📌 Overview
Many customers ask how to add, remove, or swap the competitors shown in Site Metrics. At this time, editing the competitor list in Site Metrics is not supported. This article explains what that means, why you may notice it, and what you can do instead.
❓ What Is Not Supported
Once the competitors are displayed in Site Metrics for your site, you cannot change them yourself. Specifically, you cannot:
- Add a new competitor to the list
- Remove a competitor you do not consider relevant
- Replace one competitor with another
- Reorder the competitors in the list
This is a current product limitation, not an error with your account or your settings. Nothing you did caused it, and there is no setting you are missing.
🧭 Why Your Competitors May Look Different Than Expected
The competitors in Site Metrics are not chosen manually. Because of that, the list may sometimes include sites you do not see as direct rivals, or leave out ones you care about. Common reasons include:
- The site competes with yours for some search terms, even if its business is different
- Large publishers or marketplaces rank for the same topics as your site
- Your site covers several topics, so the competitors reflect a mix of them
🛠️ What You Can Do Instead
While the list itself cannot be edited, you still have ways to get the competitor insights you need:
- Review the data as a benchmark. Use the displayed competitors as a general reference for how your site performs in your search space.
- Analyze your preferred competitors separately. Use the other research tools in Search Atlas to look up the specific domains you care about and compare their performance with yours.
- Track your own progress. Focus on the trends for your own site, such as visibility and traffic over time, which are not affected by the competitor list.
- Record your own list. Keep a short list of your real competitors in a spreadsheet or document so you can check them whenever you need to.
💡 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Competitor Data
- Look at patterns over time instead of single data points
- Pay closest attention to competitors that match your audience and offerings
- Treat unrelated sites in the list as context about who shares your search results, not as a mistake
🚀 Requesting This Feature
If being able to customize the competitor list would help your workflow, let our team know. Feedback from customers helps us decide what to improve next. When you write to us, include what you would like to change and why it matters for your reporting.
💬 Need More Help?
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be instantly connected with a member of our team.