{
  "slug": "gap-to-leader",
  "name": "Gap to leader",
  "aliases": [
    "Leader gap",
    "Distance to the leader"
  ],
  "definition": "The distance in share points between the segment leader's CTR-modeled search market share and your own, for the same period and slice.",
  "category": "Search market share",
  "type": "derived metric",
  "unit": "share points (percentage points of tracked search demand)",
  "direction": "lower-better",
  "verification": "verified",
  "calculation": "The leader's share minus your own, both taken at FULL PRECISION from the same standings before any rounding, with the single difference then rounded to one decimal place. Null when either side is missing. Computed in the MCP, not in the semantic layer.",
  "numerator": "leader's share value for the slice",
  "denominator": "not a ratio, a difference in share points",
  "aggregation": "Not summable. Recompute per slice and per period; a gap across periods is a pair of gaps, not an average.",
  "grain": "One segment × period × medium.",
  "dimensions": [
    "intent",
    "brand",
    "keyword",
    "page",
    "country",
    "device"
  ],
  "requiredFilters": [
    "segment_id",
    "selected_period",
    "source_medium"
  ],
  "sources": [
    "rank-tracking"
  ],
  "reports": [
    "monthly-executive-search-report",
    "search-market-share-report"
  ],
  "skills": [
    "market-share-review",
    "competitor-deep-dive",
    "search-pulse",
    "monthly-exec-review"
  ],
  "verbs": [
    "market_share_overview",
    "market_share_query"
  ],
  "rungs": [
    "R2"
  ],
  "levers": [
    "L2"
  ],
  "questions": [
    "How far behind the leader are we?",
    "Is the gap closing or widening?",
    "Which intents carry the widest gap?"
  ],
  "interpretation": "The most usable number in the family, because it survives the modelling caveat: both sides are computed the same way from the same period, so the difference and its direction are meaningful even where the absolute levels are approximations. Zero means you are the leader.",
  "caveats": [
    "It is a difference in share points, not a percentage change, a gap that moves from 8 to 6 points closed by 2 points, not by 25%.",
    "The difference is taken before rounding while the two share figures are published after it, so subtracting the two published shares will not always reproduce the published gap.",
    "The gap is only against the leading TRACKED domain; an untracked domain ahead of both of you is invisible.",
    "When you lead, the gap is zero by construction rather than a measured advantage over the runner-up."
  ],
  "freshness": "~1 day behind, Daily observation, available the following day.",
  "failureModes": [
    "Quoting the gap as a percentage and mixing points with percent in the same sentence.",
    "Comparing gaps across segments, which have different tracked demand and different rosters."
  ],
  "notSameAs": [
    {
      "slug": "head-to-head-rank-gap",
      "why": "That gap is a difference in ranking positions on shared keywords; this one is a difference in CTR-modeled share of tracked demand."
    },
    {
      "slug": "search-market-share-change",
      "why": "The gap compares two domains in one period; this compares one domain across two periods.",
      "mirroredFrom": "search-market-share-change"
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "search-market-share",
    "market-share-leader",
    "market-share-standings-rank"
  ],
  "workflows": [],
  "lastVerified": "2026-08-04"
}