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Find keyword gaps

Compare your client’s domain against competitors to discover keywords where competitors rank but your client does not.

Compare your client’s domain against competitors to discover keywords where competitors rank but your client does not.

Use gap analysis when the client’s canonical domain and true search competitors are known. Confirm the target country and enter competitor domains, not individual page URLs or brand names. Each competitor adds workload, so remove duplicates and irrelevant domains before starting.

How Find keyword gaps works

Section titled “How Find keyword gaps works”

The Find keyword gaps mode compares your client’s domain against one or more competitor domains. It identifies keywords where competitors rank but your client does not, revealing untapped opportunities.

Running a gap analysis

Section titled “Running a gap analysis”
  1. Select Find keyword gaps from the research mode tabs.
  2. Your client’s domain is pre-filled from the client settings.
  3. Enter one or more competitor domains to compare against.
  4. Confirm the market. Rankability initially resolves it from the client’s saved location and can fall back to a country-code domain such as .co.uk; you can override the country before running the comparison.
  5. Click Find gaps.

The system uses domain intersection data to find keywords where competitors have rankings but your client does not. The comparison and the keyword difficulty lookup both run in the main search language Rankability pairs with the selected market, so a German or Japanese market is compared in that language rather than in English. A market without a specific paired language is compared in English.

The expected result is a competitor-gap dataset for the selected market. A missing keyword means Rankability’s current provider data did not find the client ranking in the compared scope; it is not proof that the domain has never ranked or cannot rank.

If the provider returns zero usable gap results—or every returned row is removed by the safety and relevance filters—the result is preserved as an empty search state. Change the market or competitor set before retrying instead of repeatedly submitting the same scope.

An empty result records the scope it used: the market, the language, the competitor position limit, and the minimum opportunity volume. It is marked No credits used, and it suggests trying another competitor or market, or using Explore domain keywords to inspect every available keyword for one competitor.

Prioritizing gaps

Section titled “Prioritizing gaps”
  • Sort by search volume to find the highest-traffic opportunities first.
  • Filter by difficulty to focus on achievable keywords.
  • Look for keywords where multiple competitors rank — these are likely important topics in your industry.
  • Save promising keywords to a list, then use them to create content projects in the Copywriter.

Review the gaps safely

Section titled “Review the gaps safely”
  1. Exclude navigational brand terms that belong only to the competitor.
  2. Check intent and business relevance before using volume or difficulty.
  3. Look for themes supported by more than one competitor, but confirm that the client can credibly satisfy them.
  4. Save qualified terms to a dedicated list with the market and competitor set in its name.
  5. Use Explore domain keywords when you need to understand one competitor rather than the intersection.

Gap analysis does not recommend copying a competitor or creating one page per keyword. Cluster close variants, map them to existing pages, and choose whether the next action is content, optimization, or tracking.

Common issues

Section titled “Common issues”
  • The client domain is wrong — Correct client settings before rerunning; the comparison depends on the canonical domain.
  • A competitor returns no useful gaps — Confirm the domain and country. The competitor may have little overlapping organic visibility in that market.
  • The result is empty — Review the recorded reason and scope. Empty usable results do not add completed-work usage; adjust the market or competitors before trying again.
  • Results are dominated by branded terms — Filter or exclude them and evaluate only queries the client can legitimately target.
  • The impact is higher than expected — Count the unique competitors and remove irrelevant domains; see Usage limits reference.
  • A known client ranking appears as a gap — Check location, freshness, and URL scope. Provider datasets and live rankings can differ.
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