Ahrefs

If you're looking for a top-notch backlink analysis, keyword analysis and competitive analysis tool, Ahrefs will suit you. Most experts rightly consider it the absolute market leader. In this article, we'll break down everything you might want to know about Ahrefs - the advantages, disadvantages and features.

What is Ahrefs?

As we mentioned in the introduction, Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO toolkit that includes tools for effective link building, keyword analysis, competitor analysis, position tracking and site audits. Most of the features within the Ahrefs ecosystem are designed for marketing professionals.

Otherwise: Ahrefs is an SEO tool designed to help site owners get higher rankings in Google.

What is Ahrefs used for?

Ahrefs is primarily used to aanalyze a site's link profile, keyword rankings and the "overall state" of SEO. However, the uses don't end there; keyword analysis for Google, YouTube and Amazon can also be performed with Ahrefs.

A lot of users also use Ahrefs to find content that works well in terms of social sharing and/or links.

Remarkably, when Ahrefs was first launched in 2011, it was primarily used to analyze backlinks on the web. Today, it is a truly comprehensive tool that covers virtually all the needs of SEO professionals with its functionality.

Who is a typical Ahrefs user?

The tool is mainly used by:

• Small business owners who do their own SEO.
• SEO agencies that work on projects from several clients.
• "Internal" marketers who are in charge of marketing their employers' websites.
• Affiliate marketers who run several different websites.
• SEO consultants who advise clients on their SEO strategy.

How much does Ahrefs cost?

Quality tools cost something and Ahrefs is no exception. Some partial functions can be used for free in a limited way, but full use is charged for under several tariffs.

Ahrefs pricing therefore depends on the plan you choose. And, among other things, whether the user chooses monthly or annual billing. The pricing plan is quite complex at first glance, and it is a good idea to thoroughly clarify what you require from the SEO software matador in advance - and choose the ideal plan accordingly.

What's free on Ahrefs?

It's completely free to register, which gives you access to Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) at Ahrefs. According to the company, this is a response to Google Search Console limitations and is completely free.

You can try tools like Backlink Checker (analyzes backlinks), Broken Link Checker (analyzes broken backlinks) and Website Authority Checker (detects domain authority, number of referring domains and total number of links leading to the site).

Advantages and disadvantages of working with Ahrefs

The Ahrefs platform attracts users with a wide range of features wrapped in a highly tuned environment. You will find your way around the intuitive user interface almost immediately.

Other key advantages include the number of supported analyses, the high level of real practicality for SEO, but also a relatively large database of analyzed words and websites (even data from Seznam is not missing, which is rare for foreign tools). All in all, this is probably the most extensive publicly available web crawler ever.

Among other things, you can count on perfect user support.

The disadvantages are the higher price.

Is Ahrefs better than Semrush?

In your search for the ideal SEO tool, you will almost certainly come across Semrush. Again, this is a very high quality tool, and it is therefore difficult to answer the question of which of the pair holds the top spot.

The biggest advantage Ahrefs has over Semrush in keyword analysis is the search engines you can actually research for. While Semrush only provides data for Google searches, Ahrefs allows you to perform keyword research for 10 search engines, including big players like YouTube and Amazon.

In terms of data accuracy, both Ahrefs and Semrush are actually equal. However, Semrush has a slight advantage in a direct confrontation with a competitor, because it is more frequently refreshed. The data from Ahrefs and Semrush generally match and balance, but Semrush gives you an overview of changes in virtually real time.

In terms of range of services, Ahrefs wins, but Semrush is a reasonable choice for someone looking for an excellent value for money SEO tool.

Terms you will encounter when working with Ahrefs

URL Rating (UR): a measure of the authority of a link from a given site. It is calculated as a combination of the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to a given page.

Domain Rating (DR): the URL rating used for the entire site (essentially the equivalent of the Moz Domain Authority metric).

Anchors: a breakdown of the most commonly used anchor texts in a site's link profile.

Referring Domains: the number of different unique web pages that link to a specific page or site. A high number of referring domains correlates with a higher Google ranking.

CTLDs Distribution: the distribution of links on the web by top-level domains (.com, .edu. .de, etc.).

Ahrefs Rank: the ranking of the link profile on the site. As with the Alexa ranking, the lower the number, the better the link profile.

Parent Topic: The keyword falls under a broader topic (for example, "link building" falls under the parent topic "SEO").

Traffic Potential: Keyword "SEO": the amount of traffic you would get if you ranked first for a given keyword.

Keyword Difficulty: indicates how difficult (or easy) it will be to get a site on the first page of results in Google for a given keyword.

Also Rank For: keywords that rank in the top 10 spots (for example, sites that rank for "content marketing" may also rank for "what is content marketing").