Understanding Competitive Domain Analysis

[YGF]

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

[YGF]

Many thanks - very clear

[EGOL]

If a post on this topic appears over there it will get a lot of links from Q&A.

[KeriMorgret]

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.

[EGOL]

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?"

[Cyrus-Shepard]

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.

[YGF]

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

[EGOL]

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'.