Keyword gap analysis
Keyword gap analysis shows which keywords your competitors capture organic traffic for that your domain is missing, weak on, or has an opportunity to win. It turns a pile of competitor rankings into a prioritised work list by classifying every keyword into a gap type and scoring how urgent it is.
What you’ll need
Section titled “What you’ll need”- At least one confirmed and crawled competitor (see Adding competitors).
- Your own rankings synced, so the analysis can compare your position against each competitor’s.
Gap types
Section titled “Gap types”Every keyword is classified into exactly one gap type. The classification follows a fixed precedence — missing > weak > competitive > dominant > opportunity > uncontested — so when a keyword could fit more than one bucket, the most actionable label wins.
| Type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Missing | Competitor ranks in the top 20; you have no ranking |
| Weak | You rank but beyond position 20; competitor ranks better |
| Competitive | You both rank in the top 20 and are close in position |
| Dominant | You rank significantly better than the competitor |
| Opportunity | You rank well but the competitor is catching up |
| Uncontested | You rank; the competitor doesn’t appear in the top 100 |
Read the ordering as a priority ladder. Missing keywords are pure additions — content you don’t have at all. Weak keywords are existing pages that under-deliver. Those two buckets are where the biggest, fastest gains live. Competitive is a contest you’re already in; dominant and uncontested are positions to defend, not chase; opportunity is an early-warning flag that a lead is eroding.
Gap severity
Section titled “Gap severity”Each gap keyword carries a gap_severity, a float from 0 to 1 where higher means more urgent. Severity blends the competitor’s position advantage, estimated search volume, and commercial intent, so a keyword where a rival outranks you on a high-volume transactional term scores far higher than one where they edge you out on a low-volume informational query. Sort by severity to let the data, not your gut, set the order of work.
How to use keyword gap
Section titled “How to use keyword gap”- Go to Competitor Intel → Keyword Gap.
- Filter to Missing and Weak first — these are your biggest losses and your fastest wins.
- Within that filter, sort by gap severity descending to surface the highest-impact opportunities.
- Click a keyword to see which competitor pages rank for it and what their content looks like.
- Feed the result into your content plan: create new pages for Missing keywords, and strengthen existing pages for Weak ones.
Refreshing the data
Section titled “Refreshing the data”Gap analysis is only as fresh as the underlying competitor crawls and the landscape that aggregates them. The landscape is a derived, materialised view that you rebuild on demand — re-running the rebuild is idempotent and overwrites with fresh data without creating duplicates. See Landscape view for how the view is built and when to rebuild it.