Topic focus measures how focused a URL is on a given topic - how much of the page is about it, as opposed to everything else the page also serves - expressed as a share from 0 to 100%. A page devoted to one topic has high focus; a page serving several topics at once divides its focus among them. Low focus is what drives the Create dedicated page and Split page recommendations.
Where you see it
Topic focus works inside Opportunities, once RankDots has scanned your site - you see it both as a number and as reasoning. In a Split page recommendation, open View SEO details to see the Topic focus column: each topic’s share of the page, as a percentage. It also stands behind the reasoning texts: Split page tells you the page is trying to rank for several topics at once; Create dedicated page tells you a topic is sharing space with other content, which dilutes its focus.
How it works
Topic focus measures how much of a URL’s total Google Search Console footprint belongs to one specific topic, versus everything else that page also ranks for. Every keyword the URL ranks for is weighed by how valuable that ranking actually is - clicks matter most, then impressions, then how close to the top it ranks. The weight of the topic’s keywords, divided by the URL’s total weight across everything it ranks for, is the focus percentage.
The number is naturally low for broad pages and high for narrow ones: a homepage serving a whole site might sit under 3%, while a dedicated, single-purpose page can reach 80–100%. Because the raw percentage is harsh on legitimately broad pages, it is softened before it feeds overall scoring - a generalist page is not zeroed out just for covering many things well.
Why it matters: when one page tries to serve several topics, the engine cannot tell which one it should rank for, and tends to rank it poorly for all of them - each topic fights for attention, and none gets enough.
The boundary between the recommendations it drives is how diluted the topic is. Below roughly 2–3% focus - stretching to about 5% for pages that otherwise perform well - the topic is a negligible sliver of the page’s identity, so RankDots recommends spinning it off: Create dedicated page [link is coming]. At or above that bar, the page has meaningful ownership, and the better move is to expand or improve rather than fragment. When one URL juggles several page-worthy topics, the highest-focus topic stays primary, and the rest are pushed out to their own pages - that is Split page [link is coming].
Topic focus is not Topic coverage
The two are confused constantly, so here is the difference in one line: coverage asks how much of the topic the page covers; focus asks how much of the page is about the topic.
Same two ingredients - a page and a topic - opposite directions.
| Topic coverage | Topic focus | |
| The question it asks | How much of the topic does the page address? | How much of the page is about the topic? |
| A low score means | The page does not go deep enough | The page is spread across too many subjects |
| The fix | Expand the page | Separate the topics: a dedicated page, or a split |
They move independently. A dedicated but shallow page is high focus, low coverage - expand it. A page that covers the topic thoroughly but also covers three other subjects is high coverage, low focus - separate it. Diagnosing one as the other produces the wrong fix: expanding an unfocused page adds another fight for attention; splitting a shallow one leaves two thin pages.
How to read it
A low number is not an insult to the page. Broad pages are supposed to be broad - that is why the raw score is softened in overall scoring. Focus answers “where should this topic live?”, not “is this page bad?”
Focus problems are structural, not editorial. You fix low coverage by writing more; you fix low focus by reorganising - giving each topic its own page. It is the plan’s one-page-one-search-need rule applied in reverse: focus is how RankDots finds where your site breaks that rule today.
What next
- Recommendation: Split page [link is coming]
- Recommendation: Create dedicated page [link is coming]