thanks!

    | BobGW
    0
  • avgjoe007


    Hi all Having just built a new site, I'm now looking at how best to SEO it. In past years, I gave into the temptation to outsource the backlinking altogether. For this project though, I am taking a much more hands on approach: I am either writing or working with good content writers I am posting to Twitter + FB more regularly With regards to backlinks, I am being much more specific as to how I go about it. I want to remain very niche specific and use only trustable sites. The question I have though, is how to know how to split the backlink types? I've looked at competitors using LinkDetective, but cannot seem to work out any common denominators. Some have more blogs than articles, while others have a lot of 'unknown' types (according to LinkDetective) If you're starting from scratch, what do you aim for? If you're aiming to build 100 backlinks (hypothetically), how would you decide on the breakdown (e.g. 20% blogs, 20% articles etc) Do Panda or Penguin updates this year influence choice? Thanks!

    | avgjoe007
    0
  • Johnnyh


    Can anyone explain how to use Tom Athony's SERP Turkey tool with the Smartsheets crowdsourcing service? Thanks

    | Johnnyh
    0
  • PauloSilveira


    On august we have lost the top positions for some keywords. Our website authority is 62 (google page rank 5), and some quite small competitors appear first now (some of them have authority 22, google page rank 3!). Our only big change was the DNS server, from godaddy to dnsimple.com, which seems to be some milisseconds slower. Every other metric is in our favor: from on-page repports to site speed. Sometimes by a factor of 3 or 4. What can be happening? We have also realized that, in private browsing, rankings will change a little bit in different cities, even if they are quite close to each other.

    | PauloSilveira
    0
  • AbsoluteMike


    Hi There, I have just signed to SEOMoZ to try to uncover what some of the competition are doing links wise. I have noticed that there are so many missing in my report that are definitely live and working. I have read that in some cases it takes a while but i have also read on the forum that opensiteexplorer will only find up to 25% of all links. This is the same with my competitors links then. So i can only find a 1/4 of what's in place? Is this the case or am i missing something? Many Thanks

    | AbsoluteMike
    0
  • Sparkstone


    Hey, So I recently watched the DuckDuckGo commercial about Google's results bubble. My question is how can you get the actual keyword rankings of relevant key phrases without Google taking your locations and search history into account? Would it just be a case of clearing your cache & history from the beginning of time or is there an accurate tool (other than SEOmoz ofc that I can use? Best regards, Dan

    | Sparkstone
    0
  • shanky1


    Hello all, I would like to find better synonyms for my keywords, and dig deeper to bid / place strategy into place for them. I am currently using the adwords too but it only gives me closely related keyword ideas. Is there something "free" which can give me a better co-relation data to work with? Thanks Aditya

    | shanky1
    0
  • chichesterdesign


    Dear Community, How is it that a Google search for temperature sensors shows the second result as site **A **(http://goo.gl/zRS1L) in a higher positionthan site B (http://goo.gl/3Xy2O) which is on the 2nd page of the SERPs. Site A blatantly does not follow Google's webmaster guidelines and recommendations for design, content or code. Site B scores an 'A' for on page analysis using SEOmoz, it also has a much higher number of root domains in and Moz rank, we have checked that site B has only quality inbound links, and anchor text is natural, it follows Google's guidelines for content and code diligently, and it is on an older domain. We are satisfied that site B has not been penalised by Google, e.g Penguin algorithm updates. We have also done a website verification with Google. Site B has fresher content compared to site A. Site B also has a sitemap yet site A doesn't. We're satisfied that we can rule out the following Algorithm Factors: Penguin algorithm updates Google Notified penalties Dodgy Inbound links Dodgy Anchor text Website verification with Google Fresh vs. static content Sitemap present Server Speed Server location Domain age and about 170 other algorithm factors Does anyone have any ideas as to why site A is ranking higher than site B in Google.co.uk? Thanks in advance. CD.

    | chichesterdesign
    0
  • lbecarelli


    Hello , i compared our (www.bighunter.net) and competitor pages. Only 4 internal Followed Links are in result page . I don't understand why Thanks for any answer

    | lbecarelli
    0
  • HMK-NL


    Dear all, do you know what factors have impact on the ranking of an app in Apple's appstore? do you know what factors have impact on the ranking of an app in the Google Play-appstore? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Ben

    | HMK-NL
    0
  • Bo-Jangles


    When I go to Google non-custom search results and search the term: seo company The website "greencowseo.com" is ranked 3rd.  OpenSiteSearch shows nothing. And get this... the domain was registered 14 days ago by somebody in Egypt. Do I need to quit my SEO Moz membership and hire this guy? 🙂

    | Bo-Jangles
    0
  • delpino


    Hello, I wanted to ask if anybody knows a tool or website which does the following: You enter your competitors URLs the service will find websites which links to those URLs the service will sort these by PageRank Then you can contact these website owners and introduce your website as well and hope they'll link to you or write a blog post about you. Regards, Oliver

    | delpino
    0
  • Anti-Alex


    Hello, We're looking for suggestions on how to handle a copy cat spammer. Another website (therichest.org) has been directly coping our posts and re-writing them just enough to fly under the Google radar. They end up outranking us and we've optimized, hired seo consultants, and run every test/review possible and everyone agrees that we should outrank them at the end of the day. However, that's not the case. Here's an example: Google: nicole porche net worth therichest.org ranks 1st. The webmaster is waiting for us to post and the moment we throw up a post, they copy the post. Our link is: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/models/nicole-porche-net-worth/ It would be ok if we were able to get a clear idea on why they outrank us but no one is able to give us a clear answer on why. They're also using some kind of strange redirect system with these domains: http://celebrity-salary.com/ http://celebritysalary.org/ http://www.therichest.org/celebnetworth/ http://www.richestcelebrity.com/ http://www.celebrity-networth.com/ http://celebritynetworth.org We also noticed that their FB likes sit high in the 3-5k Likes range which doesn't make sense when their FB groups have less than 100 followers. *mini update after talking to my partner - we'd like to offer a $500 bounty for the best response. It'll be for anyone that can help us try and identify any black hat techniques they're using, and offer some white hat suggestions for us to optimize ahead.

    | Anti-Alex
    0
  • globalsources.com


    Anyone have any ideas whether there could be a chance that a site might get penalized if it is sending automated queries to Google (ie, to check rankings)? I was reading the recently updated Google Webmaster Guidelines and saw on the section - "Quality guidelines - specific guidelines" that mentioned about sending automated queries to Google... Just wondering what are the chances that Google will actually penalize a site that sends automated queries (if they are able to identify which site is doing so in the first place)..

    | globalsources.com
    0
  • endlessrange


    So I noticed in Site Explorer that my competitors mostly have internal links all over point to a page with the term I want to rank for, while very little external links. How much do internal links help? Should I have a link somewhere on every page pointing to my target page with the keyword, and then grab some external links? I link internally only when I see relevant, but maybe I'm not doing it enough. Looking forward to replies!

    | endlessrange
    0
  • conversiontactics


    I have been doing some guest blogging and its hard to find guest blogs opportunities. I have found some but they are direct competitors. Is it safe to write guest post? by the way the are not local competitors. Any suggestion please. thanks

    | conversiontactics
    0
  • Bristolweb


    A client has come to me with an issue with the marketing of their website. it is mainly focused around  the search of their name. the site is an  Magento GO hosted e-commerce based site through Magento. it requires a good amount of optimisation  and its in a very competitive market - which has high volume of searches. When entering the name of the business it doesn't show on the first page of Google but it does on Bing or Yahoo. The site name is lovehugz and is UK based The issue is when searched for  by name  lovehugz it appears on the second page, however if the search term is separated love hugz  it appears first on the first page. The site is  poorly optmised at present  with the  page title limited to the name lovehugz. Does anybody know of reasons why Google might be behaving in this manner and what steps should be taken to overcome. Optimising for the name is not the only aim here, however it something that should be in place for people searching by name,  There is a lot of work to be done to optimise the site for its essential relevant keywords to stand a chance in its market. Any ideas of help would be greatly appreciated thanks

    | Bristolweb
    0
  • sixthcents


    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.

    | sixthcents
    0
  • VinceWicks


    I'm not exactly new to SEO but totally new to local SEO. How do I check monthly searches for a specific city so that I know if it makes sense to develop a site for that a particular area.

    | VinceWicks
    0
  • stevecounsell


    Hi All I've just take on a new client and need to be able to compare their performance with a competitor's sub-folder site. The competitor is http://thebestof.co.uk/local/brightonandhove/ I've tried to add that to the competition structure in my campaign but can't use "Path" info. What do you guys do in these types of cases. BTW - TheBestOf.co.uk is a franchise with a /local/CityNames across the UK

    | stevecounsell
    0
  • Professor


    Is there any way to know what a competitors traffic is? My website seems to be continuously falling despite attempts to fix and just curious if it's us or an industry issue? Thanks in advance

    | Professor
    0
  • yoni45


    I'm rather new to this, and while I'm getting some sense of everything I'm trying to figure out what kind of scope of work lays ahead of me. The keywords I'm looking to rank for are "moderate difficulty" -- somewhere between the 45%-55% "difficulty scale" on seomoz's keyword difficulty report. Assuming I have a number of "A-grade" (according to SEOmoz's reports) optimized pages for these keywords, how many links of a given quality level should I be looking at building up? I mean, of course, the more the better, but if I'm gunning for high DA/PA pages, am I looking at dozens here or hundreds of such links? I can imagine that any answer isn't going to come with much specificity, but if there was just an "idea" of the scale of backlinking involved here, that'd be great!

    | yoni45
    0
  • matthewcashmore


    I'm trying to compare, by follower numbers, up to 50 different twitter accounts. What would be the best way to do that? I'd like twitter handle on the x axis and number on the y.

    | matthewcashmore
    0
  • ksbnok


    Do you think that if your website is from your home country. You will rank better for some keyword even when you dont have much page authority when compared to other websites having much higher page authorities from other countries.

    | ksbnok
    0

Got a burning SEO question?

Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


Start my free trial


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!

  • Support

    Connect on product support and feature requests.

Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.