How to find your real search competitors
By the Auditmatic team · Updated 3 November 2026 · 6 min read
Business competitors and search competitors
A business competitor sells what you sell. A search competitor ranks for the searches you want. They overlap, but not fully: a blog, a directory or a forum can outrank a company for the same keyword.
In search, you compete with whoever Google puts above you.
A method that works
- List 10 to 20 keywords you want to rank for.
- Search each one and record the domains in the top 10.
- Count how many keywords each domain appears for. The domains that appear most are your search competitors.
- Remove sites you cannot compete with, such as Wikipedia, large marketplaces and social platforms.
- Keep three to five sites at your size or slightly larger, and study those.
- Appears for 9 of 15 keywords: a large accounting suite (too big, skip)
- Appears for 7 of 15: a mid-size invoicing app (keep)
- Appears for 6 of 15: a freelancer blog with invoice templates (keep)
- Appears for 5 of 15: a forum (note it, do not study it)
What to study once you have them
For each competitor, look at three things.
- Which keywords they rank for that you do not.
- Which of their pages bring the most traffic.
- How many sites link to them, and which ones.
Turn the findings into a list
A competitor study is only useful if it changes your plan. End with a short list: keywords to add, pages to improve, and sites worth contacting for links.
Run it with your AI agent
Connect your agent to Auditmatic, then paste this prompt. Replace the parts in angle brackets. It reads real data and asks before it spends anything.
Use my Auditmatic project for <your-domain>. Take these keywords: <list 10 to 20>. Run find_serp_competitors, then rank the domains by how many keywords they appear for. Remove very large sites. For the top 4 left, run get_domain_overview and get_ranked_keywords, and show me the keywords they rank for that my site does not. End with 10 keywords to add to my plan.
Without a tool
You can do this by hand with free tools:
- Search each keyword and write the top 10 domains in a spreadsheet.
- Use a pivot table or a count to see which domains repeat most.
- Open each of the top three in a free tool or Google to see their main pages.
Questions
How many competitors should I study?
Three to five. More than that turns into a pile of data with no decisions.
Should I study sites much bigger than mine?
Only for ideas. Compare yourself with sites near your size to set realistic goals.
Keep going
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