Topical Dominance measures how strongly your domain performs across specific topics compared to selected competitors. If competitors aren’t configured correctly, your heatmaps, topic breakdowns, and dominance scores may appear incomplete or inaccurate.
This guide explains how to:
Add competitors
Edit or remove competitors
Fix common issues
Follow best practices for accurate comparisons
📍 Where to Find Competitor Settings
📍 Where to Find Competitor Settings
Inside the dashboard:
Left Sidebar → Site Metrics → Site explorer → Topical Dominance
Once inside:
Locate the Competitors panel on the left side
Click + Edit competitor
The competitor configuration modal will open
➕ How to Add Competitors
➕ How to Add Competitors
When the modal opens:
Enter a competitor’s root domain (e.g.,
domain.com)Click + Add competitor if adding multiple
Include at least one competitor (required)
Click Analyze Topical Dominance
⚠️ You must add at least one competitor for analysis to run.
✏️ How to Remove or Replace Competitors
✏️ How to Remove or Replace Competitors
Inside the competitor modal:
Click the 🗑 trash icon next to any domain to remove it
Add a new domain
Click Analyze Topical Dominance again to refresh the data
You can update competitors at any time without losing your project.
🔎 Common Symptoms & What They Mean
🔎 Common Symptoms & What They Mean
If something looks off, here’s what may be happening:
❓ Heatmap not loading
Usually happens when:
Too many competitors are added at once
A domain is invalid or malformed
❓ Topic Breakdown shows empty rows
Often caused by:
No overlapping keyword universe
Country mismatch
Recently added competitor still processing
❓ Scores showing as 0
May occur if:
The domain has low topical coverage
Incorrect region selected
Competitor is too unrelated
❓ Data seems inconsistent
Mixing:
Subdomains and root domains
Different country markets
Different business models
⚙️ Recommended Setup (Best Practices)
⚙️ Recommended Setup (Best Practices)
For optimal performance and cleaner comparisons:
✅ Use 3–5 competitors maximum
Adding too many domains can slow processing and dilute clarity.
✅ Use root domains only
Correct:
example.com
Avoid:
example.com/service-page blog.example.com
✅ Keep the same country selected
Make sure all domains operate in the same market (e.g., United States).
✅ Compare similar business types
Dealership vs dealership
SaaS vs SaaS
Local service vs local service
Avoid mixing fundamentally different models.
🚨 Important: This Is Not a Data Loss Issue
🚨 Important: This Is Not a Data Loss Issue
If results appear blank or incomplete:
This does not mean data is lost.
Topical Dominance recalculates comparative topic clusters every time competitors change. Large comparative runs may temporarily affect visualization until processing completes.
If needed:
Remove all competitors
Add them back incrementally (one at a time)
Re-run analysis
📊 Understanding What Competitors Impact
📊 Understanding What Competitors Impact
Competitors directly affect:
Heatmap visualization
Specific Topic Coverage
Topic Gap analysis
Comparative Dominance scores
Keyword overlap modeling
The more strategically chosen your competitors are, the more meaningful your insights become.
🎯 Strategic Tip
🎯 Strategic Tip
Topical Dominance is most powerful when used to:
Identify semantic gaps
Discover undercovered topic clusters
Prioritize content expansion
Benchmark authority growth over time
Choosing the right competitors turns this from a visual tool into a strategic roadmap.
Your competitors define your comparison universe.
If they’re too broad, too different, or too many, your insights get diluted.
If they’re relevant, aligned, and strategically selected, Topical Dominance becomes one of the most powerful authority-mapping tools inside Search Atlas.
Choose wisely. Analyze intentionally. Expand strategically.