Every business can name the competitor that seems to appear above them for everything. What most cannot say is why. The reasons are usually a handful of specific, measurable differences, and once they are laid out side by side the plan tends to write itself.
Your competitors depend on where you look
The businesses in the map pack are often not the ones ranking in the organic results beneath it, and neither set is necessarily the business you think of as your rival. We identify who actually wins each result type for the searches that bring you customers, rather than assuming.
Rankings also vary by where the searcher is standing. A business can be first in the map pack two streets from its premises and absent two miles away, so we measure across a grid of locations rather than from a single point.
What we compare
| What it tells you | Can the gap be closed? | |
|---|---|---|
| Review count and recency | How far behind you are on the most visible signal | Yes, with time and a process |
| Business profile categories | Which searches they are eligible for that you are not | Yes, often immediately |
| Service and location pages | Queries they have pages for and you do not | Yes |
| Referring domains | How much authority their site has built | Yes, slowly |
| Distance from the searcher | Map pack advantage from location alone | No — but it can be worked around |
| AI assistant mentions | Whether they are named when you are not | Yes |
Proximity cannot be changed
Some gaps are structural. If a competitor is based in the town centre and you are six miles out, they will beat you in the map pack for searches made in the centre, and no amount of work on your profile fully changes that. An honest analysis says so, and redirects effort toward the areas where you have the advantage instead.
The output
A side-by-side comparison with your main competitors, the specific gaps ranked by how much they matter and how quickly they can be closed, and a clear note of any that are not worth chasing. It pairs naturally with an audit, which looks at your own site in depth, while this looks outward.