The 1.5 Standard Deviations Strategy is a deficit target-setting method that aims a page’s factor value at the competitor mean plus one and a half sample standard deviations — an aggressive goal that pushes past the average competitor into the upper range of the ranking set.
| Term | 1.5 Standard Deviations Strategy |
|---|---|
| Category | Analysis and Optimization |
| Also known as | 1.5 STDEV, Average Plus 1.5 Standard Deviations |
| Where it appears | Deficit strategy selector |
What it means in RankGear
This option lives in the Deficit strategy selector. When RankGear measures a deficit — the gap between your page and the ranking competitors on a given factor — you decide how ambitious the goal should be. Choosing this strategy sets the target at the arithmetic mean of the competitor sample plus 1.5 times the sample standard deviation of that factor across the analyzed results. The result is a goal that deliberately sits above where most competitors land, rather than merely matching the average.
How to interpret it
Because it stacks 1.5 standard deviations on top of the mean, the target lands in the upper tail of the competitor distribution — a value most pages in the set fall below. Read it alongside your page’s current value, the comparison set the number was computed from, and the supporting correlation for that factor. A target is only as trustworthy as the sample behind it: a small or noisy comparison set makes the standard deviation unstable, so the goal can swing more than the underlying signal warrants. Treat it as one input among the target page, the SERP it was drawn from, and the factor’s correlation — not a value to chase in isolation.
| Part of the target | What it contributes |
|---|---|
| Competitor mean | The baseline — the average factor value across the analyzed ranking pages. |
| Sample standard deviation | How spread out the competitors are on this factor; wider spread means a larger step. |
| × 1.5 multiplier | Pushes the goal into the upper tail, above roughly the top of the distribution rather than the middle. |
| Resulting target | mean + (1.5 × standard deviation) — an above-average goal for closing the deficit. |
Example
Say you are tracking a page for “commercial refrigeration repair” and the eight ranking pages average 1,850 words with a sample standard deviation of 300. The 1.5 Standard Deviations Strategy sets the word-count target at 1,850 + (1.5 × 300) = 2,300 words. If your page currently runs 1,400 words, RankGear reports the 900-word deficit against that target and can surface it as a prioritized action to close.
Important considerations
- Aggressive by design: the +1.5 standard deviation target sits in the upper tail, so it suits factors where you want to clearly out-resource competitors rather than every factor by default.
- Sample-sensitive: standard deviation needs enough comparison pages to be stable. Small or skewed sets produce volatile targets that can over- or under-shoot.
- Correlation is not causation: hitting the target is evidence drawn from the measured SERP, not proof that the change will move rankings, and the factor value does not by itself make a page rank.
- Provider-scale, not Google scores: the mean and standard deviation are comparative indicators computed from the analyzed competitors, not values Google reports.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.