Two Standard Deviations Strategy is a deficit-calculation setting in RankGear that fixes a factor’s target at the competitor average plus two sample standard deviations — an aggressive goal that pushes a page toward the upper edge of the distribution competitors actually occupy.
| Term | Two Standard Deviations Strategy |
|---|---|
| Category | Analysis and Optimization |
| Also known as | 2 STDEV, Average Plus Two Standard Deviations |
| Where it appears | Deficit strategy selector |
What it means in RankGear
For every keyword you analyze, RankGear pulls the competitors that rank for it and measures each ranking factor across that set. A deficit strategy then decides what value your page should aim for on each factor. Two Standard Deviations Strategy is one choice in the deficit strategy selector: it takes the mean of the competitor values and adds two sample standard deviations to it. Because roughly 95% of a normal distribution falls within two standard deviations of the mean, that target lands near the top boundary of what competitors are doing — a deliberately high bar rather than a middle-of-the-pack one.
How to interpret it
Read it as the most aggressive of the standard-deviation strategies. Because the target scales with the spread of the competitor values, a factor where competitors vary widely produces a large — sometimes extreme — target, while a factor where they cluster tightly produces a target close to the mean. Weigh each recommendation against the target page, the comparison set, and the factor’s correlation before acting: a high target on a weakly correlated factor is rarely worth chasing. No single value should be optimized in isolation.
| Deficit strategy | Target it sets for a factor |
|---|---|
| Average | Competitor mean |
| 1.5 Standard Deviations | Mean plus 1.5 sample standard deviations |
| Two Standard Deviations | Mean plus 2 sample standard deviations (most aggressive) |
Example
Say ten competitors for a keyword average 1,200 words of body content, with a sample standard deviation of 300 words. The Average strategy would set a 1,200-word target; Two Standard Deviations Strategy sets it at 1,200 + (2 × 300) = 1,800 words. If the tracked page sits at 1,100 words, RankGear reports the gap against that 1,800-word goal and can turn it into a prioritized action.
Important considerations
- Aggressive by design: targets can land well above the competitor average and, on high-variance factors, above every individual competitor — sanity-check the number before committing to it.
- Sample size matters. With only a handful of competitors the sample standard deviation is unstable, so the resulting target can swing sharply between analyses.
- The recommendation is evidence from the measured SERP, not a universal rule or proof of causation — hitting the target does not by itself cause a page to rank. Correlation is not causation.
- Factor values here are comparative indicators drawn from the competitor set, not Google’s own scores.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.