Similar sites: three ways to measure "like", and the list each one gives
Shared searches, shared buyers and shared mentions each produce a different list, and only the first can be counted.
By ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom, Editorial team··4 min read
Similar sites are not one list. Ask for sites like a competitor and you can get three honest answers: the domains chasing the same Google searches, the brands the same buyers put on a shortlist, and the sites that keep showing up next to it in roundups. Pick the meaning first, because each one needs a different method and leads to a different job.
This guide starts from a single domain, usually a rival, and works outward. If you want to map your own competitive field from scratch, that is a separate exercise.
Three measures of "like"
| Measure | The list you get | What you do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Search overlap | Domains ranking for many of the same queries | Plan content and find keyword gaps |
| Buyer overlap | Brands people compare before they pay | Positioning, pricing, ad audiences |
| Mention overlap | Sites named in the same articles | Outreach, PR, getting into AI answers |
An example makes the split concrete. Picture a meal kit company. Its search twins may be recipe blogs that rank for "easy weeknight dinners". Its buyer twins are the other two or three kit brands every review compares. Its mention twins are whatever grocery apps and kitchen gadgets share space with it in gift guides. None of these lists is wrong. They answer different questions.
Measure 1: search overlap
This is the only measure you can compute from data, and the one seogeoaeo.ai's Competitor Finder runs. You give it any public domain and a Google country. It compares that domain's ranking keywords with every other site and returns up to 30 domains sharing the most, with the number of shared keywords, each site's own keyword total, estimated monthly visits and average rank.
The detail that matters is the overlap share. A site where at least 5% of its keywords match the domain you entered counts as a close competitor. A giant like Wikipedia shares keywords with nearly everyone, so it is set aside as a large general site rather than ranked as a peer. Without that split, the top of any raw list is full of encyclopedias and marketplaces.
Know the limits before you trust the list. The lookup covers a whole domain, not one folder. It sees one country at a time. It cannot find a rival that wins customers offline or only through paid ads, and the visit numbers are estimates. A very small domain may come back with few close matches, because the handful of terms it ranks for are shared mostly with big sites.
A run costs 38 credits, shown before you start. The Indie plan is $29 a month for 2,000 credits.
Measure 2: buyer overlap
Buyers reveal their shortlist every time they search for a replacement. Type the rival's brand into Google followed by "vs", "alternatives" or "competitors" and read the autocomplete. Google says those predictions reflect real searches people have run, so each suggested pairing is a comparison someone wanted to make.
Then open several third-party alternatives articles and count which names appear in most of them. Skip lists published by vendors themselves. A company's own comparison page names the rivals it would like to be weighed against, with itself on top.
Review directories and local listings help here too, because they file businesses in the categories buyers browse.
Measure 3: mention overlap
Two sites are co-cited when one page mentions both. Choose two brands you already know are peers, put each in quotes, and search for pages containing both. The extra names that keep recurring on those pages form the cluster. Each of those pages is also a place your own brand could be named.
AI assistants lean on the same comparison pages and threads, so their answers are a fast read of mention overlap. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same plain question several times. A brand named once is noise. A brand named in every run is a peer the models agree on. For the sources behind those answers, AI Citation Finder (160 credits) lists the pages Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT cite most for a topic.
Which measure to start with
- Writing content or planning SEO: start with search overlap, then take two or three close matches into Competitor Keywords (35 credits) or Keyword Gap (85 credits).
- Setting prices or rewriting a pitch: start with buyer overlap.
- Earning links or a place in AI answers: start with mention overlap, then check who links to the cluster with Backlink Finder (70 credits).
Where another tool fits better
seogeoaeo.ai runs single lookups. If you need daily position tracking for a set of rivals, a suite with a rank tracker does that job and these tools do not.
Put it to work
Run the measure that matches your goal, keep the three lists apart, and act on the one you need this quarter. To start with search overlap, open the competitor tools on seogeoaeo.ai and enter the rival's domain instead of your own.