Head-to-head rank gap
also called Position gap vs a rivalRank difference
Definition
The difference in average results-page position between your site and one named competitor on the same tracked keyword.
How it's calculated
Your average rank minus the named competitor's average rank on the same keyword, rounded to two decimal places, computed only where BOTH sides hold a position above zero, otherwise null. The competitor is resolved from the roster by domain or label before the read. A row is kept when either side has a position, ordered so that the keywords YOU rank on come first and ascending by your own position within them; the ordering looks only at your side, not at whether the rival also ranks. Capped at one hundred rows.
Scope, grain and dimensions
- Grain
- One keyword × your domain × one competitor domain × segment × period.
- Dimensions
- keyword · device · country · brand
- Required filters
- segment_id · selected_period · source_medium · competitor
- Aggregation
- Not summable. It is a per-keyword difference; a portfolio view is the distribution of gaps, not their total.
- Metric type
- derived metric · rank positions (positive means we rank worse than the rival)
Data sources
Where you'll see this
Named reports that normally include this metric.
Skills and analyses that use it
Skills carry the judgment; the analysis verbs do the reading.
Analysis verbs
competitive_keyword_ranking
Method rungs and levers
A rung tells you what a movement here can and cannot explain, read the rungs below it first.
levers L2 Demand modelingL3 Refresh & content qualityL5 Net-new content
Ask Quattr
- "On which keywords does this rival outrank us, and by how much?" Simulate this →
- "Where are we close enough to overtake them?" Simulate this →
How to read it
The sign carries the meaning: positive means the rival is ahead of you on that keyword. Small positive gaps on keywords with real demand are the most actionable rows in the family; large gaps usually reflect a different kind of page rather than a small optimisation.
Caveats, freshness and failure modes
Null where either side has no position, that is a coverage fact, not a tie.
Where you hold no position the row still reports your rank as zero rather than null: the semantic layer defaults a no-impressions ratio to zero and the verb defaults a missing keyword to zero as well. A zero in that column means "no position", never "position zero".
A rival name is resolved by substring against the roster's domains and labels, and an unmatched name falls through as a literal domain, which can return an empty comparison.
The row set is capped at one hundred and the ordering is driven by your own position, so a wide keyword portfolio is truncated by where YOU rank, not by where the gap is largest.
A gap is a position difference, not a traffic difference; nothing here says what either position earns.
- Freshness
- ~1 day behind, Daily observation, available the following day.
Common failure modes
- Treating a null gap as parity.
- Reading a zero in your own rank column as a position rather than an absence.
- Ranking work by gap size alone, which puts the hardest keywords at the top of the list.
Not the same as
The confusions that cause the most wrong decisions.
Head-to-head rank gap Gap to leader Compare definitions →
That gap is a difference in CTR-modeled share of tracked demand against the segment leader; this one is a difference in ranking positions against a named rival.
Related metrics and workflows
Verification
A definition is the smallest part of this.
The measurement matters because something acts on it. Here is the rest of the showcase, in the order most people find useful.