How is "SOC" calculated exactly?

The last I read it was based off allintitle, allinanchor, phrase match results etc. I wouldn't trust it - there are heaps of reports of people ranking for stupidly high SOC values and those who don't with the really low single digit ones...

You are better off focusing on the fundamentals of what makes a strong competitve site and create your own 'formula'. Stick to keywords with a top 10 full of low PR and Low backlinks to the page and you should be cool bananas.

Your real competition is always who is in the top spots on the first page of Google. Numbers mean nothing if you can not get yourself in those spots for your desired search phrases.

I also agree, numbers are nothing,just do hard work for reaching the position you want to.Do everything you should to reach there...then every competition would vanish.

Fraggler gave a good summary, but really, when it comes to the competition, the only thing that matters is how strong each results in teh top 10 is, since those are the ones you want to beat.

When I look at the competition, I look at the following:

• Google PageRank of the page
• Google inbound links to the page
• Yahoo inbound links to the page
• Google AllInTitle and AllInURL for the keyword
• Google PageRank of the domain
• Google/Yahoo links to the domain

The easiest way to check this information is to get the SEOQuake plugin for FireFox.

I look at the PR for each page in the top 10. I want:

• Nothing higher than a PR 4
• At least half the results (5) are PR 1 or PR 0
• At least 1 of the pages in the top 3 is a PR 1 or PR 0

I have sites that rank well that don't show any inbound links in Google. Nevertheless, I check this for the top 5. If I see any inbound links, I'll check out the sites the links are from to see how strong they are (I want < PR 5) and how old the domain is (the younger, the better). If I see too many inbound links (say 5 or more), or links from higher PR sites (higher than PR 4), and links from old domains (older than 3 years), chances are I'll toss the keyword.

To check a site in Yahoo, go to Yahoo Site Explorer. Don't be surprised when you run into pages with zero Google inbounds, yet hundreds or even thousands of Yahoo inbound links. Although Yahoo doesn't show all link either, it usually shows a lot more than Google. When it comes to Yahoo inbound links, I look for 250 or less. Make sure you check how many different sites the links come from. It's not uncommon to run into a page with a few hundred inbound links, yet when you dig into it you see 90% of them come from one domain. I like to see pages with 300 or fewer inbound links.

AllInTitle and AllInURL are good measures to gauge if other sites are optimizing for the keyword. For each of these, I like to see 5,000 or less, with 1,000 or less being ideal. I might go as high as 10,000 if it's a higher volume keyword or the PR analysis looks good.

Just because a page is PR 0 doesn't mean the domain is. I find PR 0 pages inside sites with PR 5 or higher home pages. I look for domains with a PR 4 or lower. My feeling is that even though page PR is low, site PR isn't, which might make the page harder to beat. Also, depending on who's running the site, if they get wise and do some internal linking, they could easily make the page stronger, thus nullifying all your hard work.

I look links to the domain for the same reason I look at domain PR; I want to get more of a complete picture of the strength of the site. The fewer the number of inbound links to the domain, the better. As with inbound page links, Google doesn't show all, so I check both Google and Yahoo. To check a site in Yahoo, go to Yahoo Site Explorer. I like to see no more than 5 - 10 for Google, and 1,000 or lower for Yahoo.