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
-
How to understand if a certain company doing SEO or not?
Hi guys, I am wondering how we can tell that the certain company doing SEO or not?
Competitive Research | | ahmetkul0 -
How important is a keyword rich domain name for ranking?
I've read that Google has lowered the relevancy of a keyword rich domain name in recent years, but I have a scenario with a client that makes me think otherwise. My client has a particular phrase that they're trying to get rank for and are currently in position 3 of Google. Their primary competitor has position1. Using the Keyword Analysis in Moz Pro, my client has a competitor beat out in Page Authority (45 vs 36), # Root Domains Linking to Page (98 vs 9), Domain Authority (35 vs 24), and # Root Domains Linking to Domain (122 vs 15). The main difference is that the competitor has the exact phrase as part of their domain. Other than that, the phrase (on my client's site) is used in title tags, heading tags, and throughout page content. I can provide additional information if necessary, but does anybody have any general advice about this scenario?
Competitive Research | | robotninja0 -
Root Domain Metrics Stagnant for 3 weeks now
We are doing a Competitive Domain Analysis for a client and 2 of their competitors. The results from the Root Domain Metrics have been ok from the past months where in the results we are getting changes every time the website is re-crawled by SEOMOZ to update its analysis. However, in the past few weeks, the results we are getting for the Root Domain Metrics have remained the same even after three weeks. We have attempted a separate Open Site Explorer analysis for the client and their competitors but be are getting the same results. From the "Domain Authority" to the "No Followed Linking Root Domains", the results have remained the same for three weeks. Could anything be affecting the results or is it just the fact that the links have not changed (not a single one, for three websites) in the past three weeks. Hope you can help me clarify my issue. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | TheNorthernOffice790 -
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 -
What are the competition's Google Places pages optimised for?
I'm doing some work on a client's Googe Places page, and wondered if there's any way to see what a completitors Places page is currently optimised or categorised for? Basically, we're trying to rank for 'Bathrooms Edinburgh' and almost all of the page 1 SERP's are (unsurprisingly) full of Places results, with #1 Organic slot right down at the bottom of the page. In short - we NEED to get our Places page kicked into shape, and pronto! So, is there any way to find out how the competition's Places pages are ranking so well? e.g. What have they categorised themselves under? Cheers in advance folks, JM
Competitive Research | | JamesMio0 -
My competition is using 1px images and links without anchor text. Good or bad idea?
I've been scoping out some of my competition and I noticed the number 1 ranking site is doing a lot of "interesting" stuff. I saw a bunch of 1px blank images that they must be using for the alt tag keywords. I also noticed several links to internal pages with different keywords without anchor text so they don't actually appear on the page. Is this considered black hat? Should I be doing something similar? It feels like the work I'm doing to try to rank #1 with a clean/professional looking site are wasted when the #1 sites are doing things like this.
Competitive Research | | technota0 -
Fast Question - domain value
For example, If I have a domain: dvdumwandeln.com , and I want to focus in the bellow keywords: dvd umwandeln , dvd in avi umwandeln , and so on... I develop a IA like this: www.dvdumwandeln.com/dvd-in-avi-umwandeln/ . Here the domain will give any value to the keyword dvd in avi umwandeln ( if we have the domain dvdumwandeln.com )? I hope I did explain it well... If I do it, its a good SEO pratice, is this going to really boost my keywords? Thanks for trying to understand my explaination
Competitive Research | | augustos0 -
Competitor Ranking High has 2 Domains, But Duplicate Website ?
I was using OSE and noticed all the backlinks to one of our competitors is there other domain name, which is the EXACT SAME website. You can enter both url's and they display the same content. They are not useing any canonical tags either. Why are they not penalized for duplicate content? And for using there own website for backlinks ? We try to do everything right, but still cannot beat them. Any thoughts on this?
Competitive Research | | hfranz0