True Competitor Overview

Frequently Asked Questions

  • True Competitor identifies the top 500 ranking keywords for your domain, and from there analyzes those 500 SERPs. An analysis of those SERPs reveals a list of the top domains that are also ranking for those keywords, allowing us to surface to you the top 25 competitors you share SERP real estate with.
  • Rivalry is a 1-100 score that combines your Domain Authority (DA), your competitor’s DA, keyword overlap, keyword volume, and your rankings to identify your biggest rivals. The higher the Rivalry score, the more you should likely pay attention to that competitor. Rivalry can help you to identify which competitors to hone in on and do further research.
  • You may have different types of competitors depending on the vertical you work in, the different types of products or services you offer, the different markets you work in, etc. True Competitor’s analysis of the SERPs helps to identify your top SERP competitors that you may not be aware of. You can read more about this and how to leverage the data in True Competitor in the Moz Blog.
  • The number of queries available is based on your subscription level. You can confirm your total available queries below the search bar. Additionally, you are able to divide these queries between the tools as needed. For example, you may perform 80 queries in True Competitor and 20 in Keyword Gap. Community users will have access to 10 queries per month to use between the Competitive Research tools.
  • Competitive Research queries refresh monthly. The date your queries refresh is noted beneath the search bar within the tool.
  • If your site is new or doesn't rank for more than 25 keywords yet, try a larger site in your industry to explore the competitive landscape or dive into keyword discovery in Keyword Explorer. Learn more with this blog post on alternative workflows: Aspirational Analysis: Competitive Research for New or Small Sites.

What’s Covered?

This guide covers the True Competitor tool within the Competitive Research section of Moz Pro.

Quick Links

Overview of True Competitor

Within the True Competitor section of Competitive Research you can identify who your true market competitors are and the websites which are competing in the same SERPs for your website.

After entering in your domain, you will have the option to select two competitors to analyze so you’re able to identify keyword gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Getting Started

To get started with True Competitor, head to the Competitive Research section of Moz Pro. Select True Competitor from the left hand navigation menu.

From here follow the below steps to start your competitive research:

  1. Select a Preferred Market - The market in which you’d like to perform SERP analysis research. Supported markets for this tool are US, GB, CA, and AU.

  2. Select a Domain Type - Indicates whether you’d like to research a domain, subdomain, or subfolder.

  3. Enter a domain

  4. Click Find Competitors

Follow the steps outlined above to get started - enter your domain and market.

After clicking Find Competitors, you will see Your Domain noted along with its Domain Authority.

Below this will be a list of your Top 25 Competitors.

Top 25 Competitors

Within the Top 25 Competitors table, the following data will be displayed:

  1. Top Competitors - Displays the URL for the competitor

  2. Domain Authority (DA) - A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 which predicts how well a domain will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics

  3. Overlap - The percentage of keywords we analyzed that you share with a given competitor (Both of you are ranking in the top 10)

  4. Rivalry - A 1-100 score that combines your Domain Authority (DA), your competitor’s DA, keyword overlap, keyword volume, and your rankings to identify your biggest rivals

The Top Competitors table outlines details about the competitors we've identified for your domain.

Compare Competitors

To analyze chosen competitors, select them using the checkboxes on the left and then click Compare Competitors.

To analyze chosen competitors, select them using the checkboxes on the left and then click Analyze Competitors.

You will then be taken to the Keyword Gap section of Competitive Research where you will be able to analyze the keywords these sites are ranking for and identify keyword gaps.

For more information on the Keyword Gap tool, be sure to check out our Keyword Gap guide.

Why am I seeing the error message “No Data” in True Competitor?

So, you’re seeing one of the two error messages:

If your site is new or doesn't rank for more than 25 keywords yet, try a larger site in your industry to explore the competitive landscape or dive into keyword discovery in Keyword Explorer.

Learn more with this blog post on alternative workflows: Aspirational Analysis: Competitive Research for New or Small Sites.


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