# Research a competitor's domain

> Look up what a competitor's domain ranks for, save its keywords, and see which of its pages bring it traffic.

Source: https://docs.use-mark.com/research-competitors

**Competitive** shows what any domain ranks for in Google. Select
**Analysis** > **Research** in the sidebar, then the **Competitive** tab.

The tab opens on your own sites and the competitors your workspace has
looked up. Opening the list or a competitor in it is free. It shows results
you already fetched. These buttons fetch new data, and each press is a paid
lookup:

* **Look up** in the lookup dialog
* **Refresh** on a list row or on a competitor's page
* **Load top pages**
* **Keywords** on a row of **Top pages**

One lookup also runs without a click: the first one for your own site in a
market, described below.

To see who links to your own site, see
[Check your backlinks](/check-backlinks).

## Competitive

The list has two groups:

* **Your sites** is always on top, so you can read competitors' numbers
  against your own. Each of your websites shows once for every market you've
  looked competitors up in, or once for United States · English before your
  first lookup. When your site has no lookup for a market yet, Mark runs one
  as soon as you open the list; the row says **Checking…** until it's back.
* **Competitors** lists each domain you've looked up, with the number of
  competitors next to the heading. A domain looked up in two markets shows
  once per market, with its newest lookup. The domains with the most
  estimated traffic come first.

Each row shows:

* **Domain**: the site. Your sites carry their label, or **Your site**.
* **Est. traffic**: estimated monthly visits the domain gets from organic
  search in this market.
* **Keywords**: how many keywords the domain ranks for on Google in this
  market.
* **Market**: the flag of the country the numbers are for. Hover it to see
  the country's name.
* **Checked**: when the lookup ran. Traffic estimates update about once a
  month, so a lookup over 30 days old shows **Refresh** next to its date.
  Select it to run the same lookup again.

When you've looked competitors up in more than one market, a **Market** menu
next to **Look up a competitor** narrows both groups to one market, so every
row you compare uses the same numbers.

Select a column header to sort the competitors by it. Point at the info icon
next to a header to see what it means. Select a row to open that lookup.

Until you look a competitor up, the **Competitors** group says "See what
competitors rank for".

## Look up a competitor

1. Select **Look up a competitor** at the top right.
2. Enter a domain like `example.com` in **Domain**, or paste a URL. The line
   under the box shows the domain Mark will look up.
3. Keep or change **Location** and **Language**.
4. Select **Look up**.

**More options** holds two optional fields. **Rank by** sorts the keywords by
**Traffic**, **Search volume**, or **Position**. **Keyword contains** keeps
only keywords with that word in them.

When the lookup finishes, the competitor's page opens and the domain joins
**Competitive**.

## Read a competitor's page

The top of the page shows the domain and its market, and "Checked" with the
date of the lookup. The data refreshes weekly. Select **Refresh** to run the
same lookup again. Select **← Competitive** to go back to the list.

Three cards sit at the top:

* **Estimated organic traffic**: estimated visits per month from Google.
* **Organic keywords**: how many keywords the domain ranks for, with counts of
  new, lost, up, and down.
* **Position spread**: a bar chart of ranked keywords by Google position, so
  it shows how many rank near the top and how many sit further down.

Below the cards are two tabs: **Keywords** and **Top pages**.

## Keywords

**Keywords** lists up to 100 of the domain's ranked keywords:

* **Position** is where the domain ranks in Google for the keyword.
* **Traffic** is the estimated monthly visits this ranking brings the domain.
* **Volume** is how many people search for the keyword each month.
* **Difficulty** is how hard it is to reach the top 10, from 0 to 100. Under
  30 is easy, 70 and up is hard. The score is colored to match.
* **URL** is the domain's page that ranks.

The keywords that bring the domain the most traffic come first. Select a column header to sort by it
instead. Type in **Filter keywords** to narrow
the list. The line above the table shows "Showing" with how many of the
keywords match.

### Save keywords

Rows already saved for the competitor's market show a **Saved** badge.

1. Select the box next to each keyword you want, or the box above the table
   to select all.
2. Select **Save to your keywords** in the bar at the bottom.

A line confirms how many were newly saved and how many were already saved.
Find them under **Research** > **Keywords** > **Your keywords**, where new
ones show **Competitor lookup** as their source.

## Top pages

**Top pages** lists the domain's pages by estimated traffic. It starts empty.

1. Optionally enter part of a URL in **URL contains**, like `/blog`, to see
   only matching pages.
2. Select **Load top pages**.

Each page shows **Est. traffic** and **Ranked keywords**, the number of
keywords it ranks for. Select a column header to sort. Type in **URL
contains** above the table to narrow the pages already loaded.

Each row has two buttons:

* **Show in table** switches to **Keywords** and shows only that page's
  keywords from the top 100. It's free. Select **Show all** to see every
  keyword again.
* **Keywords** looks up that page's own ranked keywords and opens them in a
  panel, by traffic. Rows already saved show **Saved**.