What is the difference between semantic gaps and intent gaps in modern SEO?

Semantic gaps occur when competitors cover a topic with greater dimensionality (topic clusters vs. isolated keywords). For example, if you rank for "content marketing" but competitors also cover distribution, repurposing, and auditing, they have stronger topical authority. Intent gaps happen when content serves the wrong stage of the buyer journey - like having decision-stage content when users are researching problems. Fix semantic gaps by building complete topic clusters. Fix intent gaps by mapping content to awareness, consideration, and decision stages based on conversational search patterns.