You can find what keywords a site ranks for using free tools like Google Search Console (for your own site) or third-party SEO platforms like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest (for any site, including competitors). The approach depends on whether you’re looking at a site you own or someone else’s.
Check Your Own Site With Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the most accurate source of keyword data for a site you own, because it pulls directly from Google’s own search data rather than estimating. Once your site is verified, open the Performance report under “Search results.” The default view shows click and impression data for the past three months, but you can adjust the date range to go back as far as 16 months.
The key dimension you want is “Queries.” Click the Queries tab above the data table, and you’ll see every search term that triggered your site in Google’s results. For each query, you can toggle on four metrics: clicks (how many people actually visited your site from that search), impressions (how many times your site appeared), CTR (clicks divided by impressions), and average position (where your page typically ranked for that term). Average position is especially useful for spotting keywords where you’re close to page one but not quite there.
You can filter this data further by search type (web, image, video, or news), by specific pages, by country, or by device. If you want to see which keywords drive traffic to one particular page, add a page filter with that URL, then switch back to the Queries tab. The export button lets you download everything as a spreadsheet so you can sort, filter, and analyze it offline. Values that show as a tilde or dash in the interface will appear as zeros in the export.
Analyze Any Site With Third-Party SEO Tools
When you want to see keywords for a competitor’s site, or for any domain you don’t own, you’ll need a third-party SEO platform. The most widely used options are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Ubersuggest. Each works the same way at a high level: you enter a domain or specific URL, and the tool returns a list of organic keywords that domain ranks for, along with estimated search volume, ranking position, and traffic estimates.
Ahrefs and Semrush are the most comprehensive, with databases covering billions of keywords across dozens of countries. Both offer limited free lookups but require paid subscriptions (starting around $99 to $130 per month) for full access. Ubersuggest provides a more budget-friendly option with a free tier that covers a handful of daily searches. It also assigns SEO difficulty scores to each keyword, which is helpful if you’re trying to find terms you can realistically compete for. A difficulty score under 30 is a reasonable target for newer sites.
To run a basic analysis, enter the competitor’s root domain (like example.com) into the tool’s organic research or site explorer feature. You’ll get a full list of keywords that site ranks for, which you can sort by position, volume, or traffic value. Most tools also let you enter a specific URL instead of the whole domain, so you can see exactly which keywords a single blog post or product page is pulling in.
Use Free Browser Extensions for Quick Checks
If you don’t want to commit to a paid tool, browser extensions can give you useful keyword data right inside Google’s search results. Keyword Surfer is a free Chrome extension that displays search volume, cost per click, and estimated traffic directly in the search results page as you browse. It covers data from 70 countries and lets you save keywords into folders that you can export as CSV files. You won’t get the depth of a full SEO platform, but for quick competitive checks, it’s a practical starting point that requires no subscription.
Other free or freemium extensions like MozBar and SEOquake overlay domain authority, page authority, and basic keyword metrics on search results pages. These are useful for gauging how competitive a keyword is at a glance, even if they don’t give you a full keyword list for a specific site.
Why Third-Party Data Won’t Match Google’s Numbers
If you compare keyword data from Semrush or Ahrefs with what Google Search Console shows for your own site, the numbers will never match exactly. Third-party tools estimate rankings by crawling search results periodically and modeling traffic based on average click-through rates. Google Search Console reports actual clicks and impressions recorded by Google itself.
The discrepancies go deeper than just sampling differences. Search Console uses Pacific Time as its default timezone, which can shift daily counts compared to tools using other time zones. Search Console also reports data based on the canonical URL (the version of a page Google considers the primary one), so if your site has duplicate or near-duplicate pages, the data gets consolidated differently than a third-party tool might show. Google’s own documentation notes that even when comparing Search Console to Google Analytics, general trends should align even if the raw numbers don’t. The same principle applies to third-party SEO tools: treat them as directional indicators rather than exact measurements.
Find Content Gaps Between You and Competitors
Once you know what keywords both your site and your competitors rank for, the next step is identifying the gaps. A keyword gap analysis compares your keyword profile against one or more competitors to find terms they rank for that you don’t. This reveals content opportunities you might be missing entirely.
In Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool, you add your domain alongside up to four competitor domains, then hit compare. The results break down into categories that make the analysis actionable. “Missing” keywords are terms every competitor ranks for but you don’t appear for at all. “Weak” keywords are terms where you do rank, but lower than all your competitors. “Untapped” keywords are terms where at least one competitor ranks but you’re absent. Ahrefs offers a similar Content Gap feature with the same logic.
Targeting missing and weak keywords first tends to be the highest-value move, because these are terms where search demand is already proven and your competitors have validated that the topic converts. You can export these keyword lists, filter by search volume and difficulty, and use them to plan new content or improve existing pages that are underperforming.
Putting It All Together
Start with Google Search Console for your own site, since it’s free and the data comes straight from Google. Use a third-party tool when you need to research competitors or want features like keyword difficulty scoring and content gap analysis. Cross-reference both sources when possible, keeping in mind that third-party estimates are useful for relative comparisons but won’t match Google’s exact numbers. For quick, no-cost checks on the fly, a browser extension like Keyword Surfer fills the gap without requiring a login or subscription.