Step 2 · Plan
Competitive analysis
See exactly where your competitors win — in Google and in AI answers — and what it takes to catch up.
Traze builds your competitor set automatically from real search results and AI answers, compares their content with yours and turns every gap into a planned page. Not a report that ends up in a drawer, but input for the content calendar you approve.
What you get · concretely
What the competitive analysis delivers
- 01
Automatic competitor set
You name three; Traze finds the rest in Google's top 10 and in the sources AI engines cite. Including the publishers, marketplaces and comparison sites you didn't think of.
- 02
Keyword gap map
Every cluster where a competitor ranks and you don't, with search volume, intent and the page currently winning. Sorted by what brings traffic fastest.
- 03
Content gap per page type
Which guides, comparisons, category hubs and FAQs competitors have and you don't. Traze tells a missing topic apart from the wrong format.
- 04
AI answer share per engine
For every buying question: who gets named or cited in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot — and which source sits behind it.
- 05
SERP shape per cluster
What the results page shows: product grids, People Also Ask, videos, an AI Overview. That is how Traze picks the page type that matches how the question gets answered.
- 06
Movement alerts
New pages, lost positions and won citations at competitors are flagged and pushed into planning. The analysis doesn't go stale.
What it is
What competitive analysis means at Traze
Classic competitive analysis is a benchmark: a list of domains, their rankings and their backlinks at one moment in time. Useful as a snapshot, but the market moves every week and AI answers don't appear in it at all. Traze treats competitive analysis as a running part of strategy: it looks at who wins per search query, per AI question and per market, and turns that difference into work that can be scheduled. The analysis starts with the holistic SEO analysis of your own site.
The biggest difference is the source. Traze doesn't ask you who your competitors are; it looks at the results. For a flooring store, the biggest rival in Google often isn't another store but an interiors blog or a marketplace; in ChatGPT it's a manufacturer with a good knowledge base. Those players belong in your set, because they decide which content sets the bar. Read how AI visibility is measured.
What Traze deliberately doesn't do: count backlinks as if they explained the outcome. We do show which sources AI engines cite and which pages make the top 10, because that tells you directly what format, depth and entities it takes to compete. Link building isn't part of Traze; the analysis is. Try it free with Cluster Share: your share on a single keyword.
How it works · step by step
How it works
Step 1
Build the competitor set
You name the players you know. For each cluster Traze pulls Google's top 10 and the sources cited in AI answers, and adds recurring domains to the set. You can remove or add names.
Step 2
Map their content
Traze crawls the relevant sections of each competitor and clusters pages by topic, page type, depth and freshness. The result is a map of what they cover.
Step 3
Compare with your site
The same map is laid over your own pages: where a topic is missing, where your page is thinner, where your own pages cannibalise each other.
Step 4
Sample AI answers
For your set of buying questions, Traze asks each engine several times. Because answers vary, we report how often a brand or source comes back, not a single snapshot.
Step 5
Prioritise and schedule
Every gap is scored on demand, intent, feasibility and commercial value. The highest scores land as concrete pages in your content calendar. You approve before anything gets written.
Step 6
Keep tracking
The set is rebuilt monthly and notable movements are flagged in between. What a competitor publishes shows up in your planning.
Why it matters
Why it matters
In Google, the top 3 take most of the clicks; in AI answers it's sharper still, because an answer usually names only a handful of sources. If you're not among them, you don't exist for that question. Knowing who is — and why — is the shortest route to a spot.
Gaps are more concrete than ambitions. ‘More content about sustainability’ is a wish; ‘competitor X ranks for 14 maintenance questions we have no page for’ is an assignment. Traze delivers the second kind, including the format that currently wins. This is how a gap becomes a planned page in the content strategy.
And it keeps you honest. If a competitor is consistently cited in Perplexity and you're not, that isn't a feeling but a number you watch move every month. That's how you know whether you're catching up. See examples of what that looks like over time.
- AI engines in every comparison
- 6
- Google results tracked per cluster
- Top 10
- competitor set rebuilt
- Monthly
Comparison · old way versus Traze
Benchmark versus Traze
| Area | Classic benchmark | Traze |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | Once a quarter or at kickoff | Continuous, with a monthly rebuild of the set |
| Competitor set | The names you provide | Derived from real search results and AI citations, including publishers and marketplaces |
| Coverage | Google rankings | Google plus six AI engines |
| Backlinks | Lists of referring domains | Which sources AI engines and Google actually reward |
| Output | Report or dashboard | Scored gaps that land as pages in your calendar |
| Follow-through | Someone has to translate it into work | After your approval, Traze writes and publishes the page |
| Markets | A separate study per country | Per market and language in the same analysis |
Use cases · where it works
Where it has the most impact
E-commerce
Category clusters where marketplaces and comparison sites win, product questions AI engines answer with someone else's guide. Traze shows which category hubs and buying guides are missing.
B2B and SaaS
‘X vs Y’ and ‘alternative to’ questions are exactly what people ask ChatGPT. See who gets named there and which comparison pages you lack.
Local businesses
A different competitor set per city. Traze builds the set per location and shows which local pages and questions are still open.
International brands
Different players win in Germany than in the Netherlands. The analysis runs per market and language, so planning is right for each country.
Challengers in a mature market
You don't have to beat the incumbents on everything. Traze finds the long-tail clusters where their coverage is thin and you can be first with a complete answer.
Honestly · risks and limits
Honest about the limits
Whoever only copies competitors stays second. The analysis tells you where the bar is, not that you should clear it with the same page. Traze uses gaps as a starting point and writes from your own brand profile and expertise; that's why a page gets cited rather than merely found.
AI answers aren't deterministic. The same question gives a slightly different answer tomorrow. That's why we sample several times and report frequencies; a single screenshot of an AI answer isn't proof of anything, in either direction.
Not every gap is worth it. Some clusters competitors win on price or range, not content. Traze scores feasibility too, and you decide what goes in the calendar. What you skip stays visible so you can come back to it.
What you risk by not measuring: losing market share silently in AI answers. In Google you see a drop in Search Console; in ChatGPT or Perplexity you only notice when enquiries fall. This is where that becomes visible earlier.
Try it yourself · free
See it at work on your own site
This free tool shows part of this capability. No login, instant results.
Cluster Share
Cluster Share
One keyword, one domain, one country. You see the cluster around it, the monthly demand, the traffic the domain takes from it and therefore its market share — plus the gaps where the growth sits.
Try:
Results · example data
What it looks like when Traze does the work.
Vloerenwinkel
Flooring
+30,000
visitors / month
AI citations: 0 → 210
Edelstenenhandel
Gemstones
+12,700
visitors / month
AI citations: 12 → 153
Wasruimtemeubels
Laundry-room furniture
+8,259
visitors / month
AI citations: 0 → 142
Illustrative numbers to show how the system works — not a real customer.
Questions · about Competitive analysis
Frequently asked questions
Get started · self-serve or with a demo
Let Traze run this for you
Start on the Start plan yourself, or book a demo where we show this capability on your own site. Pricing is public, with a rolling monthly option.