How do you do competitor analysis in SEO, and monitor competitor websites?
Which pages are you really competing with?
In search, your competitors are the pages that rank for the queries you want, which are not always the businesses you think of as rivals. Search Google for each target query and note the pages that appear. Open them and read them as a searcher would. What questions do they answer? What do they leave out? Is there anything original on the page, or is it a summary of what others have already said?
Google's people-first content guidance gives a useful set of questions for this. It asks whether your content provides substantial value when compared to other pages in search results, and whether it provides original information, reporting, research or analysis. It also warns against content that mainly summarises what others have to say without adding much value. If your page does not offer more than the pages already ranking, that is the gap to close, rather than a technical setting to change.
How can Search Console show where you appear?
You cannot see a competitor's Search Console data, but your own Performance report shows where you stand for the queries you share with them. It reports clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, and lets you group the data by queries, pages, countries, devices, search appearance and dates.
Useful checks include:
- queries with many impressions but a low average position, where you appear but other pages win
- queries with a good position but a low click-through rate, where your title or snippet may be weaker than the results around it
- pages that receive impressions for queries you did not expect
- differences between devices or countries
Search those queries yourself and compare your page with the ones above it.
How can you see what structured data a competitor uses?
Google's Rich Results Test accepts any public URL, so you can test a competing page the same way you test your own. It reads JSON-LD, RDFa and Microdata, lists the rich result types it finds and shows any errors or warnings. You can test as a smartphone or a desktop crawler. This tells you which rich result features a competing page is eligible for and which ones your own page is missing. It does not guarantee that either page will be shown with a rich result.
Can you measure visibility in AI answers?
Bing Webmaster Tools added AI visibility features in June 2026. Citation Share shows your site's share of all citations for a specific grounding query, while Intents and Topics group those queries by type and subject, and Compare overlays an earlier period. Microsoft says the feature does not expose competitor domains, and describes Citation Share as an observational metric rather than a competitive scoreboard. It shows how much of the answer space you hold, not who holds the rest.
What tool can I use to monitor website changes?
Google Alerts is a free option, but it is important to know what it does. It emails you when Google finds new search results for a topic you choose, such as a competitor's brand or product name. It does not track edits to a specific page.
- Go to Google Alerts.
- Type the topic in the box at the top.
- Select Show options to set how often you are notified, the types of sites, the language, the region, how many results you receive and which account gets the alerts.
- Select Create Alert.
To change an alert later, select the edit icon next to it, make your changes and select Update Alert. To stop one, select the delete icon or use Unsubscribe at the bottom of any alert email.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results)
- Search Console Help: Rich Results Test
- Bing Webmaster Blog: New AI visibility insights in Bing Webmaster Tools
- Google Search Help: Create an alert
Frequently asked questions
Can I see a competitor's Search Console data?
No. Search Console only shows data for properties you have verified. You can study competitors indirectly by searching the queries your own Performance report shows, comparing the pages that rank above you, and testing their public URLs in the Rich Results Test. Bing Webmaster Tools Citation Share also shows your share of AI citations for a query, but it does not name competitor domains.
Does Google Alerts tell me when a competitor edits a page?
No. Google Alerts emails you when Google finds new search results that match a topic you choose, such as a brand or product name. It does not compare versions of a page or report edits. It is useful for spotting new pages, news and mentions about a competitor, and you can set the frequency, sources, language, region and number of results.