Two years ago, we analyzed 114 ‘comparison’ keywords to see what their Google search results looked like.
Now, we’ve taken it to the next level – 500 keywords, 4,523 search results.
The findings?
Reddit is everywhere.
Though that perhaps isn’t such a big surprise anymore.
Let’s break down all the data and the trends.
Key Highlights (TL;DR)
- Reddit is the most visible website across the SERPs, with 367 occurrences out of the 4,523 search engine results we examined – 8.12% of the total results.
- Quora is also in the top 5 most visible websites (#5), with 97 occurrences which account for 2.15% of the total results.
- 65.20% of the keywords don’t display an AI Overview feature.
- The majority of the keywords (59.20%) don’t display a Discussions and Forums feature.
- A staggering 96.80% of the keywords have a Related Questions (AKA People Also Ask) section in the search results.
- 10 of the top 20 most visible websites are software review websites like G2, Capterra, and Software Advice.
- 5 out of the top 20 most visible websites are SaaS companies, including the likes of Zapier, ClickUp, Userpilot, and more.
- Average Search Volume of 373.4 means that these are moderate volume keywords.
- Average Keyword Difficulty of 23.0 suggests that there is not much competition for these keywords.
- Average CPC of $8.28 implies that there is a relatively high commercial intent behind the keywords.
Methodology and Caveats
- For the study, we compiled a list of 500 ‘comparison’ keywords that weren’t based on publicly available lists or any criteria (e.g., revenue, team size, etc.).
- We define ‘comparison keywords’ as any keyword that follows the pattern ‘{product name} vs {product name}.’
- The main tools we used were a search engine results scraping API, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google Collab for managing data extraction and certain calculations.
- Our data is available in a Google Sheet that served as the main worksheet for conducting the study and performing certain calculations.
- We didn’t focus on the content of the ranking websites mainly due to crawling limitations (e.g., blocked through robots.txt) that could affect the quality of our data.
- Even though the data is accurate as of publishing this study, there may be discrepancies since Google search results are dynamic and personalized.
- We focused on the top 10 search results in English for searches performed in the US and tried to perform fresh searches and not rely on cached data.
- Certain brand names used in the study may have changed or be obsolete due to rebranding, an acquisition, or other reasons. For example, ‘ConvertKit’ was recently rebranded to ‘Kit.’
- Even though we manually double-checked a few results for accuracy, we can’t guarantee there are no discrepancies due to various reasons (e.g., false choice of API endpoints).
Analysis #1: Top 20 Websites Across All Search Results
We analyzed 4,523 search results belonging to these 500 ‘comparison’ keywords.
Here are the top 10 websites most commonly found in the SERPs.
Reddit dominates the search results
As you can see in the graph above, Reddit is the absolute winner when it comes to share of search for ‘comparison’ keywords.
Nearly three years ago, in the previous iteration of this study, Reddit was nowhere to be found.
Another community-driven platform, Quora, is also ranked high in the top 10 websites for ‘comparison’ keywords, with share of search at 2.15%.
Clearly, users are a lot more interested in authentic, real-world experiences and discussions about products and their comparisons.
They want to hear from actual users of these products without having to scroll through self-promoting comparison listicles.
Review and comparison platforms are still relevant
It also comes as little surprise that review and comparison platforms such as G2, Software Advice, Capterra, and similar are still highly visible in search results for ‘comparison’ keywords.
Here are the top review websites and their share of the search results.
- G2 (4.14%)
- Software Advice (2.74%)
- Capterra (2.41%)
- TrustRadius (1.99%)
- GetApp (1.42%)
- SourceForge (1.02%)
- TechnologyAdvice (0.62%)
- SoftwareSuggest (0.62%)
Together with the community-driven websites highlighted above, it’s clear that peer feedback will become even more important in software and other product selection in the future.
5 SaaS platforms stand out
Let’s be real – rare is a SaaS tool that doesn’t incorporate ‘{product} vs {product}’ pages into their content strategy.
In our alternatives keywords study, we found that only one SaaS platform is visible in the top 20 websites across 9,610 search results for ‘{product} alternatives’ keywords. (Guess which one?)
In the case of ‘comparison’ keywords, we see a total of 5 SaaS platforms in the top 20 websites most visible for ‘comparison’ keywords.
- 6sense (1.61%)
- Zapier (1.61%)
- Userpilot (1.04%)
- ClickUp (1.04%)
- StackShare (1.04%)
This number seems low, but it comes as no surprise given how popular community-driven and review and comparison websites are.
However, SaaS companies should not, by any means, give up on creating comparison pages.
Here’s why:
- They inspire trust and transparency in potential customers, especially if the content isn’t too generic or salesy.
- They help the brand control the narrative around their product and highlight key differentiators.
- They reduce churn by setting the right expectations before the user makes a purchase.
So even if it seems impossible to beat Reddit, owning well-structured comparison pages ensures your brand’s voice is part of the conversation, helping you attract high-intent buyers and influence their decision-making.
Analysis #2: Search Metrics
Let’s look at the most common search metrics for our 500 ‘comparison’ keywords.
Here’s what we found:
The average search volume of 373.4 searches per month indicates that these keywords have a moderate search demand.
While not ultra high-volume, the searches are highly valuable because they indicate strong purchase intent.
At 23.0, the average KD is relatively low. This suggests that with solid SEO efforts SaaS companies have a real chance to rank for ‘comparison’ keywords valuable for them, even against larger review sites.
Finally, a CPC of $8.28 is quite high, implying that there is high commercial intent behind the keywords.
This makes sense, since, in this stage, users are interested in switching to or adopting a new SaaS product. This intent makes the keywords valuable for advertisers, hence the higher CPC.
Analysis #3: Presence of AI Overviews
Have no fear – AI Overviews are far from the groundbreaking change in SEO and Google search results that many predicted they would be.
According to our research, only 34.80% of ‘comparison’ keywords include AI Overviews.
65.20% of keywords have the same non-AI search results as they always had.
What does this mean?
It means that, while AI is slowly creeping into SERPs, it is still far from a dominant feature for this specific type of keyword.
Analysis #4: Presence of Discussions and Forums
In 2022, Google introduced the Discussions and Forums SERP feature which favors community-driven content.
Out of our 500 ‘comparison’ keywords, here’s how often this section showed up in the search results:
- 40.80% with Discussions and Forums
- 59.20% without Discussions and Forums
More than a quarter of the search results included this section.
This is quite a significant number, especially when we compare it to ‘alternatives’ keywords where only 18.20% of search results had a Discussions and Forums section.
This is consistent with our previous conclusions that the SERPs for ‘comparison’ keywords seem to emphasize peer reviews and community experiences more than any other type of content.
Analysis #5: Presence of the People Also Ask (Related Questions)
Content-wise, the People Also Ask SERP feature is a goldmine for being featured in the SERPs even if your page isn’t ranking by itself.
Our research uncovered that a whopping 96.80% of ‘comparison’ keyword SERPs include the People Also Ask section, while 3.20% do not.
To understand why this is important, let’s quickly explain the main mechanism behind this section.
Contrary to popular belief, People Also Ask isn’t just a list of frequently searched questions.
Instead, here’s how it works:
- Google’s crawl bot scans web pages for relevant questions and answers that could help users with their queries.
- The algorithm selects suitable questions and pairs them with concise answers extracted from the pages it crawls.
- Each question-answer pair includes a link to the source page, providing an opportunity for visibility even if the page does not rank in the top 10 search results.
If your content is clear and concise enough – and formatted right – it could be featured in the People Also Ask section and the SERPs.
Bottom Line
As mentioned above, all of this data points to several key conclusions:
- Peer feedback has a critical role in the decision-making process when choosing SaaS products.
- There is a mounting preference for authentic, nuanced user-generated discussions. This preference will likely only grow in the future.
We’re looking forward to performing a similar study once again in the future and seeing how the results change with time (and shifting user behaviors).
Thank you for reading!
