How to Compare Two Lists in Excel

Knowing how to compare data from two different columns in Excel using the VLOOKUP feature is something that can be super useful for internet marketers or anyone who deals with data regularly. The other day I did some competitive research to gather backlink data from various websites, many of which had backlinks from sites I’ve contacted in the past. I wanted to make sure not to contact these sites again, so I needed to weed out the URL’s that matched in both lists.

I’m on a Macbook and using VBA code isn’t available in Excel for Mac, so I had to find a formula, which I did after a long search. Start by putting the longest list in Column A and the shorter list in Column B. In Column C enter =VLOOKUP(A1,B:B,1,FALSE) and copy the formula down to the last cell where data ends in Column A.

A1 = The cell being compared
B:B = The set of data Column A cells are being compared to
1 = Tells the formula to return a result from of data matches
FALSE = Tells the formula to return an exact match

Tip: If you’re using this to compare deep URLs but need to compare to domains, use Ontolo’s URL & Hostname Counter, set to Count Hostnames and click the button. Copy to Clipboard and paste into Excel.

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