Competitor gaps
What It Shows
Competitor gaps lists the searches where a rival is on Google's first page and your site is not, read from the rank checks that already run each night - nothing extra is searched or paid for. One search is one row, however many rivals hold it. It is a report on Google results, not on AI answers: the AI engines are measured separately, on your topics. Each row names the leading rival, their best position, and - where the check stored it - a link to their page that is winning, with what kind of page it looks like (a list, a video, a forum thread, a tool...). That kind is read from the page's address alone, so treat it as a reading, not a fact: open the page before you decide how to beat it. A search held by a video or a forum is usually won by appearing there rather than by writing a page. Each row also says the buying stage its words suggest - Buying, Comparing or Learning - and, where a page on your own site is already about it by its title and address, links it: "Your site has a page on this". That reading only ever says the positive, because a site that says nothing about a search in its titles may still offer it. The searches are under "Pages worth writing". Above them, "Businesses competing with you" starts closed and names the three taking the most of your searches, so the pages to write are on your first screen. Click its heading to open it: it lists the first twenty businesses, with "Show all" for the rest, and click a business to see which of your searches it holds. The page remembers whether you left the list open.
Sort these for me
Pick one of your sites and press "Sort these for me" to have the top of its list sorted. The data goes first: a search whose winning page looks like a video or a forum thread is marked "Leave it", because it is won by appearing there. Then your own AI is asked once, on your key, to mark the rest "Take it", "Fold under" one of the site's main topics, or "Same as" another search on the list - each with a one-line reason naming what it used. It runs only when you press it, never on a schedule. It never judges whether your business offers a subject: that is yours to decide with "Not for me". Every answer is checked against the list it was given, so a topic the AI makes up is dropped rather than shown. And it is advice only - nothing is added or set aside until you do it. The last sort is kept in your browser for that site, so reopening the page spends nothing; "Sort again" asks afresh. "Show only what to take" narrows the table to the searches it marked "Take it".
Adding a search
"Add to the mix" gives the search a page of its own: the Evidence Engine builds for it and writes the page on your own site. On Growth and above that happens on the engine's schedule; on Starter it happens when you press Run now. By default adding also makes it a measured topic, so your AI visibility runs ask about it - which gives you a reading from before the page is written as well as after. Untick "Also ask the AI engines about what I add" above the table if you only want it built. If all the measurement slots are in use the topic is added with measuring off, and if the site has no recurring visibility run yet nothing asks about it until one is set up - the message after adding says which. Where a row suggests an existing topic, "or under ..." files the search as a question under that topic instead: it shapes that topic's page, and is not measured on its own. A campaign set to keep the Evidence Engine's gaps out cannot take a search from here, because nothing would build from it; the message says so.
Not for me
"Not for me" takes a search off the list for that site and keeps it off, on every visit. It is only ever your call - the platform never decides that a search is not what you do. The searches you set aside are listed, folded, under the table, each with "Bring back".
The topic limit
A project keeps up to 60 main topics, on every plan. Sub-topics stand under a main topic, are how it gets worked, and do not count against the 60. Open the page for one site from its project: Topics, then "manage", then "Searches rivals hold on Google where you do not appear". Nothing on the topic list is retired, or has its measuring switched off, unless you say so. Where a topic has been asked about six times without ever being named and nothing was published for it, or a topic you published for should be measured in place of an idle one because the measured list is full, it shows as a suggestion: a small "suggestions" chip beside your topics opens them, each with its reason, to accept or keep as it is. A suggestion you keep is not made again.