Content Gap Analysis: A Scoring Sheet and AI Citation Check

A content gap analysis compares what your site covers with what searchers, competitors' pages, and AI answers cover, and finds topics where you are absent, weak, or never cited. Every gap, as we use the word from here on, falls into one of three types, and each type has a different fix.

If a page fits both B and C, fix B first. The thresholds in this table (position 11, 4 of 20) are our rules of thumb, not industry standards. Adjust them to your market, but fix them before you start so every topic is judged the same way.

The table matters because most gap reports surface only type A. A rival ranking for a term you do not rank for looks the same whether you have no page or a weak one. Writing a new page for a type B gap puts two of your own pages in competition for one query. That is our reasoning from how search results work.

Filter harder than the tool's default, then cut every term that fails three checks before you score anything. A keyword gap report lists the terms your rivals rank for and you do not. It is the raw material for a content gap analysis, not the plan.

Pull. Enter your domain and three or four direct rivals. Ahrefs' Content Gap report accepts up to 10 competitors. Semrush's Keyword Gap compares up to four. Ahrefs' own guide starts from monthly search volume above 20, keyword difficulty (KD, the tool's score for how hard a term is to rank for) under 30, and at least two competitors in the top 10 (Ahrefs). Requiring two rivals filters out one-off rankings. If your site is established, relax the KD limit; if it is new, keep it.

Cut. Run each remaining term through the three checks above.

No paid tool? Google Search Console is free and shows the queries your own site already earns impressions for. Queries where you appear at position 11 or lower are type B candidates, and those between 11 and 30 are closest to page one. Search Console cannot show what rivals rank for. Rival data needs a rival-aware tool (free tiers are limited) or manual review of the top results.

Score each gap from −3 to 9 with a four-part formula, write anything that reaches 6, hold 3 to 5, and skip anything below 3. This is our model, not an official method: Score = Business fit + Intent fit + Evidence we can add − Effort, each rated 0 to 3.

• Business fit: 0 means unrelated to what you sell; 3 means readers at the decision stage.
• Intent fit: 0 means the top results are a page type you will not publish; 3 means a close match.
• Evidence we can add: 0 means nothing competitors lack; 3 means original data, a tool, or a worked example.
• Effort: 0 means a small edit; 3 means new research plus design.

Demand is handled before scoring: the volume filter removes terms with little search, and the prompts in the AI test are questions buyers already ask. Be strictest with the evidence term. If you can add nothing a ranking page lacks, a new page is a copy, and the score should show it. The 6-point cutoff is our recommendation, chosen because it requires strong fit and some original contribution.

Write 20 buyer questions for the topic, run them in the AI tools your buyers use, and record for each question whether your domain is cited. A page can rank and still be absent from AI answers, so this is a separate test, run per topic.

If your page ranks in the top 10 and covers the topic fully but fails the test, you have a type C gap. Google's documentation says a page must be "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet," and that "there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary" (Google Search Central). That statement covers Google's own AI features. Our inference is that the same content-first approach applies to ChatGPT and Perplexity: improve the answer, the evidence, and the coverage rather than hunting for markup. For the wider workflow, see our AI visibility audit.

To skip the manual run for one question, our free ChatGPT Visibility Checker asks ChatGPT live and shows the answer, the sources it cites, and whether you are in it. It gives three free checks, with results emailed to you.

As of October 2026, Ahrefs Lite to Advanced and Semrush SEO to Advanced cost $129 to $549 a month, and Google Search Console is free. That range counts seven plans billed monthly. Ahrefs also sells a $29 Starter plan and Semrush offers a free plan; both sit below the range. Ahrefs Enterprise ($1,499, annual commitment) sits above it.

PageLens.ai publishes this page and sells one of the tools in the table.

PageLens.ai runs your tracked prompts on a schedule and shows which pages the engines cite instead of yours. We then build a brief from each gap: every brief starts from a page AI already cites instead of you, and the finished page is published to your domain after your approval.

A 20-prompt test is a spot check. Scheduled tracking shows whether a rewrite moved your citation rate. What each plan adds beyond the table above:

• Launch: 100 tracked prompts, run weekly, with 25 content pieces a month.
• Growth: 100 tracked prompts, run daily, with 50 content pieces a month.
• Enterprise: 200 tracked prompts, run daily, with 100 content pieces a month.

Content Brain and unlimited users are on every plan. Launch, Growth, and Enterprise each cover one website and up to six markets; Agency pricing is custom for multiple sites. The full comparison is on our pricing page.

To see your own citation gaps worked through on your category, Book a demo.