Market Share FAQs
What is Market Share?
Market Share in Conductor reflects the percentage of results that brands own across the search engine results pages for your tracked keywords. In the report, you can determine whether to see market share data across:
- The top position on your tracked keywords SERPs.
- The top 5 positions on your tracked keywords SERPs.
- The top 10 positions on your tracked keywords SERPs.
You can also determine whether to see weighted or non-weighted market share data.
What is the difference between Not Weighted and Weighted market share?
The short answer
Weighted market share takes each keyword's search volume into account. Keywords with greater search volumes reflect a greater market share.
Not Weighted market share does not take search volume into account. This means that it gives the same value to all keywords regardless of search volume.
Are you the technical type? Here's how we calculate these values:
| Not Weighted | = TA divided by TP |
| Weighted | = MSVA divided by the sum of (RP x MSVS) for each relevant keyword |
Calculation definitions
| TA |
Total Appearances Total appearances of a web property in reported positions for all relevant keywords* |
| RP |
Reported Positions per Relevant Keyword* Number of available positions for a web preperty to potentially rank for a keyword. If you set the report to show the Top 1 or Top 5, the RP is 1 or 5, respectively. |
| TP |
Total Positions Total possible reported positions for all relevant keywords* (RP x number of keywords) |
| MSVA |
Monthly Search Volume for Appearances Total monthly search volume of relevant keywords* that had appearances in the top positions for this web property |
| MSVS |
Monthly Search Volume per Relevant Keyword Monthly search volume of each, individual keyword* |
*Relevant keyword:
Tracked keywords appearing in the report, based on chosen filters (rank type, location/device, keyword group, date)
Why choose one over the other?
Weighted values provide a holistic view of market share because they better reflect the actual total visibility of all the results that appear on each search engine results page generated for each keyword you are reporting on.
However, you might choose Not Weighted if you want to report on long-tail or highly specific search terms together with head terms or more general keywords because the outsized visibility of the head terms will overshadow your performance for the long-tail terms. You might be winning market share against your competitors for those low-volume terms, but it could be lost in the "noise" created by your performance for the high-volume keywords.
Search volume means an added dimension for understanding your market share
The denominator for both types of market share determines the universe of possible positions you our your competition could own. We use Reported Positions (RP) to determine this denominator for both market share calculations:
- In Not Weighted market share, the denominator is the two-dimensional variable Total Positions, which we calculate: RP x (number of relevant keywords*)
- In Weighted market share, we add a dimension by multiplying RP by the monthly search volume for all your keywords (MSVS). Then Conductor sums up these products of each keyword. This provides the whole universe of SERP positions in which your content could possibly appear.
The numerator for both types of market share indicates the specific positions your organization owns from the universe defined by the denominator (as explained above):
- In Not Weighted market share, the numerator is straightforward: Total Appearances. It is a simple sum of whether your content appeared for a relevant keyword*.
- In Weighted market share—like with the denominator—we add a dimension in the form of monthly search volume. Instead of just accounting for whether it appeared in a SERP, we sum the total monthly search volume for all of your appearances for relevant keywords*.
With the monthly search volume providing this extra dimensionality to your data, you can see the added depth it provides—and better understand your true visibility each time someone searches for a keyword you track.
Examples
Example 1
You filter the Market Share to report to show market share on the Top 5 results for your "Fruit" keyword group, which includes the following keywords:
| Keyword | MSVS |
| Pear | 1000 |
| Orange | 5000 |
| Apple | 20000 |
Your content appears in the Top 5 positions for "Pear" and for "Orange". However, you do not appear in the Top 5 positions for "Apple". As a result, your performance on these keywords is as follows:
| TA | 2 | Your content appears 2 times for the relevant keywords: once for "Pear" and once for "Orange". |
| TP | 15 | For each of the 3 keywords in the keyword group, there are 5 potential positions. 3 x 5 = 15 |
| MSVA | 6000 | For your 2 appearances, you have a monthly search volume of 6000. 1000 for "Pear" and 5000 for "Orange". |
| RP | Pear = 5 Orange = 5 Apple = 5 |
Because you are reporting on the Top 5 positions, there are always 5 reported positions for each keyword. |
| MSVS | Pear = 1000 Orange = 5000 Apple = 20000 |
Each of the keyword's monthly search volume as listed above. |
As a result of the factors shown above, here's how we calculate market shares:
| Not Weighted | TA divided by TP | => | 2 divided by 15 | = 13% |
| Weighted | MSVA divided by the sum of products of each relevant keyword's RP and MSVS | => | 6000 divided by [(5 x 1000) + (5 x 5000) + (5 x 20000)] | = 5% |
Example 2
You filter the Market Share to report to show market share in the Top 10 results for your "Fruit" keyword group, which includes the following keywords:
| Keyword | MSVS |
| Pear | 1000 |
| Orange | 5000 |
| Apple | 20000 |
Your content appears once in the Top 10 results for "Pear", "Orange", and "Apple". As a result, your performance on these keywords is as follows:
| TA | 3 | Your content appears 3 times in the relevant keywords: once for "Pear", once for "Orange", and once for "Apple". |
| TP | 30 | Based on the sum of RP for each keyword: 10 + 10 + 10 |
| MSVA | 26000 | For your 3 appearances, you have a monthly search volume of 26000. 1000 for "Pear", 5000 for "Orange", and 20000 for "Apple". |
| RP | Pear = 10 Orange = 10 Apple = 10 |
Because you are reporting on the Top 10 positions, there are always 10 reported positions for each keyword. |
| MSVS | Pear = 1000 Orange = 5000 Apple = 20000 |
Each for the keyword's monthly search volume as listed above. |
As a result of the factors shown above, here's how we calculate market shares:
| Not Weighted | TA divided by TP | => | 3 divided by 30 | = 10% |
| Weighted | MSVA divided by the sum of products of each relevant keyword's RP and MSVS | => | 26000 divided by [(10 x 1000) + (10 x 5000) + (10 x 20000)] | = 10% |
Why is "Carousel" listed as a web property owning market share?
Because of the way Google publishes carousel result types, Conductor cannot always designate a web property as the owner of the market share associated for those results. Rather than simply ignoring these results (because they do take up market share in the SERP), we show this as belonging to an aggregated "Carousel" property so you can understand the impact of those results on your—and and you competitors—market share.
Can I see aggregated market share data for more than one time period in the pie chart?
No. The pie chart only ever shows the most recent time period reflected in the report. This also means that when added as a widget to a Workspace, the pie chart may only show a Time interval of 1 week.