Competitor Analysis
How to choose the right competitor URLs, what the plugin fetches from them, and how that data makes your SEO and AEO recommendations more specific and useful.
Why competitor URLs matter
Without competitor URLs, the plugin analyzes your page against its own signals in isolation. It can spot missing keywords, weak structure, and absent FAQ content — but it cannot tell you what the pages that are actually ranking well for your keyword are doing differently.
When you add competitor URLs, the plugin fetches those pages, extracts their structure and signals, and feeds that data into the AI analysis. The result is recommendations that are grounded in what strong-ranking pages actually look like — not just generic best practices.
Competitor URLs are optional but recommended. They are the single biggest lever for improving the specificity and usefulness of the analysis output. If you can only do one thing before running analysis, add one or two strong competitor URLs.
How to add competitor URLs
In the Analyze view, the right-hand panel is the competitor card. Add URLs one at a time using the input field and click Add page. You can add up to three URLs per analysis.
The plugin validates each URL when you add it — it rejects homepages, category archives, and duplicate entries automatically.
Choosing the right URLs
The quality of competitor data depends entirely on which pages you choose. Use pages that are genuinely outranking you for your target keyword — not pages you admire or that are on well-known domains but irrelevant to the keyword.
A quick way to find good competitor URLs: search Google for your exact target keyword and copy the direct URLs from the top three to five results. Those are the pages you are actually competing against.
What the plugin fetches from each URL
When you add a competitor URL, the plugin makes an HTTP request to that page and extracts the following data. This is the raw material that feeds into the AI comparison layer.
Title & meta description
The page title tag and meta description from the competitor page’s HTML head. Used to compare keyword placement and messaging approach.
Headings
Up to three H1s, eight H2s, and eight H3s. Used to understand how competitors structure their content and what sub-topics they cover.
Word count & preview
Total word count and a 50-word content preview. Used to benchmark depth and assess whether your page is substantially shorter than competing pages.
FAQ detection
Whether the competitor page has a detectable FAQ section — either through FAQPage schema or visible FAQ heading patterns. A key AEO signal.
JSON-LD schema types
All schema @type values found in the page’s structured data. Used to identify schema types your competitors use that your page is missing.
Internal & external link counts
Number of internal and external links on the competitor page. Used as a rough signal for content comprehensiveness and external reference depth.
The plugin cannot access paywalled, login-gated, or JavaScript-heavy pages. If a competitor URL returns no data, it is most likely because the page requires authentication, returns a non-200 status, or relies entirely on client-side rendering. Try a different URL from the same site or skip that competitor.
How competitor data shapes the analysis
Once the data is collected, it feeds into the AI analysis and the competitor intelligence section of the results. Here is how it affects the output.
More specific gap identification
Without competitors, the plugin flags gaps based on best practices — “add a FAQ section,” “improve heading depth.” With competitors, it can say “the three competing pages all have FAQ sections and you do not,” or “competing pages average 1,400 words while yours is 600 words.” That specificity changes how you prioritize.
Competitor gap section in results
The analysis result includes a dedicated competitor intelligence section that shows, for each key signal, what your page has versus what competing pages have — FAQ presence, schema types, heading depth, and word count. This is the clearest view of the gap between you and the pages currently winning for the keyword.
Fix-this-first calibration
Competitor gaps directly inform the fix-this-first recommendations. If all three competitor pages have FAQPage schema and yours does not, that signal gets elevated in the priority stack. The plugin weighs competitive gaps alongside your raw score gaps when deciding what to surface first.
AI prompt enrichment
Competitor data is included in the prompt sent to the AI. The AI is instructed to compare your page against the supplied competitors and call out what is missing or weaker. This produces more grounded title suggestions, more targeted FAQ ideas, and more relevant recommendations overall.
Best practices
- Always search Google for your exact target keyword before running analysis — use the actual top-ranking pages, not guesses
- Use two or three competitors when possible — a single URL gives the AI less to work with than two or three
- Vary your competitors across analyses — if you always use the same URLs, you may miss patterns from other strong-ranking pages
- For WooCommerce products, look for competing product pages specifically — not review articles or comparison posts
- Check competitor URLs load correctly in your browser before adding them — a 404 or redirect loop will return no data
What competitor analysis does not do
- It does not copy or reproduce competitor content — only structural signals and metadata are extracted
- It does not tell you why a competitor ranks — rankings depend on many off-page factors the plugin cannot access
- It does not guarantee that matching competitor signals will produce the same rankings — it improves your page’s competitiveness, not its guaranteed position
- It does not work with dynamic or JavaScript-rendered pages where content is loaded after the initial HTML response
Common questions
The competitor URL I added returned no data
This happens when the page is behind a paywall, requires a login, uses a redirect chain that exceeds three hops, returns a non-200 status code, or relies on JavaScript to render its content. Try a different page from the same domain, or skip that competitor and use another URL instead.
Can I add competitor URLs from my own site?
Technically yes, but it is not useful. Comparing your own page to another of your own pages does not give the AI meaningful competitive context. Use pages from external domains that are actually ranking above you for the keyword.
Do competitor URLs count as AI operations?
No. Fetching and parsing competitor URLs is a server-side HTTP request — it does not use AI operations. Only the AI analysis step itself counts as one operation, regardless of how many competitor URLs you added.
Does the plugin store competitor page content?
No. Competitor data is fetched at analysis time, processed into structured signals, and passed to the AI within the same request. Nothing from competitor pages is stored in your WordPress database after the analysis completes.
Where to go next
- Analyze — the full guide to running an analysis, including where to add competitor URLs
- SEO, AEO & E-E-A-T Explained — understand what the competitor signals actually measure
- Bulk Analysis — run analysis across multiple pages when you have a longer list to work through