🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 84 (from laksa068)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa084.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review","crawl_time":1774626524,"first_indexed_time":1639223969,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,stylefactoryproductions!www,\/ahrefs-review s443","src_root_hash":"5316739772391995884","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Ahrefs Review (2026) — Pros and Cons of a Leading SEO Tool","meta_descriptions":["In-depth Ahrefs review that explores its key features, its pros and cons and whether it represents value for money."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"We have a strict honest review policy, but please note that when you buy through our links, we may receive a commission. This is at no extra cost to you.\nIn this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution?\nQuick verdict\nAhrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans.\nThat said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users.\nI’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background.\nAhrefs: the background\nFounded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook.\nAhrefs\nIt works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to:\nfind out\nwhat people are searching for on Google\nand other search engines\ncreate\nweb content that is likely to generate traffic\nidentify\nlink-building opportunities\ntweak technical aspects of your site content\nso that it achieves a higher search ranking.\nThat’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are\nmany\nother features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings.\nLet’s go through these now, starting with a look at \ndomain analysis\n.\nDomain analysis\nThe starting point for many SEO projects is\ndomain analysis\n.\nThis simply means getting a\nbasic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website\n— how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on.\nGenerally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your \nown website\n — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a \ncompetitor’s\n, to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so).\nAhrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis\nYou might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’).\nThis is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results.\nIt’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results.\n(You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain).\nViewing domain analytics in Ahrefs\nNow, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a\nlot\nof information.\nKey metrics provided include:\nA ‘\ndomain rating\n‘ (DR) score\nAn\nestimate of the total number of visitors to the website\nper month\nThe\nnumber of AI citations\nfound for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot)\nThe\ntotal number of external links\n\/ domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered\nThe\ntotal number of keywords\nthe URL ranks for\nAnchor text\ncommonly used in links to the URL\nThe ‘\ntraffic value\n‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results\nHistorical information\nabout the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time.\n(Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.)\nOf the above metrics, the one that gives you the\nquickest\nunderstanding of site quality is the ‘\ndomain rating\n’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score\nbased on the number of domains that point to a website\n(and their quality).\nThe domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs\nThe higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be.\nNow, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately\nestimates\nbased on that data.\nIn most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody\nreally\nknows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses.\nA search traffic estimate from Ahrefs\nIn my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is\ntraffic statistics\n.\nBased on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned.\nSo, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an \nindication\n of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations).\nYou can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country.\nToggling data by country\nOverall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here.\nNow, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’\nkeyword research\nfeatures.\nKeyword research using Ahrefs\nKeyword research generally involves four main things:\nfinding out \nhow many people are searching for a given keyword\ndetermining \nhow difficult it is to rank for that keyword\nidentifying\n who is \nalready\n ranking for that keyword\ngetting \nsuggestions\n for other ones.\nLet’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs.\nGetting keyword data in Ahrefs\nTo get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘\nKeywords Explorer’ tool\n. This is accessible via the main navigation.\nUsing Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research\nYou can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester.\nOnce you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see:\nits\n ‘keyword difficulty’ score\nthe \nnumber of searches per month for that keyword\n(and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months)\nsome \nsuggestions for alternative keywords to target\na \nlist of the sites that are ranking for it\n.\n(All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.)\nThis information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth.\nAccessing keyword research data in Ahrefs\nAs with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories.\nPerforming per-country keyword research\nOne of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’).\nNot only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages.\nA SERP overview in Ahrefs\nInterestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you\na word count metric\n(highlighted in my screenshot above).\nNow, debate rages over\nwhether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO\n. But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least\nsome\nidea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword.\nSo a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature.\nKeyword difficulty scores\nThe most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its \nkeyword difficulty score\n. Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword.\nAs you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of\nthe number of referring domains\n(i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase.\nEstimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10\nThis is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool.\nSearch volumes\nAnother key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the\nsearch volume for a particular phrase\n— the number of people searching for a keyword per month.\nKnowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for!\nSearch volume being displayed in Ahrefs\nBut in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people\nclick\non organic results for that keyword.\nIn the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results.\nClick-through data being displayed in Ahrefs\n(In an increasingly\nzero-click content\nenvironment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.)\nAhrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising ($0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example).\nAnd finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of\ntrend data\n— the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question.\nKeyword trend data in Ahrefs\nAhrefs can also show you a\nforecast\nof search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive.\nA search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs\nOverall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time.\nKeyword suggestions\nAlthough a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get\ndetailed\nsuggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard.\nUsing Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas\nWithin this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from:\nmatching terms\n,\nrelated terms\n,\nsearch suggestions\nand\nglobal terms\n.\nWith regard to what these all do:\nThe ‘\nmatching terms\n‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword.\nThe ‘\nrelated terms\n‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway.\nThe ‘\nsearch suggestions\n‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions.\nThe ‘\nglobal terms\n‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting.\nWhich set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into.\nGoogle ‘autocomplete’ suggestions\nThe trick here is to identify phrases that have:\nreasonably high search volumes\na relatively\nlow keyword difficulty score\n.\nA\n‘traffic potential’ metric\n(pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve\nvariations\nof that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term.\nTraffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs\nBelow is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate\n52,000\nvisits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it.\n‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs\nAs things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs.\n(In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.)\nIn each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for.\nKeyword research filters in Ahrefs\nWhile not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters\nslightly\nmore user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges.\nAhrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter\nThis is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy \/ easy \/ hard \/ very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush:\nSemrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s\nAI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs\nIn common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’\nAI keyword research presets\nWhen you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more.\nUsing an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs\nApplying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own.\nSeed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI\nOverall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores.\nAccessing search intent data\nSEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’\nFor example:\n“Gmail” is\nnavigational\n(the user is looking for the Gmail login page)\n“What is a brownie?” is\ninformational\n(the user wants to know what a brownie is)\n“Ahrefs vs Semrush” is\ncommercial\n(the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction)\n“Ahrefs pricing” is\ntransactional\n(the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription).\nThe aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of\nwhy\nsomebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones.\nSo for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial \/ transactional queries instead.\nNow, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it:\n“We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.”\nTim Soulo\n, CMO, Ahrefs\nAnd accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features.\nThankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below).\nSearch intent filters in Ahrefs\nNot only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords).\nThe feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually\nbetter\nthan the search intent tools available in\nMoz and Semrush\n(which for some time it lagged behind in this area).\nDealing with competing domains\nWhen conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that\nalready\nrank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase.\nDomains that are\nalready\nperforming well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its\nKeyword Explorer > Overview\nscreen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more.\nThe ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs\nIt’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that\nonly\nlower authority sites are ranking highly for.\nSpotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for\nWhen you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high).\nRank tracking\n‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time.\nIt’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords.\nUsing the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings\nYou can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town\/city basis; this is helpful for\nlocal SEO efforts\n.\nAs time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords.\nViewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs\nIf you like, you can set up\nemail notifications\nabout your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis.\nYou should note however that\ndaily updates are not available by default\n: you have to pay for a $200\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined.\nMany competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too.\nAnother thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘\nproject slots\n.’\nI’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a\nlimited number of them\nas part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month).\nTo be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking (\nSEO PowerSuite\nbeing a notable exception).\nBacklink analysis\nHow strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘\nbacklinks\n‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it.\nTo perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see:\nwho is linking to that URL\nwhat anchor text is being used in those links\nwhat sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it\nif any links pointing that URL are broken.\nThe point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours.\nThe Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report\nAhrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics).\nHow accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database.\nAt time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have \n35\ntrillion backlinks in its database\n — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs.\nAhrefs’ database statistics (February 2026)\nI was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz.\nHere are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool:\nWebsite\nAhrefs\nMoz\nSemrush\nAmazon\n3.9m\n5.5m\n4.2m\nBigCommerce\n88k\n344k\n208k\nCanva\n415k\n479k\n562k\nEcwid\n31k\n76k\n48k\nGoDaddy\n5.7m\n7m\n10.1m\nJimdo\n431k\n3.6k\n618k\nShopify\n3.2m\n5.3m\n4.6m\nSquarespace\n1.3m\n22k\n374k\nWebflow\n122k\n206k\n242k\nWix\n1.1m\n1.2m\n3.4m\nNow, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel.\nBut that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests.\nNext, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors.\nThe key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush\nIt’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features.\nSemrush\nSemrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features.\nAnd significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can\naccess a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here\n.\nLink building in Ahrefs\nMany prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for\nbacklink building\n. After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results.\nThere are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies:\nits\nSite Explorer tool\n, which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify\nits\nContent Explorer\n, which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics\nits\nAlerts\nfeature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink.\nLet’s discuss each briefly in turn.\nUsing the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities\nUsing Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities.\nTo do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section.\nAccessing backlink data in Ahrefs\nYou’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below).\nReferring domains surfaced by Ahrefs\nYou can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink.\nNow, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you\ndo\nget from key competitor Semrush — is a way to\nmanage the outreach process\n.\nIn Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets.\nDomain prospects surfaced by Semrush\nWith Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches.\nIt all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools \/ apps.\nSo the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it!\nUsing the Content Explorer for link building purposes\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic.\nThe Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature\nYou’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them.\nTop authors data in Ahrefs\nIt would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets.\nUsing Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities\nFinally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit.\nThis lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL.\nAhrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks\nThis gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to\nyour\nwebsite too.\nBroken link building\nBroken link building is an important SEO strategy.\nIt involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to\nyour\nnew content instead.\nThis approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings.\nIn order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it\nreally\neasy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the\nBroken\n \nbacklinks\noption (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section).\nAccessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature\nThis then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature.\nAhrefs’ broken backlinks report\nAdditionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken\noutbound\nlinks too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more.\nIt’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings).\nTo find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code.\nThe Ahrefs broken outbound link report\nIt should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush.\nSite auditing and technical SEO\nOne of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of\nthe technical side of SEO\n.\nThis is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the\ntechnical performance of websites\n— things like\nsite speed\n,\nsecurity\n, and\nmobile-friendliness\n.\nAhrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a\nsite audit\n, Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including:\nSlow-loading content\nMissing alt text\nSSL problems\nCrawl errors\nMissing headers\nDuplicate content\nBroken links\nUsing Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems\nOverall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use\nWix or Shopify\n,\nWordPress or Squarespace\netc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup.\nAhrefs also includes detailed\nCore Web Vitals\ndata in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results.\nCore Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs\nIn Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘\nfield data\n‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from\nChrome users\n) and ‘\nlab data\n,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment.\n(Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.)\nConnecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API\nThe availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on\nLighthouse lab data\n.\nImplementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs\nIf you pay for $20\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below).\nGetting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs\nAnd paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs $200\/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS!\nAnd, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too.\nBrand monitoring features\nSince the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the\namount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website\n, and its performance in search.\n(\nStudies by Moz\nand others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.)\nThis means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘\nBrand Radar\n‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites.\nAhrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool\nThis, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time.\nWhen testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them.\nI really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics.\n(As search engines morph into chatbots,\nYouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators\n— it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.)\nAI tools in Ahrefs\nIn line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set.\nThe two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its\nAI Content Grader\nand its\nAI Content Helper\n.\nAI Content Grader\nAs its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view.\nYou give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will:\ngrade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness)\nhighlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output\nsuggest ways that your content could be improved.\nFor me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example).\nAn AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content\nAnd the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals.\nThe Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles\nAI Content Helper\nAhrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view.\nHowever, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article\nwithin\nthe Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including.\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use\nYou can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc.\nI\nquite\nliked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini.\nOverall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay $99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them.\nInterface and ease-of-use\nAhrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left.\nThe Ahrefs interface\nThis is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users.\nThe menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc.\nAhrefs navigation\nThere is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!).\nIncreasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible.\nAs with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface.\nWhen I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming.\nTo be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone!\nHowever, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access\nsome\ncore data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though).\nFinally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use,\ncould return data a bit faster\n. Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly.\nPricing and value for money\nThere’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive!\nThat’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to \nhuge quantities of data\n, including a lot of competitor intelligence.\nAhrefs provides four main pricing plans:\nLite\n— $129 per month\nStandard\n— $249 per month\nAdvanced\n— $449 per month\nEnterprise\n— from $1,499 per month, with annual commitment required.\nThese fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic.\nThe key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve:\naccess to core features\nthe number of projects\nyou can work with\nthe number of reports\n you can pull\nthe number of keywords\n you can track\nAccess to core features\nOne of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at $129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including:\nsearch intent metrics\nbroken link-building tools\nkeyword clustering\nSERP updates\nAI suggestions\n(Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too).\nFor context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month.\nThe main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications.\nNumber of projects\nIt’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’\nAnd how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its $129 per month plan; 20 on its $249 per month plan; 50 on its $449 per month plan; and 100 on its $14,990 per year plan.\nThese limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can\n‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs\n, it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all!\nVerification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by:\nconnecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console\nadding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings\nuploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage\nadding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage.\nThe ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure.\nNumber of reports\nUntil recently, Ahrefs was\nextremely\nungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.).\nBut changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its $249\/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites.\nThe bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its $129\/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month.\nThis isn’t ideal: paying $129\/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get.\nThis feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports\nper day\non its similarly priced plan\n.\nAhrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the\nnumber of rows\nit outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its $129 plan is 2,500.\n(As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.)\nNumber of keywords you can track\nAnother key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively.\n(These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools).\nIf you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay $50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track.\nAdd-ons for Ahrefs\nIn a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely:\nContent Kit\n($99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier.\nReport Builder\n($99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports.\nProject Boost Pro\n($20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously.\nProject\nBoost Max\n($200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster)\nFor me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved.\n🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available?\nGiven that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it.\nWell, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘\nAhrefs Webmaster Tools\n‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features.\nBut that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional\n7-day free trial\n; and for a limited time\nyou can access a 14-day Semrush trial here\n.\nCustomer support\nSEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users.\nYou get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that\nno phone support is available for the tool\n. This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with.\nOn the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too.\nAccessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard\nOnline help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in.\nUser reviews of Ahrefs\nSo far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data.\nThe table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites:\nReview site\nUser rating (out of 5)\nCapterra\n4.7 (578 reviews)\nG2\n4.5 (667 reviews)\nTrustpilot\n1.9 (303 reviews)\nTrustRadius*\n4.5 (389 reviews)\nAverage\n3.9\n*Recalculated from an out-of-ten score\nAs you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5).\nTrustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service.\nAhrefs review: conclusion\nIt’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously.\nThe recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too.\nAhrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive.\nBecause of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform \nin the comments section below\n.\nReasons I would use Ahrefs\nExtremely generous reporting limits on its $249+ plans.\nIts generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies.\nIt gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing.\nCarrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs.\nYou can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city).\nIt lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is.\nIt lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place.\nAdding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors.\nIts ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors.\nThe interface is available in 15 languages.\nThe learning curve is relatively gentle.\nReasons I would avoid Ahrefs\nThere’s no free trial.\nThe reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous.\nYou can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on.\nIts new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive.\nIts plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default.\nThere’s no phone support.\nThere are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building.\nThere’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work.\nThe interface can be a bit sluggish.\nAlternatives to Ahrefs\nAhrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one!\nAlternative options for SEO analysis\ninclude:\nSemrush\nGrowthBar\nRaven Tools\nProfound (for prompt tracking)\nSpyFu\nSE Ranking\nSimilarweb\nMoz\nSerpstat\nMangools\nSEO PowerSuite\nMajestic\nUbersuggest\nFor more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out\nour Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison\nand our\nMoz vs Ahrefs comparison\n.\nIf you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find \nour full Semrush review here\n, our\nAhrefs vs Semrush shootout here\n, and\nour Semrush pricing guide here\n. We have also published\na comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush\nand recently, an\nUbersuggest vs Semrush comparison\n.\nYou may also find our\nSpyFu vs Semrush blog post\nand our\nSemrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison\nof interest.\nAhrefs review FAQ\nWhat is Ahrefs?\nAhrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website.\nIs Ahrefs free?\nAhrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools.\nIs Ahrefs worth the money?\nAhrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of $129\/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of\nSEO principles\nbefore investing in it.\nWhat’s the best alternative to Ahrefs?\nBased on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that\nSemrush\nis probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings).\nHow we tested this product — and why you can trust this review\nWe tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it.\nWe regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on\nfirst-hand experience\nof its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features.\nAnd finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions.\nUpdate details\nThis review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made:\nProduct screenshots were updated\nA new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added.\nThe user ratings section was updated.\nData pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated.","attrs_markdown":"[Skip to content](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#main)\n\n[![Style Factory](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stylefactoryproductions\/assets\/img\/logo.svg)](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/)\n\nMenu\n\n- [Home](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/)\n- [About](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/about-us)\n  - [About Style Factory](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/about-us)\n  - [Our team](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/our-team)\n  - [Clients](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/clients)\n  - [Testimonials](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/testimonials)\n- [Services](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review)\n  - [Shopify development](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/shop-developers-london)\n  - [Squarespace web design](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/squarespace-designer-london)\n  - [SEO consultancy](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/seo-consultancy)\n- [Tools](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review)\n  - [Free Shopify Startup Kit](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/shopify-startup-kit)\n  - [Store builder finder](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/store-builder-finder)\n  - [SEO toolkit](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/seo-toolkit)\n  - [Super Simple SEO book](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/seo-book)\n- [Resources](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review)\n  - [Startup resources](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/startup-resources)\n  - [Shopify resources hub](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/ecommerce\/shopify-resource-hub)\n  - [Ecommerce platform reviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ecommerce-platform-reviews)\n  - [Print on Demand reviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/ecommerce\/print-on-demand\/print-on-demand-tool-reviews)\n  - [SEO tool reviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/seo\/seo-tool-reviews)\n  - [SEO tips](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/seo\/seo-tips)\n  - [Graphic design tool reviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/category\/design\/design-tool-reviews)\n  - [Email marketing reviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/email-marketing-reviews)\n- [Contact](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/contact)\n- Search Site\n\nClose\n\n# Ahrefs Review (2026) — All the Key Pros and Cons\n![](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/110a16d58138351383493c42f3c55ebcbfe705536a6bf90b714d9575674b2185?s=32&d=mm&r=g)\n\n[Chris Singleton](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/author\/chrissingleton \"Posts by Chris Singleton\")\n\nUpdated: February 4, 2026\n\n### Share this\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review \"Share to Facebook\")\n- [Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&text=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Twitter\")\n- [LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&title=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to LinkedIn\")\n- [Pinterest](https:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Pinterest\")\n- [Reddit](https:\/\/reddit.com\/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Reddit\")\n\nWe have a strict honest review policy, but please note that when you buy through our links, we may receive a commission. This is at no extra cost to you.\n\n![Ahrefs review](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ahrefs-review.png)\n\n*In this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution?*\n***\n## Quick verdict\nAhrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans.\n\nThat said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users.\n\n![A video review of Ahrefs on the Style Factory YouTube channel](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ahrefs-review-video.jpg)\n\n**Learn more about Ahrefs**: [visit website](https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/)   \n**The key alternative**: [Semrush](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/DyjqOd)\n\nI’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background.\n***\n## Ahrefs: the background\nFounded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook.\n\n![The Ahrefs platform](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ahrefs-platform.png)\n\nAhrefs\n\nIt works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to:\n\n- find out **what people are searching for on Google** and other search engines\n- create **web content that is likely to generate traffic**\n- identify **link-building opportunities**\n- **tweak technical aspects of your site content** so that it achieves a higher search ranking.\n\nThat’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are *many* other features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings.\n\nLet’s go through these now, starting with a look at **domain analysis**.\n***\n## Domain analysis\nThe starting point for many SEO projects is **domain analysis**.\n\nThis simply means getting a **basic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website** — how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on.\n\nGenerally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your **own website** — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a **competitor’s**, to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so).\n\n![Ahrefs' Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-site-explorer.png)\n\nAhrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis\n\nYou might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’).\n\nThis is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results.\n\nIt’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results.\n\n(You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain).\n\n![Performing domain analysis using Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-domain-analysis.png)\n\nViewing domain analytics in Ahrefs\n\nNow, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a *lot* of information.\n\nKey metrics provided include:\n\n- A ‘**domain rating**‘ (DR) score\n- An **estimate of the total number of visitors to the website** per month\n- The **number of AI citations** found for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot)\n- The **total number of external links** \/ domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered\n- The **total number of keywords** the URL ranks for\n- **[Anchor text](https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/anchor-text\/)** commonly used in links to the URL\n- The ‘**traffic value**‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results\n- **Historical information** about the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time.\n\n(Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.)\n\nOf the above metrics, the one that gives you the *quickest* understanding of site quality is the ‘**domain rating**’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score [based on the number of domains that point to a website](https:\/\/help.ahrefs.com\/en\/articles\/1409408-what-is-domain-rating-dr) (and their quality).\n\n![The domain rating ('DR') metric in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/domain-rating-metric.png)\n\nThe domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs\n\nThe higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be.\n\nNow, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately *estimates*based on that data.\n\nIn most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody *really* knows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses.\n\n![A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-traffic-estimate.png)\n\nA search traffic estimate from Ahrefs\n\nIn my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is **traffic statistics**.\n\nBased on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned.\n\nSo, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an *indication* of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations).\n\nYou can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country.\n\n![Toggling site data by country in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/site-data-by-country-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nToggling data by country\n\nOverall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here.\n\nNow, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’ **keyword research** features.\n***\n## Keyword research using Ahrefs\nKeyword research generally involves four main things:\n\n- finding out **how many people are searching for a given keyword**\n- determining **how difficult it is to rank for that keyword**\n- identifying **who is *already* ranking for that keyword**\n- getting **suggestions** for other ones.\n\nLet’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs.\n\n### Getting keyword data in Ahrefs\nTo get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘**Keywords Explorer’ tool**. This is accessible via the main navigation.\n\n![Using Ahrefs 'Keywords Explorer' tool to perform keyword research](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-explorer.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research\n\nYou can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester.\n\nOnce you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see:\n\n- its **‘keyword difficulty’ score**\n- the **number of searches per month for that keyword** (and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months)\n- some **suggestions for alternative keywords to target**\n- a **list of the sites that are ranking for it**.\n\n(All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.)\n\nThis information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-explorer-results.png)\n\nAccessing keyword research data in Ahrefs\n\nAs with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-research-per-country-results.png)\n\nPerforming per-country keyword research\n\nOne of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’).\n\nNot only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages.\n\n![A SERP overview in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/serp-analysis-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nA SERP overview in Ahrefs\n\nInterestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you **a word count metric** (highlighted in my screenshot above).\n\nNow, debate rages over [whether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO](https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/word-count-seo-importance\/441742\/). But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least *some* idea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword.\n\nSo a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature.\n\n### Keyword difficulty scores\nThe most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its **keyword difficulty score**. Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword.\n\nAs you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of **the number of referring domains** (i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase.\n\n![A keyword difficulty score provided by Ahrefs — it gives you an estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-difficulty-score.png)\n\nEstimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10\n\nThis is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool.\n\n### Search volumes\nAnother key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the **search volume for a particular phrase** — the number of people searching for a keyword per month.\n\nKnowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for\\!\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-volume.png)\n\nSearch volume being displayed in Ahrefs\n\nBut in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people *click* on organic results for that keyword.\n\nIn the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results.\n\n![Clickthrough data being displayed in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/click-data-ahrefs.png)\n\nClick-through data being displayed in Ahrefs\n\n(In an increasingly [zero-click content](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/zero-click-content) environment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.)\n\nAhrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising (\\$0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example).\n\nAnd finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of **trend data** — the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question.\n\n![Keyword trend data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-trend-data.png)\n\nKeyword trend data in Ahrefs\n\nAhrefs can also show you a *forecast* of search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive.\n\n![Search volume forecast data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/forecast-data-ahrefs.png)\n\nA search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs\n\nOverall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time.\n\n#### Performing keyword research using Ahrefs — video demonstration\n![Embedded video player](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-research-tutorial.jpg)\n\n[Subscribe on YouTube](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCmgsxeB00MS6ynDzDUGMs9Q?sub_confirmation=1)\n### Keyword suggestions\nAlthough a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get *detailed* suggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard.\n\n![The keyword ideas section in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-ideas-section-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas\n\nWithin this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from: **matching terms**, **related terms**, **search suggestions** and **global terms**.\n\nWith regard to what these all do:\n\n- The ‘**matching terms**‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword.\n- The ‘**related terms**‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway.\n- The ‘**search suggestions**‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions.\n- The ‘**global terms**‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting.\n\nWhich set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into.\n\n![ Google 'autocomplete' suggestions](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/google-autocomplete-suggestions.png)\n\nGoogle ‘autocomplete’ suggestions\n\nThe trick here is to identify phrases that have:\n\n- **reasonably high search volumes**\n- a relatively **low keyword difficulty score**.\n\nA **‘traffic potential’ metric** (pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve *variations* of that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term.\n\n![Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/traffic-potential-scores.png)\n\nTraffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs\n\nBelow is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate *52,000* visits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/traffic-potential-metric-example.png)\n\n‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs\n\nAs things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs.\n\n(In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.)\n\nIn each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for.\n\n![Using keyword research filters in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-research-filters.png)\n\nKeyword research filters in Ahrefs\n\nWhile not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters *slightly* more user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/using-keyword-difficulty-filter.png)\n\nAhrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter\n\nThis is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy \/ easy \/ hard \/ very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush:\n\n![Semrush's keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush's](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-difficulty-filter-in-semrush.png)\n\nSemrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s\n\n### AI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs\nIn common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’\n\n![AI keyword research presets in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ai-seed-keywords-ahrefs.png)\n\nAI keyword research presets\n\nWhen you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more.\n\n![Using an AI preset feature to get seed keywords in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/preset-for-seed-ideas-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs\n\nApplying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own.\n\n![Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/seed-ideas-ahrefs.png)\n\nSeed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI\n\nOverall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores.\n### Accessing search intent data\nSEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’\n\nFor example:\n\n- “Gmail” is **navigational** (the user is looking for the Gmail login page)\n- “What is a brownie?” is **informational** (the user wants to know what a brownie is)\n- “Ahrefs vs Semrush” is **commercial** (the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction)\n- “Ahrefs pricing” is **transactional** (the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription).\n\nThe aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of *why* somebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones.\n\nSo for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial \/ transactional queries instead.\n\nNow, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it:\n\n“We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.”\n\n[Tim Soulo](https:\/\/x.com\/timsoulo\/status\/1737670354095800764?s=20), CMO, Ahrefs\n\nAnd accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features.\n\nThankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below).\n\n![Search intent filters in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-intent-filters.png)\n\nSearch intent filters in Ahrefs\n\nNot only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords).\n\nThe feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually *better* than the search intent tools available in [Moz and Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/moz-vs-semrush) (which for some time it lagged behind in this area).\n\n![Video guide to Ahrefs alternatives](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-alternatives-video.jpg)\n\n### Dealing with competing domains\nWhen conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that *already* rank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase.\n\nDomains that are *already* performing well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its *Keyword Explorer \\> Overview* screen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more.\n\n![SERP data being surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/serp-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs\n\nIt’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that *only* lower authority sites are ranking highly for.\n\n![Using Ahrefs to spot keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/lowest-dr-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nSpotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for\n\nWhen you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high).\n***\n## Rank tracking\n‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time.\n\nIt’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords.\n\n![Using the 'Rank Tracker' feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/rank-tracking-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings\n\nYou can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town\/city basis; this is helpful for [local SEO efforts](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/local-seo).\n\nAs time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords.\n\n![Monitoring search position changes over time in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/monitoring-positions-over-time-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nViewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs\n\nIf you like, you can set up **email notifications** about your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis.\n\nYou should note however that **daily updates are not available by default**: you have to pay for a \\$200\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined.\n\nMany competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too.\n\nAnother thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘**project slots**.’\n\n![Best Rank Trackers (2025) — for SEO and Google AI Overviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/best-rank-trackers-video.jpg)\n\nI’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a **limited number of them** as part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month).\n\nTo be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking ([SEO PowerSuite](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/seo-powersuite-review) being a notable exception).\n\n![Ahrefs vs Semrush video comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ahrefs-vs-semrush-video-comparison.png)\n***\n## Backlink analysis\nHow strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘[backlinks](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Backlink)‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it.\n\nTo perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see:\n\n- who is linking to that URL\n- what anchor text is being used in those links\n- what sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it\n- if any links pointing that URL are broken.\n\nThe point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours.\n\n![Ahrefs referring domains data](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/referring-domain-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report\n\nAhrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics).\n\nHow accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database.\n\nAt time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have **35** **trillion backlinks in its database** — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs.\n\n![Ahrefs' database statistics (February 2026)](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-database-stats-2026.png)\n\nAhrefs’ database statistics (February 2026)\n\nI was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz.\n\nHere are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool:\n\n|   |   |   |   |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| **Website** | **Ahrefs** | **Moz** | **Semrush** |\n| Amazon | 3\\.9m | **5\\.5m** | 4\\.2m |\n| BigCommerce | 88k | **344k** | 208k |\n| Canva | 415k | 479k | **562k** |\n| Ecwid | 31k | **76k** | 48k |\n| GoDaddy | 5\\.7m | 7m | **10\\.1m** |\n| Jimdo | 431k | 3\\.6k | **618k** |\n| Shopify | 3\\.2m | **5\\.3m** | 4\\.6m |\n| Squarespace | **1\\.3m** | 22k | 374k |\n| Webflow | 122k | 206k | **242k** |\n| Wix | 1\\.1m | 1\\.2m | **3\\.4m** |\n\nNow, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel.\n\nBut that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests.\n\n![Ahrefs vs Moz vs Semrush video comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush.jpg)\n\nNext, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors.\n\n**The key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush**\n\nIt’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features.\n\n![The Semrush platform](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semrush-platform.jpg)\n\nSemrush\n\nSemrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features.\n\nAnd significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can [access a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/qzeVmO).\n\n[Extended semrush trial \\>](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/9Lb2nQ)\n***\n## Link building in Ahrefs\nMany prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for **backlink building**. After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results.\n\nThere are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies:\n\n- its **Site Explorer tool**, which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify\n- its **Content Explorer**, which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics\n- its **Alerts** feature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink.\n\nLet’s discuss each briefly in turn.\n\n### Using the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities\nUsing Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities.\n\nTo do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section.\n\n![Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/accessing-backlink-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAccessing backlink data in Ahrefs\n\nYou’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below).\n\n![Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-referring-domain-list.png)\n\nReferring domains surfaced by Ahrefs\n\nYou can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink.\n\nNow, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you *do* get from key competitor Semrush — is a way to *manage the outreach process*.\n\nIn Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets.\n\n![Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/semrush-domain-prospects.png)\n\nDomain prospects surfaced by Semrush\n\nWith Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches.\n\nIt all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools \/ apps.\n\nSo the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it\\!\n\n### Using the Content Explorer for link building purposes\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic.\n\n![The Ahrefs 'Content Explorer' feature in use](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahefs-content-explorer.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature\n\nYou’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them.\n\n![Top authors data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/authors-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png)\n\nTop authors data in Ahrefs\n\nIt would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets.\n\n### Using Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities\nFinally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit.\n\nThis lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL.\n\n![Setting up backlink alerts in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/setting-up-ahrefs-alerts.png)\n\nAhrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks\n\nThis gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to *your* website too.\n\n[![A banner advert for Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/semrush-animated-banner-ad.gif)](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/4PWyMG)\n***\n## Broken link building\nBroken link building is an important SEO strategy.\n\nIt involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to *your* new content instead.\n\nThis approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings.\n\nIn order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it *really* easy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the *Broken* *backlinks* option (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section).\n\n![Accessing the 'broken backlinks' feature in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-backlink-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAccessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature\n\nThis then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature.\n\n![Broken backlinks surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-backlinks-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png)\n\nAhrefs’ broken backlinks report\n\nAdditionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken *outbound* links too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more.\n\nIt’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings).\n\nTo find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code.\n\n![Viewing broken links in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-links-report-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs broken outbound link report\n\nIt should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush.\n***\n## Site auditing and technical SEO\nOne of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of **the technical side of SEO**.\n\nThis is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the [technical performance of websites](https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/docs\/lighthouse\/performance\/) — things like **site speed**, **security**, and **mobile-friendliness**.\n\nAhrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a [site audit](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/how-to-do-an-seo-audit), Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including:\n\n- **Slow-loading content**\n- **Missing alt text**\n- **SSL problems**\n- **Crawl errors**\n- **Missing headers**\n- **Duplicate content**\n- **Broken links**\n\n![Using Ahrefs' site audit tool to find technical SEO problems](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-seo-site-audit.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems\n\nOverall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use [Wix or Shopify](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/wix-vs-shopify), [WordPress or Squarespace](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/squarespace-vs-wordpress) etc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup.\n\n![How to Do an SEO Audit — Simple Checklist](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/how-to-do-an-seo-audit-video.jpg)\n\nAhrefs also includes detailed [Core Web Vitals](https:\/\/web.dev\/vitals\/) data in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results.\n\n![Core web vitals report](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-core-web-vitals-report.png)\n\nCore Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs\n\nIn Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘**field data**‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from [Chrome users](https:\/\/developers.google.com\/web\/tools\/chrome-user-experience-report)) and ‘**lab data**,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment.\n\n(Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.)\n\n![Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/connecting-ahrefs-to-pagespeed-insights-api.png)\n\nConnecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API\n\nThe availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on [Lighthouse lab data](https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/docs\/lighthouse\/overview\/).\n\n### Implementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs\nIf you pay for \\$20\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below).\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ask-ai-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nGetting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs\n\nAnd paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs \\$200\/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS\\!\n\nAnd, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too.\n***\n## Brand monitoring features\nSince the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the [amount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/beating-google-helpful-content-update-branded-search), and its performance in search.\n\n([Studies by Moz](https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/helpful-content-update-not-what-you-think) and others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.)\n\nThis means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘**Brand Radar**‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/brand-radar-feature-ahrefs.png)\n\nAhrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool\n\nThis, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time.\n\nWhen testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them.\n\nI really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics.\n\n(As search engines morph into chatbots, [YouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/reasons-to-make-youtube-part-of-seo-strategy) — it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.)\n\n📚 **Related resource**: [Ahrefs vs Profound](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-profound)\n***\n## AI tools in Ahrefs\nIn line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set.\n\nThe two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its **AI Content Grader** and its **AI Content Helper**.\n\n### AI Content Grader\nAs its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-content-grader.png)\n\nYou give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will:\n\n- grade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness)\n- highlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output\n- suggest ways that your content could be improved.\n\nFor me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example).\n\n![An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs' 'Content Grader' feature on how to improve site content](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ai-suggestion-for-content-improvement-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAn AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content\n\nAnd the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals.\n\n![The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/content-grader-comparison-table-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles\n### AI Content Helper\nAhrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view.\n\nHowever, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article *within* the Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including.\n\n![Ahrefs' 'Content Helper' feature in use](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-content-helper.png)\n\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use\n\nYou can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc.\n\nI *quite* liked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini.\n\nOverall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay \\$99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them.\n***\n## Interface and ease-of-use\nAhrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left.\n\n![Ahrefs interface](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-interface.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs interface\n\nThis is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users.\n\nThe menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc.\n\n![Ahrefs navigation menu](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-navigation-menu.png)\n\nAhrefs navigation\n\nThere is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!).\n\nIncreasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible.\n\nAs with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface.\n\nWhen I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming.\n\nTo be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone\\!\n\nHowever, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access *some* core data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though).\n\nFinally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use, **could return data a bit faster**. Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly.\n\n![Best SEO Tools (2025) — The Top Platforms Ranked and Rated](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Best-SEO-Tools-WordPress.jpg)\n***\n## Pricing and value for money\nThere’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive\\!\n\nThat’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to **huge quantities of data**, including a lot of competitor intelligence.\n\nAhrefs provides four main pricing plans:\n\n- **Lite** — \\$129 per month\n- **Standard** — \\$249 per month\n- **Advanced** — \\$449 per month\n- **Enterprise** — from \\$1,499 per month, with annual commitment required.\n\nThese fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic.\n\nThe key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve:\n\n- **access to core features**\n- **the number of projects** you can work with\n- **the number of reports** you can pull\n- **the number of keywords** you can track\n### Access to core features\nOne of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at \\$129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including:\n\n- search intent metrics\n- broken link-building tools\n- keyword clustering\n- SERP updates\n- AI suggestions\n\n(Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too).\n\nFor context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month.\n\nThe main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications.\n\n### Number of projects\nIt’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’\n\nAnd how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its \\$129 per month plan; 20 on its \\$249 per month plan; 50 on its \\$449 per month plan; and 100 on its \\$14,990 per year plan.\n\nThese limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can [‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs](https:\/\/help.ahrefs.com\/en\/articles\/4321336-what-is-a-verified-project), it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all\\!\n\nVerification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by:\n\n- connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console\n- adding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings\n- uploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage\n- adding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage.\n\nThe ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure.\n\n### Number of reports\nUntil recently, Ahrefs was *extremely* ungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.).\n\nBut changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its \\$249\/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites.\n\nThe bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its \\$129\/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month.\n\nThis isn’t ideal: paying \\$129\/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get.\n\nThis feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports *per day* [on its similarly priced plan](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb).\n\nAhrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the **number of rows** it outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its \\$129 plan is 2,500.\n\n(As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.)\n\n### Number of keywords you can track\nAnother key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively.\n\n(These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools).\n\nIf you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay \\$50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track.\n\n### Add-ons for Ahrefs\nIn a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely:\n\n- **Content Kit** (\\$99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier.\n- **Report Builder** (\\$99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports.\n- **Project Boost Pro** (\\$20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously.\n- **Project** **Boost Max** (\\$200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster)\n\nFor me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved.\n\n### 🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available?\nGiven that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it.\n\nWell, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘[Ahrefs Webmaster Tools](https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/webmaster-tools)‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features.\n\nBut that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional [7-day free trial](https:\/\/moz.pxf.io\/gOPmr0); and for a limited time [you can access a 14-day Semrush trial here](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/qzeVmO).\n***\n## Customer support\nSEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users.\n\nYou get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that **no phone support is available for the tool**. This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with.\n\nOn the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too.\n\n![Contacting customer support](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/contacting-ahrefs-support.png)\n\nAccessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard\n\nOnline help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in.\n***\n## User reviews of Ahrefs\nSo far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data.\n\nThe table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites:\n\n|   |   |\n|---|---|\n| **Review site** | **User rating (out of 5)** |\n| Capterra | 4\\.7 (578 reviews) |\n| G2 | 4\\.5 (667 reviews) |\n| Trustpilot | 1\\.9 (303 reviews) |\n| TrustRadius\\* | 4\\.5 (389 reviews) |\n| **Average** | **3\\.9** |\n\n\\*Recalculated from an out-of-ten score\n\nAs you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5).\n\nTrustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service.\n***\n## Ahrefs review: conclusion\nIt’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously.\n\nThe recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too.\n\nAhrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive.\n\nBecause of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform [in the comments section below](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#comments).\n***\n## Pros and cons of Ahrefs — summary\n### Reasons I would use Ahrefs\n- Extremely generous reporting limits on its \\$249+ plans.\n- Its generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies.\n- It gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing.\n- Carrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs.\n- You can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city).\n- It lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is.\n- It lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place.\n- Adding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors.\n- Its ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors.\n- The interface is available in 15 languages.\n- The learning curve is relatively gentle.\n\n### Reasons I would avoid Ahrefs\n- There’s no free trial.\n- The reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous.\n- You can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on.\n- Its new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive.\n- Its plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default.\n- There’s no phone support.\n- There are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building.\n- There’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work.\n- The interface can be a bit sluggish.\n***\n## Alternatives to Ahrefs\nAhrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one! [Alternative options for SEO analysis](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-alternatives) include:\n\n- [Semrush](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb)\n- GrowthBar\n- [Raven Tools](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/raven-tools-review)\n- Profound (for prompt tracking)\n- SpyFu\n- [SE Ranking](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/se-ranking-vs-semrush)\n- [Similarweb](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-vs-similarweb)\n- Moz\n- Serpstat\n- Mangools\n- SEO PowerSuite\n- Majestic\n- [Ubersuggest](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ubersuggest-review)\n\nFor more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out [our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-semrush) and our [Moz vs Ahrefs comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/moz-vs-ahrefs).\n\nIf you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find [our full Semrush review here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-review), our [Ahrefs vs Semrush shootout here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-semrush), and [our Semrush pricing guide here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-pricing). We have also published [a comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush) and recently, an [Ubersuggest vs Semrush comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ubersuggest-vs-semrush).\n\nYou may also find our [SpyFu vs Semrush blog post](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/spyfu-vs-semrush) and our [Semrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nIIMHf5x65A) of interest.\n\n![How to do keyword research with Semrush (video)](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/semrush-keyword-research-thumbnail.jpg)\n\n## Ahrefs review FAQ\n### What is Ahrefs?\nAhrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website.\n\n### Is Ahrefs free?\nAhrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools.\n\n### Is Ahrefs worth the money?\nAhrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of \\$129\/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of [SEO principles](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/six-simple-ways-to-make-your-site-more-visible-in-google-search-results) before investing in it.\n\n### What’s the best alternative to Ahrefs?\nBased on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that [Semrush](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb) is probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings).\n\n### How we tested this product — and why you can trust this review\nWe tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it.\n\nWe regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on **first-hand experience** of its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features.\n\nAnd finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions.\n\n### Update details\nThis review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made:\n\n- Product screenshots were updated\n- A new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added.\n- The user ratings section was updated.\n- Data pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated.\n\n## About the author\n![](https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/110a16d58138351383493c42f3c55ebcbfe705536a6bf90b714d9575674b2185?s=96&d=mm&r=g)\n\n### Chris Singleton\n- [View on Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/stylefactoryproductions)\n- [View on Linkedin](https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/chris-singleton-0a73514a)\n- [View on Youtube](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCmgsxeB00MS6ynDzDUGMs9Q)\n- [View on Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/chrissingleton)\n- [http:\/\/Contact%20us](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/contact)\n\nChris Singleton is the Editor of Style Factory.\n\nOriginally from Dublin, Ireland, he is now London-based.\n\nSince graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1999, Chris has advised many businesses on how to grow their operations via a strong online presence, and now he shares his experience and expertise through his articles on the Style Factory website.\n\nChris started his career as a data analyst for Irish marketing company Precision Marketing Information; since then he has worked on digital projects for a wide range of well-known organizations including Cancer Research UK, Hackney Council, Data Ireland and Prescription PR. He founded Style Factory in 2009 as a way to share his expertise with a wider audience.\n\nHe is also the [author of a book on SEO for beginners, “Super Simple SEO.”](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/super-simple-seo)\n\nYou can connect personally with Chris via [Twitter (X)](https:\/\/twitter.com\/chrissingleton) or [LinkedIn](https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/chris-singleton-0a73514a).\n\n### Share this\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review \"Share to Facebook\")\n- [Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&text=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Twitter\")\n- [LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&title=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to LinkedIn\")\n- [Pinterest](https:\/\/pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Pinterest\")\n- [Reddit](https:\/\/reddit.com\/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Reddit\")\n\n## Comments (1)\n### [Cancel reply](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#respond)\n![](data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20width='120'%20height='120'%20viewBox='0%200%20120%20120'%3E%3C\/svg%3E)Sebastiansays:\n\n[November 25, 2025 at 8:39 am](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#comment-240991)\n\nMy experience with Ahrefs has unfortunately been consistently negative — and it keeps getting worse over time. The number of system errors, where credits are deducted but the platform returns nothing but a blank page, now far exceeds the number of times the tool actually works as expected.\n\nOn top of that, the reported data has become increasingly unreliable. In many cases, Ahrefs’ results differ dramatically from what you see in GSC, to the point where the insights are no longer trustworthy.\n\nCustomer support is essentially nonexistent. Instead of talking to a human, you receive vague, AI-generated replies that don’t address the problem and provide no real assistance.\n\nOverall, the value and reliability of the tool have declined sharply, while the price keeps going up. I absolutely cannot recommend Ahrefs based on my recent experience.\n\n[Reply](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#comment-240991)\n\n## Get our free SEO kit and latest tips\nEssential cheatsheets, extended trials and discounts for leading SEO apps.\n***\n## Follow Us\n- [Facebook URL](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/101640856546945 \"Share to Facebook URL\")\n- [LinkedIn URL](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/style-factory \"Share to LinkedIn URL\")\n- [Youtube URL](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCmgsxeB00MS6ynDzDUGMs9Q \"Share to Youtube URL\")\n- [Twitter URL](https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/stylefactory \"Share to Twitter URL\")\n***\n## Related articles\n[Ahrefs vs Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-semrush)  \n[Ahrefs vs Moz](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/moz-vs-ahrefs)  \n[Semrush review](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-review)\n***\n## Key alternatives to Ahrefs\n[Semrush \\>](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/zx60B7)\n\n[Moz Pro \\>](https:\/\/moz.pxf.io\/POjo66)\n\n### Share this\n- [Facebook](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review \"Share to Facebook\")\n- [Twitter](https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&text=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to Twitter\")\n- [LinkedIn](https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&title=Ahrefs%20Review%20\$2026\$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons \"Share to LinkedIn\")\n- 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All rights reserved.\n\nX\n\n🔥 Extended Semrush free trial\n\nFor a limited time only, Style Factory readers can get a double-length trial of leading SEO tool Semrush.\n\n[Get Semrush free \\>](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-free-trial-30-days?utm_source=StyleFactory&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=Style-Factory-Semrush-Trial-Noticebar)","attrs_readable_markdown":"We have a strict honest review policy, but please note that when you buy through our links, we may receive a commission. This is at no extra cost to you.\n\n![Ahrefs review](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ahrefs-review.png)\n\n*In this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution?*\n***\n## Quick verdict\nAhrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans.\n\nThat said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users.\n\n![A video review of Ahrefs on the Style Factory YouTube channel](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ahrefs-review-video.jpg)\n\nI’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background.\n***\n## Ahrefs: the background\nFounded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook.\n\n![The Ahrefs platform](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ahrefs-platform.png)\n\nAhrefs\n\nIt works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to:\n\n- find out **what people are searching for on Google** and other search engines\n- create **web content that is likely to generate traffic**\n- identify **link-building opportunities**\n- **tweak technical aspects of your site content** so that it achieves a higher search ranking.\n\nThat’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are *many* other features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings.\n\nLet’s go through these now, starting with a look at **domain analysis**.\n***\n## Domain analysis\nThe starting point for many SEO projects is **domain analysis**.\n\nThis simply means getting a **basic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website** — how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on.\n\nGenerally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your **own website** — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a **competitor’s**, to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so).\n\n![Ahrefs' Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-site-explorer.png)\n\nAhrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis\n\nYou might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’).\n\nThis is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results.\n\nIt’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results.\n\n(You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain).\n\n![Performing domain analysis using Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-domain-analysis.png)\n\nViewing domain analytics in Ahrefs\n\nNow, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a *lot* of information.\n\nKey metrics provided include:\n\n- A ‘**domain rating**‘ (DR) score\n- An **estimate of the total number of visitors to the website** per month\n- The **number of AI citations** found for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot)\n- The **total number of external links** \/ domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered\n- The **total number of keywords** the URL ranks for\n- **[Anchor text](https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/anchor-text\/)** commonly used in links to the URL\n- The ‘**traffic value**‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results\n- **Historical information** about the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time.\n\n(Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.)\n\nOf the above metrics, the one that gives you the *quickest* understanding of site quality is the ‘**domain rating**’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score [based on the number of domains that point to a website](https:\/\/help.ahrefs.com\/en\/articles\/1409408-what-is-domain-rating-dr) (and their quality).\n\n![The domain rating ('DR') metric in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/domain-rating-metric.png)\n\nThe domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs\n\nThe higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be.\n\nNow, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately *estimates*based on that data.\n\nIn most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody *really* knows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses.\n\n![A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-traffic-estimate.png)\n\nA search traffic estimate from Ahrefs\n\nIn my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is **traffic statistics**.\n\nBased on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned.\n\nSo, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an *indication* of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations).\n\nYou can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country.\n\n![Toggling site data by country in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/site-data-by-country-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nToggling data by country\n\nOverall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here.\n\nNow, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’ **keyword research** features.\n***\n## Keyword research using Ahrefs\nKeyword research generally involves four main things:\n\n- finding out **how many people are searching for a given keyword**\n- determining **how difficult it is to rank for that keyword**\n- identifying **who is *already* ranking for that keyword**\n- getting **suggestions** for other ones.\n\nLet’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs.\n\n### Getting keyword data in Ahrefs\nTo get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘**Keywords Explorer’ tool**. This is accessible via the main navigation.\n\n![Using Ahrefs 'Keywords Explorer' tool to perform keyword research](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-explorer.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research\n\nYou can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester.\n\nOnce you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see:\n\n- its **‘keyword difficulty’ score**\n- the **number of searches per month for that keyword** (and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months)\n- some **suggestions for alternative keywords to target**\n- a **list of the sites that are ranking for it**.\n\n(All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.)\n\nThis information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-explorer-results.png)\n\nAccessing keyword research data in Ahrefs\n\nAs with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-research-per-country-results.png)\n\nPerforming per-country keyword research\n\nOne of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’).\n\nNot only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages.\n\n![A SERP overview in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/serp-analysis-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nA SERP overview in Ahrefs\n\nInterestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you **a word count metric** (highlighted in my screenshot above).\n\nNow, debate rages over [whether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO](https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/word-count-seo-importance\/441742\/). But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least *some* idea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword.\n\nSo a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature.\n\n### Keyword difficulty scores\nThe most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its **keyword difficulty score**. Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword.\n\nAs you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of **the number of referring domains** (i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase.\n\n![A keyword difficulty score provided by Ahrefs — it gives you an estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-difficulty-score.png)\n\nEstimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10\n\nThis is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool.\n\n### Search volumes\nAnother key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the **search volume for a particular phrase** — the number of people searching for a keyword per month.\n\nKnowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for\\!\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-volume.png)\n\nSearch volume being displayed in Ahrefs\n\nBut in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people *click* on organic results for that keyword.\n\nIn the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results.\n\n![Clickthrough data being displayed in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/click-data-ahrefs.png)\n\nClick-through data being displayed in Ahrefs\n\n(In an increasingly [zero-click content](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/zero-click-content) environment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.)\n\nAhrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising (\\$0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example).\n\nAnd finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of **trend data** — the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question.\n\n![Keyword trend data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-trend-data.png)\n\nKeyword trend data in Ahrefs\n\nAhrefs can also show you a *forecast* of search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive.\n\n![Search volume forecast data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/forecast-data-ahrefs.png)\n\nA search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs\n\nOverall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time.\n\n### Keyword suggestions\nAlthough a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get *detailed* suggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard.\n\n![The keyword ideas section in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-ideas-section-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas\n\nWithin this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from: **matching terms**, **related terms**, **search suggestions** and **global terms**.\n\nWith regard to what these all do:\n\n- The ‘**matching terms**‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword.\n- The ‘**related terms**‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway.\n- The ‘**search suggestions**‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions.\n- The ‘**global terms**‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting.\n\nWhich set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into.\n\n![ Google 'autocomplete' suggestions](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/google-autocomplete-suggestions.png)\n\nGoogle ‘autocomplete’ suggestions\n\nThe trick here is to identify phrases that have:\n\n- **reasonably high search volumes**\n- a relatively **low keyword difficulty score**.\n\nA **‘traffic potential’ metric** (pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve *variations* of that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term.\n\n![Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/traffic-potential-scores.png)\n\nTraffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs\n\nBelow is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate *52,000* visits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/traffic-potential-metric-example.png)\n\n‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs\n\nAs things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs.\n\n(In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.)\n\nIn each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for.\n\n![Using keyword research filters in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-keyword-research-filters.png)\n\nKeyword research filters in Ahrefs\n\nWhile not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters *slightly* more user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/using-keyword-difficulty-filter.png)\n\nAhrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter\n\nThis is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy \/ easy \/ hard \/ very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush:\n\n![Semrush's keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush's](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/keyword-difficulty-filter-in-semrush.png)\n\nSemrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s\n\n### AI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs\nIn common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’\n\n![AI keyword research presets in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ai-seed-keywords-ahrefs.png)\n\nAI keyword research presets\n\nWhen you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more.\n\n![Using an AI preset feature to get seed keywords in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/preset-for-seed-ideas-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs\n\nApplying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own.\n\n![Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/seed-ideas-ahrefs.png)\n\nSeed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI\n\nOverall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores.\n### Accessing search intent data\nSEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’\n\nFor example:\n\n- “Gmail” is **navigational** (the user is looking for the Gmail login page)\n- “What is a brownie?” is **informational** (the user wants to know what a brownie is)\n- “Ahrefs vs Semrush” is **commercial** (the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction)\n- “Ahrefs pricing” is **transactional** (the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription).\n\nThe aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of *why* somebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones.\n\nSo for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial \/ transactional queries instead.\n\nNow, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it:\n\n“We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.”\n\n[Tim Soulo](https:\/\/x.com\/timsoulo\/status\/1737670354095800764?s=20), CMO, Ahrefs\n\nAnd accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features.\n\nThankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below).\n\n![Search intent filters in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-search-intent-filters.png)\n\nSearch intent filters in Ahrefs\n\nNot only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords).\n\nThe feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually *better* than the search intent tools available in [Moz and Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/moz-vs-semrush) (which for some time it lagged behind in this area).\n\n![Video guide to Ahrefs alternatives](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-alternatives-video.jpg)\n\n### Dealing with competing domains\nWhen conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that *already* rank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase.\n\nDomains that are *already* performing well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its *Keyword Explorer \\> Overview* screen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more.\n\n![SERP data being surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/serp-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs\n\nIt’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that *only* lower authority sites are ranking highly for.\n\n![Using Ahrefs to spot keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/lowest-dr-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nSpotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for\n\nWhen you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high).\n***\n## Rank tracking\n‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time.\n\nIt’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords.\n\n![Using the 'Rank Tracker' feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/rank-tracking-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nUsing the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings\n\nYou can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town\/city basis; this is helpful for [local SEO efforts](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/local-seo).\n\nAs time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords.\n\n![Monitoring search position changes over time in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/monitoring-positions-over-time-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nViewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs\n\nIf you like, you can set up **email notifications** about your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis.\n\nYou should note however that **daily updates are not available by default**: you have to pay for a \\$200\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined.\n\nMany competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too.\n\nAnother thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘**project slots**.’\n\n![Best Rank Trackers (2025) — for SEO and Google AI Overviews](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/best-rank-trackers-video.jpg)\n\nI’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a **limited number of them** as part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month).\n\nTo be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking ([SEO PowerSuite](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/seo-powersuite-review) being a notable exception).\n\n![Ahrefs vs Semrush video comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ahrefs-vs-semrush-video-comparison.png)\n***\n## Backlink analysis\nHow strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘[backlinks](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Backlink)‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it.\n\nTo perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see:\n\n- who is linking to that URL\n- what anchor text is being used in those links\n- what sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it\n- if any links pointing that URL are broken.\n\nThe point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours.\n\n![Ahrefs referring domains data](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/referring-domain-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report\n\nAhrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics).\n\nHow accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database.\n\nAt time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have **35** **trillion backlinks in its database** — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs.\n\n![Ahrefs' database statistics (February 2026)](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-database-stats-2026.png)\n\nAhrefs’ database statistics (February 2026)\n\nI was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz.\n\nHere are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool:\n\n|   |   |   |   |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| **Website** | **Ahrefs** | **Moz** | **Semrush** |\n| Amazon | 3\\.9m | **5\\.5m** | 4\\.2m |\n| BigCommerce | 88k | **344k** | 208k |\n| Canva | 415k | 479k | **562k** |\n| Ecwid | 31k | **76k** | 48k |\n| GoDaddy | 5\\.7m | 7m | **10\\.1m** |\n| Jimdo | 431k | 3\\.6k | **618k** |\n| Shopify | 3\\.2m | **5\\.3m** | 4\\.6m |\n| Squarespace | **1\\.3m** | 22k | 374k |\n| Webflow | 122k | 206k | **242k** |\n| Wix | 1\\.1m | 1\\.2m | **3\\.4m** |\n\nNow, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel.\n\nBut that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests.\n\n![Ahrefs vs Moz vs Semrush video comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush.jpg)\n\nNext, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors.\n\n**The key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush**\n\nIt’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features.\n\n![The Semrush platform](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/semrush-platform.jpg)\n\nSemrush\n\nSemrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features.\n\nAnd significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can [access a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/qzeVmO).\n***\n## Link building in Ahrefs\nMany prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for **backlink building**. After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results.\n\nThere are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies:\n\n- its **Site Explorer tool**, which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify\n- its **Content Explorer**, which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics\n- its **Alerts** feature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink.\n\nLet’s discuss each briefly in turn.\n\n### Using the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities\nUsing Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities.\n\nTo do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section.\n\n![Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/accessing-backlink-data-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAccessing backlink data in Ahrefs\n\nYou’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below).\n\n![Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-referring-domain-list.png)\n\nReferring domains surfaced by Ahrefs\n\nYou can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink.\n\nNow, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you *do* get from key competitor Semrush — is a way to *manage the outreach process*.\n\nIn Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets.\n\n![Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/semrush-domain-prospects.png)\n\nDomain prospects surfaced by Semrush\n\nWith Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches.\n\nIt all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools \/ apps.\n\nSo the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it\\!\n\n### Using the Content Explorer for link building purposes\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic.\n\n![The Ahrefs 'Content Explorer' feature in use](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahefs-content-explorer.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature\n\nYou’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them.\n\n![Top authors data in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/authors-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png)\n\nTop authors data in Ahrefs\n\nIt would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets.\n\n### Using Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities\nFinally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit.\n\nThis lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL.\n\n![Setting up backlink alerts in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/setting-up-ahrefs-alerts.png)\n\nAhrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks\n\nThis gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to *your* website too.\n\n[![A banner advert for Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/semrush-animated-banner-ad.gif)](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/4PWyMG)\n***\n## Broken link building\nBroken link building is an important SEO strategy.\n\nIt involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to *your* new content instead.\n\nThis approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings.\n\nIn order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it *really* easy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the *Broken* *backlinks* option (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section).\n\n![Accessing the 'broken backlinks' feature in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-backlink-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAccessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature\n\nThis then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature.\n\n![Broken backlinks surfaced by Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-backlinks-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png)\n\nAhrefs’ broken backlinks report\n\nAdditionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken *outbound* links too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more.\n\nIt’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings).\n\nTo find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code.\n\n![Viewing broken links in Ahrefs](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/broken-links-report-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs broken outbound link report\n\nIt should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush.\n***\n## Site auditing and technical SEO\nOne of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of **the technical side of SEO**.\n\nThis is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the [technical performance of websites](https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/docs\/lighthouse\/performance\/) — things like **site speed**, **security**, and **mobile-friendliness**.\n\nAhrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a [site audit](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/how-to-do-an-seo-audit), Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including:\n\n- **Slow-loading content**\n- **Missing alt text**\n- **SSL problems**\n- **Crawl errors**\n- **Missing headers**\n- **Duplicate content**\n- **Broken links**\n\n![Using Ahrefs' site audit tool to find technical SEO problems](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-seo-site-audit.png)\n\nUsing Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems\n\nOverall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use [Wix or Shopify](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/wix-vs-shopify), [WordPress or Squarespace](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/squarespace-vs-wordpress) etc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup.\n\n![How to Do an SEO Audit — Simple Checklist](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/how-to-do-an-seo-audit-video.jpg)\n\nAhrefs also includes detailed [Core Web Vitals](https:\/\/web.dev\/vitals\/) data in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results.\n\n![Core web vitals report](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-core-web-vitals-report.png)\n\nCore Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs\n\nIn Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘**field data**‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from [Chrome users](https:\/\/developers.google.com\/web\/tools\/chrome-user-experience-report)) and ‘**lab data**,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment.\n\n(Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.)\n\n![Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/connecting-ahrefs-to-pagespeed-insights-api.png)\n\nConnecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API\n\nThe availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on [Lighthouse lab data](https:\/\/developer.chrome.com\/docs\/lighthouse\/overview\/).\n\n### Implementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs\nIf you pay for \\$20\/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below).\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ask-ai-feature-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nGetting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs\n\nAnd paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs \\$200\/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS\\!\n\nAnd, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too.\n***\n## Brand monitoring features\nSince the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the [amount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/beating-google-helpful-content-update-branded-search), and its performance in search.\n\n([Studies by Moz](https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/helpful-content-update-not-what-you-think) and others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.)\n\nThis means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘**Brand Radar**‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/brand-radar-feature-ahrefs.png)\n\nAhrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool\n\nThis, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time.\n\nWhen testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them.\n\nI really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics.\n\n(As search engines morph into chatbots, [YouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/reasons-to-make-youtube-part-of-seo-strategy) — it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.)\n***\n## AI tools in Ahrefs\nIn line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set.\n\nThe two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its **AI Content Grader** and its **AI Content Helper**.\n\n### AI Content Grader\nAs its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view.\n\n![](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-content-grader.png)\n\nYou give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will:\n\n- grade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness)\n- highlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output\n- suggest ways that your content could be improved.\n\nFor me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example).\n\n![An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs' 'Content Grader' feature on how to improve site content](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ai-suggestion-for-content-improvement-in-ahrefs.png)\n\nAn AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content\n\nAnd the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals.\n\n![The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/content-grader-comparison-table-ahrefs.png)\n\nThe Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles\n### AI Content Helper\nAhrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view.\n\nHowever, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article *within* the Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including.\n\n![Ahrefs' 'Content Helper' feature in use](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-content-helper.png)\n\nAhrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use\n\nYou can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc.\n\nI *quite* liked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini.\n\nOverall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay \\$99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them.\n***\n## Interface and ease-of-use\nAhrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left.\n\n![Ahrefs interface](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-interface.png)\n\nThe Ahrefs interface\n\nThis is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users.\n\nThe menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc.\n\n![Ahrefs navigation menu](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ahrefs-navigation-menu.png)\n\nAhrefs navigation\n\nThere is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!).\n\nIncreasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible.\n\nAs with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface.\n\nWhen I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming.\n\nTo be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone\\!\n\nHowever, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access *some* core data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though).\n\nFinally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use, **could return data a bit faster**. Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly.\n\n![Best SEO Tools (2025) — The Top Platforms Ranked and Rated](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Best-SEO-Tools-WordPress.jpg)\n***\n## Pricing and value for money\nThere’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive\\!\n\nThat’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to **huge quantities of data**, including a lot of competitor intelligence.\n\nAhrefs provides four main pricing plans:\n\n- **Lite** — \\$129 per month\n- **Standard** — \\$249 per month\n- **Advanced** — \\$449 per month\n- **Enterprise** — from \\$1,499 per month, with annual commitment required.\n\nThese fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic.\n\nThe key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve:\n\n- **access to core features**\n- **the number of projects** you can work with\n- **the number of reports** you can pull\n- **the number of keywords** you can track\n### Access to core features\nOne of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at \\$129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including:\n\n- search intent metrics\n- broken link-building tools\n- keyword clustering\n- SERP updates\n- AI suggestions\n\n(Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too).\n\nFor context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month.\n\nThe main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications.\n\n### Number of projects\nIt’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’\n\nAnd how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its \\$129 per month plan; 20 on its \\$249 per month plan; 50 on its \\$449 per month plan; and 100 on its \\$14,990 per year plan.\n\nThese limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can [‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs](https:\/\/help.ahrefs.com\/en\/articles\/4321336-what-is-a-verified-project), it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all\\!\n\nVerification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by:\n\n- connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console\n- adding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings\n- uploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage\n- adding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage.\n\nThe ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure.\n\n### Number of reports\nUntil recently, Ahrefs was *extremely* ungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.).\n\nBut changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its \\$249\/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites.\n\nThe bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its \\$129\/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month.\n\nThis isn’t ideal: paying \\$129\/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get.\n\nThis feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports *per day* [on its similarly priced plan](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb).\n\nAhrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the **number of rows** it outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its \\$129 plan is 2,500.\n\n(As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.)\n\n### Number of keywords you can track\nAnother key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively.\n\n(These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools).\n\nIf you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay \\$50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track.\n\n### Add-ons for Ahrefs\nIn a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely:\n\n- **Content Kit** (\\$99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier.\n- **Report Builder** (\\$99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports.\n- **Project Boost Pro** (\\$20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously.\n- **Project** **Boost Max** (\\$200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster)\n\nFor me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved.\n\n### 🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available?\nGiven that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it.\n\nWell, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘[Ahrefs Webmaster Tools](https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/webmaster-tools)‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features.\n\nBut that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional [7-day free trial](https:\/\/moz.pxf.io\/gOPmr0); and for a limited time [you can access a 14-day Semrush trial here](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/qzeVmO).\n***\n## Customer support\nSEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users.\n\nYou get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that **no phone support is available for the tool**. This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with.\n\nOn the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too.\n\n![Contacting customer support](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/contacting-ahrefs-support.png)\n\nAccessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard\n\nOnline help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in.\n***\n## User reviews of Ahrefs\nSo far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data.\n\nThe table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites:\n\n|   |   |\n|---|---|\n| **Review site** | **User rating (out of 5)** |\n| Capterra | 4\\.7 (578 reviews) |\n| G2 | 4\\.5 (667 reviews) |\n| Trustpilot | 1\\.9 (303 reviews) |\n| TrustRadius\\* | 4\\.5 (389 reviews) |\n| **Average** | **3\\.9** |\n\n\\*Recalculated from an out-of-ten score\n\nAs you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5).\n\nTrustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service.\n***\n## Ahrefs review: conclusion\nIt’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously.\n\nThe recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too.\n\nAhrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive.\n\nBecause of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform [in the comments section below](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/ahrefs-review#comments).\n***\n### Reasons I would use Ahrefs\n- Extremely generous reporting limits on its \\$249+ plans.\n- Its generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies.\n- It gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing.\n- Carrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs.\n- You can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city).\n- It lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is.\n- It lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place.\n- Adding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors.\n- Its ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors.\n- The interface is available in 15 languages.\n- The learning curve is relatively gentle.\n\n### Reasons I would avoid Ahrefs\n- There’s no free trial.\n- The reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous.\n- You can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on.\n- Its new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive.\n- Its plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default.\n- There’s no phone support.\n- There are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building.\n- There’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work.\n- The interface can be a bit sluggish.\n***\n## Alternatives to Ahrefs\nAhrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one! [Alternative options for SEO analysis](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-alternatives) include:\n\n- [Semrush](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb)\n- GrowthBar\n- [Raven Tools](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/raven-tools-review)\n- Profound (for prompt tracking)\n- SpyFu\n- [SE Ranking](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/se-ranking-vs-semrush)\n- [Similarweb](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-vs-similarweb)\n- Moz\n- Serpstat\n- Mangools\n- SEO PowerSuite\n- Majestic\n- [Ubersuggest](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ubersuggest-review)\n\nFor more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out [our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-semrush) and our [Moz vs Ahrefs comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/moz-vs-ahrefs).\n\nIf you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find [our full Semrush review here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-review), our [Ahrefs vs Semrush shootout here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-semrush), and [our Semrush pricing guide here](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/semrush-pricing). We have also published [a comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush) and recently, an [Ubersuggest vs Semrush comparison](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/ubersuggest-vs-semrush).\n\nYou may also find our [SpyFu vs Semrush blog post](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/spyfu-vs-semrush) and our [Semrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison](https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nIIMHf5x65A) of interest.\n\n![How to do keyword research with Semrush (video)](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/semrush-keyword-research-thumbnail.jpg)\n\n## Ahrefs review FAQ\n### What is Ahrefs?\nAhrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website.\n\n### Is Ahrefs free?\nAhrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools.\n\n### Is Ahrefs worth the money?\nAhrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of \\$129\/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of [SEO principles](https:\/\/www.stylefactoryproductions.com\/blog\/six-simple-ways-to-make-your-site-more-visible-in-google-search-results) before investing in it.\n\n### What’s the best alternative to Ahrefs?\nBased on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that [Semrush](https:\/\/semrush.sjv.io\/an1DGb) is probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings).\n\n### How we tested this product — and why you can trust this review\nWe tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it.\n\nWe regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on **first-hand experience** of its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features.\n\nAnd finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions.\n\n### Update details\nThis review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made:\n\n- Product screenshots were updated\n- A new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added.\n- The user ratings section was updated.\n- Data pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated.","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	We have a strict honest review policy, but please note that when you buy through our links, we may receive a commission. This is at no extra cost to you. In this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution? Quick verdict Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans. That said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users. I’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background. Ahrefs: the background Founded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook. Ahrefs It works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to: find out what people are searching for on Google and other search engines create web content that is likely to generate traffic identify link-building opportunities tweak technical aspects of your site content so that it achieves a higher search ranking. That’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are many other features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings. Let’s go through these now, starting with a look at domain analysis . Domain analysis The starting point for many SEO projects is domain analysis . This simply means getting a basic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website — how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on. Generally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your own website — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a competitor’s , to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so). Ahrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis You might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’). This is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results. It’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results. (You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain). Viewing domain analytics in Ahrefs Now, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a lot of information. Key metrics provided include: A ‘ domain rating ‘ (DR) score An estimate of the total number of visitors to the website per month The number of AI citations found for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot) The total number of external links / domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered The total number of keywords the URL ranks for Anchor text commonly used in links to the URL The ‘ traffic value ‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results Historical information about the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time. (Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.) Of the above metrics, the one that gives you the quickest understanding of site quality is the ‘ domain rating ’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score based on the number of domains that point to a website (and their quality). The domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs The higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be. Now, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately estimates based on that data. In most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody really knows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses. A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs In my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is traffic statistics . Based on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned. So, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an indication of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations). You can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country. Toggling data by country Overall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here. Now, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’ keyword research features. Keyword research using Ahrefs Keyword research generally involves four main things: finding out how many people are searching for a given keyword determining how difficult it is to rank for that keyword identifying who is already ranking for that keyword getting suggestions for other ones. Let’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs. Getting keyword data in Ahrefs To get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘ Keywords Explorer’ tool . This is accessible via the main navigation. Using Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research You can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester. Once you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see: its ‘keyword difficulty’ score the number of searches per month for that keyword (and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months) some suggestions for alternative keywords to target a list of the sites that are ranking for it . (All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.) This information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth. Accessing keyword research data in Ahrefs As with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories. Performing per-country keyword research One of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’). Not only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages. A SERP overview in Ahrefs Interestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you a word count metric (highlighted in my screenshot above). Now, debate rages over whether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO . But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least some idea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword. So a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature. Keyword difficulty scores The most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its keyword difficulty score . Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword. As you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of the number of referring domains (i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase. Estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10 This is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool. Search volumes Another key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the search volume for a particular phrase — the number of people searching for a keyword per month. Knowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for! Search volume being displayed in Ahrefs But in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people click on organic results for that keyword. In the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results. Click-through data being displayed in Ahrefs (In an increasingly zero-click content environment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.) Ahrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising ($0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example). And finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of trend data — the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question. Keyword trend data in Ahrefs Ahrefs can also show you a forecast of search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive. A search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs Overall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time. Keyword suggestions Although a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get detailed suggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard. Using Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas Within this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from: matching terms , related terms , search suggestions and global terms . With regard to what these all do: The ‘ matching terms ‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword. The ‘ related terms ‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway. The ‘ search suggestions ‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions. The ‘ global terms ‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting. Which set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into. Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions The trick here is to identify phrases that have: reasonably high search volumes a relatively low keyword difficulty score . A ‘traffic potential’ metric (pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve variations of that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term. Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs Below is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate 52,000 visits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it. ‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs As things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs. (In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.) In each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for. Keyword research filters in Ahrefs While not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters slightly more user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges. Ahrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter This is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy / easy / hard / very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush: Semrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s AI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs In common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’ AI keyword research presets When you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more. Using an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs Applying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own. Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI Overall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores. Accessing search intent data SEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’ For example: “Gmail” is navigational (the user is looking for the Gmail login page) “What is a brownie?” is informational (the user wants to know what a brownie is) “Ahrefs vs Semrush” is commercial (the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction) “Ahrefs pricing” is transactional (the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription). The aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of why somebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones. So for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial / transactional queries instead. Now, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it: “We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.” Tim Soulo , CMO, Ahrefs And accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features. Thankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below). Search intent filters in Ahrefs Not only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords). The feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually better than the search intent tools available in Moz and Semrush (which for some time it lagged behind in this area). Dealing with competing domains When conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that already rank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase. Domains that are already performing well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its Keyword Explorer > Overview screen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more. The ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs It’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that only lower authority sites are ranking highly for. Spotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for When you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high). Rank tracking ‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time. It’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords. Using the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings You can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town/city basis; this is helpful for local SEO efforts . As time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords. Viewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs If you like, you can set up email notifications about your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis. You should note however that daily updates are not available by default : you have to pay for a $200/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined. Many competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too. Another thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘ project slots .’ I’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a limited number of them as part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month). To be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking ( SEO PowerSuite being a notable exception). Backlink analysis How strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘ backlinks ‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it. To perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see: who is linking to that URL what anchor text is being used in those links what sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it if any links pointing that URL are broken. The point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours. The Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report Ahrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics). How accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database. At time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have 35 trillion backlinks in its database — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs. Ahrefs’ database statistics (February 2026) I was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz. Here are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool: Website Ahrefs Moz Semrush Amazon 3.9m 5.5m 4.2m BigCommerce 88k 344k 208k Canva 415k 479k 562k Ecwid 31k 76k 48k GoDaddy 5.7m 7m 10.1m Jimdo 431k 3.6k 618k Shopify 3.2m 5.3m 4.6m Squarespace 1.3m 22k 374k Webflow 122k 206k 242k Wix 1.1m 1.2m 3.4m Now, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel. But that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests. Next, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors. The key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush It’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features. Semrush Semrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features. And significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can access a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here . Link building in Ahrefs Many prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for backlink building . After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results. There are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies: its Site Explorer tool , which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify its Content Explorer , which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics its Alerts feature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink. Let’s discuss each briefly in turn. Using the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities Using Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities. To do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section. Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs You’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below). Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs You can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink. Now, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you do get from key competitor Semrush — is a way to manage the outreach process . In Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets. Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush With Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches. It all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools / apps. So the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it! Using the Content Explorer for link building purposes Ahrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic. The Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature You’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them. Top authors data in Ahrefs It would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets. Using Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities Finally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit. This lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL. Ahrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks This gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to your website too. Broken link building Broken link building is an important SEO strategy. It involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to your new content instead. This approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings. In order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it really easy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the Broken backlinks option (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section). Accessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature This then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature. Ahrefs’ broken backlinks report Additionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken outbound links too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more. It’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings). To find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code. The Ahrefs broken outbound link report It should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush. Site auditing and technical SEO One of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of the technical side of SEO . This is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the technical performance of websites — things like site speed , security , and mobile-friendliness . Ahrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a site audit , Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including: Slow-loading content Missing alt text SSL problems Crawl errors Missing headers Duplicate content Broken links Using Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems Overall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use Wix or Shopify , WordPress or Squarespace etc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup. Ahrefs also includes detailed Core Web Vitals data in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results. Core Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs In Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘ field data ‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from Chrome users ) and ‘ lab data ,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment. (Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.) Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API The availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on Lighthouse lab data . Implementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs If you pay for $20/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below). Getting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs And paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs $200/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS! And, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too. Brand monitoring features Since the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the amount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website , and its performance in search. ( Studies by Moz and others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.) This means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘ Brand Radar ‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites. Ahrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool This, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time. When testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them. I really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics. (As search engines morph into chatbots, YouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators — it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.) AI tools in Ahrefs In line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set. The two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its AI Content Grader and its AI Content Helper . AI Content Grader As its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view. You give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will: grade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness) highlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output suggest ways that your content could be improved. For me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example). An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content And the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals. The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles AI Content Helper Ahrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view. However, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article within the Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including. Ahrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use You can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc. I quite liked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini. Overall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay $99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them. Interface and ease-of-use Ahrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left. The Ahrefs interface This is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users. The menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc. Ahrefs navigation There is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!). Increasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible. As with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface. When I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming. To be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone! However, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access some core data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though). Finally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use, could return data a bit faster . Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly. Pricing and value for money There’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive! That’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to huge quantities of data , including a lot of competitor intelligence. Ahrefs provides four main pricing plans: Lite — $129 per month Standard — $249 per month Advanced — $449 per month Enterprise — from $1,499 per month, with annual commitment required. These fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic. The key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve: access to core features the number of projects you can work with the number of reports you can pull the number of keywords you can track Access to core features One of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at $129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including: search intent metrics broken link-building tools keyword clustering SERP updates AI suggestions (Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too). For context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month. The main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications. Number of projects It’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’ And how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its $129 per month plan; 20 on its $249 per month plan; 50 on its $449 per month plan; and 100 on its $14,990 per year plan. These limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can ‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs , it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all! Verification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by: connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console adding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings uploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage adding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage. The ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure. Number of reports Until recently, Ahrefs was extremely ungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.). But changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its $249/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites. The bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its $129/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month. This isn’t ideal: paying $129/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get. This feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports per day on its similarly priced plan . Ahrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the number of rows it outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its $129 plan is 2,500. (As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.) Number of keywords you can track Another key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively. (These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools). If you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay $50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track. Add-ons for Ahrefs In a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely: Content Kit ($99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier. Report Builder ($99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports. Project Boost Pro ($20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously. Project Boost Max ($200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster) For me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved. 🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available? Given that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it. Well, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘ Ahrefs Webmaster Tools ‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features. But that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional 7-day free trial ; and for a limited time you can access a 14-day Semrush trial here . Customer support SEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users. You get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that no phone support is available for the tool . This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with. On the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too. Accessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard Online help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in. User reviews of Ahrefs So far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data. The table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites: Review site User rating (out of 5) Capterra 4.7 (578 reviews) G2 4.5 (667 reviews) Trustpilot 1.9 (303 reviews) TrustRadius* 4.5 (389 reviews) Average 3.9 *Recalculated from an out-of-ten score As you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5). Trustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service. Ahrefs review: conclusion It’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously. The recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too. Ahrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive. Because of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform in the comments section below . Reasons I would use Ahrefs Extremely generous reporting limits on its $249+ plans. Its generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies. It gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing. Carrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs. You can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city). It lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is. It lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place. Adding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors. Its ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors. The interface is available in 15 languages. The learning curve is relatively gentle. Reasons I would avoid Ahrefs There’s no free trial. The reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous. You can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on. Its new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive. Its plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default. There’s no phone support. There are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building. There’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work. The interface can be a bit sluggish. Alternatives to Ahrefs Ahrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one! Alternative options for SEO analysis include: Semrush GrowthBar Raven Tools Profound (for prompt tracking) SpyFu SE Ranking Similarweb Moz Serpstat Mangools SEO PowerSuite Majestic Ubersuggest For more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison and our Moz vs Ahrefs comparison . If you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find our full Semrush review here , our Ahrefs vs Semrush shootout here , and our Semrush pricing guide here . We have also published a comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush and recently, an Ubersuggest vs Semrush comparison . You may also find our SpyFu vs Semrush blog post and our Semrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison of interest. Ahrefs review FAQ What is Ahrefs? Ahrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website. Is Ahrefs free? Ahrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools. Is Ahrefs worth the money? Ahrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of $129/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of SEO principles before investing in it. What’s the best alternative to Ahrefs? Based on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that Semrush is probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings). How we tested this product — and why you can trust this review We tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it. We regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on first-hand experience of its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features. And finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions. Update details This review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made: Product screenshots were updated A new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added. The user ratings section was updated. Data pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated.
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This is at no extra cost to you. ![Ahrefs review](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ahrefs-review.png) In this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution? * ## Quick verdict Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans. That said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users. ![A video review of Ahrefs on the Style Factory YouTube channel](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ahrefs-review-video.jpg) Learn more about Ahrefs: [visit website](https://ahrefs.com/) The key alternative: [Semrush](https://semrush.sjv.io/DyjqOd) I’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background. * ## Ahrefs: the background Founded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook. ![The Ahrefs platform](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ahrefs-platform.png) Ahrefs It works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to: - find out what people are searching for on Google and other search engines - create web content that is likely to generate traffic - identify link-building opportunities - tweak technical aspects of your site content so that it achieves a higher search ranking. That’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are many other features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings. Let’s go through these now, starting with a look at domain analysis. * ## Domain analysis The starting point for many SEO projects is domain analysis. This simply means getting a basic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website — how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on. Generally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your own website — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a competitor’s*, to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so). ![Ahrefs' Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-site-explorer.png) Ahrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis You might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’). This is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results. It’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results. (You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain). ![Performing domain analysis using Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-domain-analysis.png) Viewing domain analytics in Ahrefs Now, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a lot* of information. Key metrics provided include: - A ‘domain rating‘ (DR) score - An estimate of the total number of visitors to the website per month - The number of AI citations found for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot) - The total number of external links / domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered - The total number of keywords the URL ranks for - [Anchor text](https://ahrefs.com/blog/anchor-text/) commonly used in links to the URL - The ‘traffic value‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results - Historical information about the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time. (Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.) Of the above metrics, the one that gives you the quickest understanding of site quality is the ‘domain rating’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score [based on the number of domains that point to a website](https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/1409408-what-is-domain-rating-dr) (and their quality). ![The domain rating ('DR') metric in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/domain-rating-metric.png) The domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs The higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be. Now, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately estimatesbased on that data. In most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody really knows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses. ![A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-traffic-estimate.png) A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs In my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is traffic statistics. Based on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned. So, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an indication of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations). You can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country. ![Toggling site data by country in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/site-data-by-country-in-ahrefs.png) Toggling data by country Overall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here. Now, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’ keyword research features. * ## Keyword research using Ahrefs Keyword research generally involves four main things: - finding out how many people are searching for a given keyword - determining how difficult it is to rank for that keyword - identifying who is already ranking for that keyword - getting suggestions for other ones. Let’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs. ### Getting keyword data in Ahrefs To get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool. This is accessible via the main navigation. ![Using Ahrefs 'Keywords Explorer' tool to perform keyword research](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-explorer.png) Using Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research You can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester. Once you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see: - its ‘keyword difficulty’ score - the number of searches per month for that keyword (and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months) - some suggestions for alternative keywords to target - a list of the sites that are ranking for it. (All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.) This information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-explorer-results.png) Accessing keyword research data in Ahrefs As with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-research-per-country-results.png) Performing per-country keyword research One of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’). Not only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages. ![A SERP overview in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/serp-analysis-in-ahrefs.png) A SERP overview in Ahrefs Interestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you a word count metric** (highlighted in my screenshot above). Now, debate rages over [whether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/word-count-seo-importance/441742/). But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least some idea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword. So a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature. ### Keyword difficulty scores The most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its keyword difficulty score. Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword. As you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of the number of referring domains (i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase. ![A keyword difficulty score provided by Ahrefs — it gives you an estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-difficulty-score.png) Estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10 This is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool. ### Search volumes Another key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the search volume for a particular phrase — the number of people searching for a keyword per month. Knowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for\! ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-volume.png) Search volume being displayed in Ahrefs But in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people click on organic results for that keyword. In the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results. ![Clickthrough data being displayed in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/click-data-ahrefs.png) Click-through data being displayed in Ahrefs (In an increasingly [zero-click content](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/zero-click-content) environment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.) Ahrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising (\$0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example). And finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of trend data — the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question. ![Keyword trend data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-trend-data.png) Keyword trend data in Ahrefs Ahrefs can also show you a forecast of search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive. ![Search volume forecast data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/forecast-data-ahrefs.png) A search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs Overall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time. #### Performing keyword research using Ahrefs — video demonstration ![Embedded video player](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ahrefs-keyword-research-tutorial.jpg) [Subscribe on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmgsxeB00MS6ynDzDUGMs9Q?sub_confirmation=1) ### Keyword suggestions Although a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get detailed suggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard. ![The keyword ideas section in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-ideas-section-in-ahrefs.png) Using Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas Within this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from: matching terms, related terms, search suggestions and global terms. With regard to what these all do: - The ‘matching terms‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword. - The ‘related terms‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway. - The ‘search suggestions‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions. - The ‘global terms‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting. Which set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into. ![ Google 'autocomplete' suggestions](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/google-autocomplete-suggestions.png) Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions The trick here is to identify phrases that have: - reasonably high search volumes - a relatively low keyword difficulty score. A ‘traffic potential’ metric (pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve variations of that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term. ![Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/traffic-potential-scores.png) Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs Below is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate 52,000 visits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/traffic-potential-metric-example.png) ‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs As things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs. (In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.) In each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for. ![Using keyword research filters in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-research-filters.png) Keyword research filters in Ahrefs While not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters slightly more user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/using-keyword-difficulty-filter.png) Ahrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter This is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy / easy / hard / very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush: ![Semrush's keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush's](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-difficulty-filter-in-semrush.png) Semrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s ### AI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs In common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’ ![AI keyword research presets in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ai-seed-keywords-ahrefs.png) AI keyword research presets When you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more. ![Using an AI preset feature to get seed keywords in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/preset-for-seed-ideas-in-ahrefs.png) Using an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs Applying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own. ![Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/seed-ideas-ahrefs.png) Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI Overall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores. ### Accessing search intent data SEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’ For example: - “Gmail” is navigational (the user is looking for the Gmail login page) - “What is a brownie?” is informational (the user wants to know what a brownie is) - “Ahrefs vs Semrush” is commercial (the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction) - “Ahrefs pricing” is transactional (the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription). The aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of why somebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones. So for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial / transactional queries instead. Now, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it: “We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.” [Tim Soulo](https://x.com/timsoulo/status/1737670354095800764?s=20), CMO, Ahrefs And accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features. Thankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below). ![Search intent filters in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-intent-filters.png) Search intent filters in Ahrefs Not only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords). The feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually better than the search intent tools available in [Moz and Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/moz-vs-semrush) (which for some time it lagged behind in this area). ![Video guide to Ahrefs alternatives](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-alternatives-video.jpg) ### Dealing with competing domains When conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that already rank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase. Domains that are already performing well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its Keyword Explorer \> Overview screen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more. ![SERP data being surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/serp-data-in-ahrefs.png) The ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs It’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that only lower authority sites are ranking highly for. ![Using Ahrefs to spot keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/lowest-dr-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Spotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for When you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high). * ## Rank tracking ‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time. It’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords. ![Using the 'Rank Tracker' feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/rank-tracking-in-ahrefs.png) Using the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings You can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town/city basis; this is helpful for [local SEO efforts](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/local-seo). As time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords. ![Monitoring search position changes over time in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/monitoring-positions-over-time-in-ahrefs.png) Viewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs If you like, you can set up email notifications about your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis. You should note however that daily updates are not available by default: you have to pay for a \$200/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined. Many competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too. Another thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘project slots.’ ![Best Rank Trackers (2025) — for SEO and Google AI Overviews](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/best-rank-trackers-video.jpg) I’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a limited number of them as part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month). To be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking ([SEO PowerSuite](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/seo-powersuite-review) being a notable exception). ![Ahrefs vs Semrush video comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ahrefs-vs-semrush-video-comparison.png) * ## Backlink analysis How strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘[backlinks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlink)‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it. To perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see: - who is linking to that URL - what anchor text is being used in those links - what sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it - if any links pointing that URL are broken. The point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours. ![Ahrefs referring domains data](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/referring-domain-data-in-ahrefs.png) The Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report Ahrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics). How accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database. At time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have 35 trillion backlinks in its database — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs. ![Ahrefs' database statistics (February 2026)](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-database-stats-2026.png) Ahrefs’ database statistics (February 2026) I was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz. Here are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool: \| \| \| \| \| \|---\|---\|---\|---\| \| Website \| Ahrefs \| Moz \| Semrush \| \| Amazon \| 3\.9m \| 5\.5m \| 4\.2m \| \| BigCommerce \| 88k \| 344k \| 208k \| \| Canva \| 415k \| 479k \| 562k \| \| Ecwid \| 31k \| 76k \| 48k \| \| GoDaddy \| 5\.7m \| 7m \| 10\.1m \| \| Jimdo \| 431k \| 3\.6k \| 618k \| \| Shopify \| 3\.2m \| 5\.3m \| 4\.6m \| \| Squarespace \| 1\.3m \| 22k \| 374k \| \| Webflow \| 122k \| 206k \| 242k \| \| Wix \| 1\.1m \| 1\.2m \| 3\.4m \| Now, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel. But that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests. ![Ahrefs vs Moz vs Semrush video comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush.jpg) Next, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors. The key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush It’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features. ![The Semrush platform](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/semrush-platform.jpg) Semrush Semrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features. And significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can [access a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here](https://semrush.sjv.io/qzeVmO). [Extended semrush trial \>](https://semrush.sjv.io/9Lb2nQ) * ## Link building in Ahrefs Many prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for backlink building. After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results. There are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies: - its Site Explorer tool, which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify - its Content Explorer, which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics - its Alerts** feature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink. Let’s discuss each briefly in turn. ### Using the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities Using Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities. To do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section. ![Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/accessing-backlink-data-in-ahrefs.png) Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs You’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below). ![Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-referring-domain-list.png) Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs You can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink. Now, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you do get from key competitor Semrush — is a way to manage the outreach process. In Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets. ![Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/semrush-domain-prospects.png) Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush With Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches. It all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools / apps. So the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it\! ### Using the Content Explorer for link building purposes Ahrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic. ![The Ahrefs 'Content Explorer' feature in use](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahefs-content-explorer.png) The Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature You’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them. ![Top authors data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/authors-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png) Top authors data in Ahrefs It would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets. ### Using Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities Finally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit. This lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL. ![Setting up backlink alerts in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/setting-up-ahrefs-alerts.png) Ahrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks This gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to your website too. [![A banner advert for Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/semrush-animated-banner-ad.gif)](https://semrush.sjv.io/4PWyMG) *** ## Broken link building Broken link building is an important SEO strategy. It involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to your new content instead. This approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings. In order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it really easy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the Broken backlinks option (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section). ![Accessing the 'broken backlinks' feature in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-backlink-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Accessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature This then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature. ![Broken backlinks surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-backlinks-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png) Ahrefs’ broken backlinks report Additionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken outbound links too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more. It’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings). To find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code. ![Viewing broken links in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-links-report-ahrefs.png) The Ahrefs broken outbound link report It should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush. * ## Site auditing and technical SEO One of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of the technical side of SEO. This is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the [technical performance of websites](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/) — things like site speed, security, and mobile-friendliness. Ahrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a [site audit](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/how-to-do-an-seo-audit), Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including: - Slow-loading content - Missing alt text - SSL problems - Crawl errors - Missing headers - Duplicate content - Broken links ![Using Ahrefs' site audit tool to find technical SEO problems](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-seo-site-audit.png) Using Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems Overall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use [Wix or Shopify](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/wix-vs-shopify), [WordPress or Squarespace](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/squarespace-vs-wordpress) etc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup. ![How to Do an SEO Audit — Simple Checklist](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/how-to-do-an-seo-audit-video.jpg) Ahrefs also includes detailed [Core Web Vitals](https://web.dev/vitals/) data in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results. ![Core web vitals report](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-core-web-vitals-report.png) Core Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs In Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘field data‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from [Chrome users](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-user-experience-report)) and ‘lab data,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment. (Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.) ![Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/connecting-ahrefs-to-pagespeed-insights-api.png) Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API The availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on [Lighthouse lab data](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/). ### Implementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs If you pay for \$20/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below). ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ask-ai-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Getting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs And paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs \$200/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS\! And, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too. * ## Brand monitoring features Since the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the [amount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/beating-google-helpful-content-update-branded-search), and its performance in search. ([Studies by Moz](https://moz.com/blog/helpful-content-update-not-what-you-think) and others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.) This means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘Brand Radar‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/brand-radar-feature-ahrefs.png) Ahrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool This, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time. When testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them. I really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics. (As search engines morph into chatbots, [YouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/reasons-to-make-youtube-part-of-seo-strategy) — it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.) 📚 Related resource: [Ahrefs vs Profound](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-profound) * ## AI tools in Ahrefs In line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set. The two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its AI Content Grader and its AI Content Helper*. ### AI Content Grader As its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-content-grader.png) You give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will: - grade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness) - highlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output - suggest ways that your content could be improved. For me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example). ![An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs' 'Content Grader' feature on how to improve site content](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ai-suggestion-for-content-improvement-in-ahrefs.png) An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content And the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals. ![The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/content-grader-comparison-table-ahrefs.png) The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles ### AI Content Helper Ahrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view. However, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article within* the Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including. ![Ahrefs' 'Content Helper' feature in use](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-content-helper.png) Ahrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use You can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc. I quite liked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini. Overall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay \$99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them. *** ## Interface and ease-of-use Ahrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left. ![Ahrefs interface](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-interface.png) The Ahrefs interface This is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users. The menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc. ![Ahrefs navigation menu](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-navigation-menu.png) Ahrefs navigation There is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!). Increasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible. As with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface. When I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming. To be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone\! However, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access some core data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though). Finally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use, could return data a bit faster. Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly. ![Best SEO Tools (2025) — The Top Platforms Ranked and Rated](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Best-SEO-Tools-WordPress.jpg) * ## Pricing and value for money There’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive\! That’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to huge quantities of data, including a lot of competitor intelligence. Ahrefs provides four main pricing plans: - Lite — \$129 per month - Standard — \$249 per month - Advanced — \$449 per month - Enterprise — from \$1,499 per month, with annual commitment required. These fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic. The key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve: - access to core features - the number of projects you can work with - the number of reports you can pull - the number of keywords** you can track ### Access to core features One of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at \$129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including: - search intent metrics - broken link-building tools - keyword clustering - SERP updates - AI suggestions (Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too). For context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month. The main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications. ### Number of projects It’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’ And how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its \$129 per month plan; 20 on its \$249 per month plan; 50 on its \$449 per month plan; and 100 on its \$14,990 per year plan. These limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can [‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs](https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/4321336-what-is-a-verified-project), it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all\! Verification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by: - connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console - adding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings - uploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage - adding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage. The ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure. ### Number of reports Until recently, Ahrefs was extremely ungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.). But changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its \$249/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites. The bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its \$129/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month. This isn’t ideal: paying \$129/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get. This feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports per day [on its similarly priced plan](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb). Ahrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the number of rows it outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its \$129 plan is 2,500. (As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.) ### Number of keywords you can track Another key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively. (These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools). If you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay \$50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track. ### Add-ons for Ahrefs In a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely: - Content Kit (\$99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier. - Report Builder (\$99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports. - Project Boost Pro (\$20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously. - Project Boost Max (\$200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster) For me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved. ### 🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available? Given that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it. Well, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘[Ahrefs Webmaster Tools](https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools)‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features. But that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional [7-day free trial](https://moz.pxf.io/gOPmr0); and for a limited time [you can access a 14-day Semrush trial here](https://semrush.sjv.io/qzeVmO). * ## Customer support SEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users. You get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that no phone support is available for the tool. This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with. On the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too. ![Contacting customer support](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/contacting-ahrefs-support.png) Accessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard Online help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in. * ## User reviews of Ahrefs So far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data. The table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites: \| \| \| \|---\|---\| \| Review site \| User rating (out of 5) \| \| Capterra \| 4\.7 (578 reviews) \| \| G2 \| 4\.5 (667 reviews) \| \| Trustpilot \| 1\.9 (303 reviews) \| \| TrustRadius\* \| 4\.5 (389 reviews) \| \| Average \| 3\.9 \| \Recalculated from an out-of-ten score As you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5). Trustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service. ## Ahrefs review: conclusion It’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously. The recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too. Ahrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive. Because of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform [in the comments section below](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review#comments). * ## Pros and cons of Ahrefs — summary ### Reasons I would use Ahrefs - Extremely generous reporting limits on its \$249+ plans. - Its generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies. - It gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing. - Carrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs. - You can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city). - It lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is. - It lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place. - Adding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors. - Its ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors. - The interface is available in 15 languages. - The learning curve is relatively gentle. ### Reasons I would avoid Ahrefs - There’s no free trial. - The reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous. - You can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on. - Its new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive. - Its plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default. - There’s no phone support. - There are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building. - There’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work. - The interface can be a bit sluggish. * ## Alternatives to Ahrefs Ahrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one! [Alternative options for SEO analysis](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-alternatives) include: - [Semrush](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb) - GrowthBar - [Raven Tools](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/raven-tools-review) - Profound (for prompt tracking) - SpyFu - [SE Ranking](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/se-ranking-vs-semrush) - [Similarweb](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-vs-similarweb) - Moz - Serpstat - Mangools - SEO PowerSuite - Majestic - [Ubersuggest](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ubersuggest-review) For more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out [our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-semrush) and our [Moz vs Ahrefs comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/moz-vs-ahrefs). If you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find [our full Semrush review here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-review), our [Ahrefs vs Semrush shootout here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-semrush), and [our Semrush pricing guide here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-pricing). We have also published [a comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush) and recently, an [Ubersuggest vs Semrush comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ubersuggest-vs-semrush). You may also find our [SpyFu vs Semrush blog post](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/spyfu-vs-semrush) and our [Semrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIIMHf5x65A) of interest. ![How to do keyword research with Semrush (video)](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/semrush-keyword-research-thumbnail.jpg) ## Ahrefs review FAQ ### What is Ahrefs? Ahrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website. ### Is Ahrefs free? Ahrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools. ### Is Ahrefs worth the money? Ahrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of \$129/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of [SEO principles](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/six-simple-ways-to-make-your-site-more-visible-in-google-search-results) before investing in it. ### What’s the best alternative to Ahrefs? Based on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that [Semrush](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb) is probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings). ### How we tested this product — and why you can trust this review We tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it. We regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on first-hand experience of its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features. And finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions. ### Update details This review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made: - Product screenshots were updated - A new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added. - The user ratings section was updated. - Data pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated. ## About the author ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/110a16d58138351383493c42f3c55ebcbfe705536a6bf90b714d9575674b2185?s=96&d=mm&r=g) ### Chris Singleton - [View on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/stylefactoryproductions) - [View on Linkedin](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chris-singleton-0a73514a) - [View on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmgsxeB00MS6ynDzDUGMs9Q) - [View on Twitter](https://twitter.com/chrissingleton) - [http://Contact%20us](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/contact) Chris Singleton is the Editor of Style Factory. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, he is now London-based. Since graduating from Trinity College Dublin in 1999, Chris has advised many businesses on how to grow their operations via a strong online presence, and now he shares his experience and expertise through his articles on the Style Factory website. Chris started his career as a data analyst for Irish marketing company Precision Marketing Information; since then he has worked on digital projects for a wide range of well-known organizations including Cancer Research UK, Hackney Council, Data Ireland and Prescription PR. He founded Style Factory in 2009 as a way to share his expertise with a wider audience. He is also the [author of a book on SEO for beginners, “Super Simple SEO.”](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/super-simple-seo) You can connect personally with Chris via [Twitter (X)](https://twitter.com/chrissingleton) or [LinkedIn](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chris-singleton-0a73514a). ### Share this - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review "Share to Facebook") - [Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&text=Ahrefs%20Review%20$2026$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons "Share to Twitter") - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&title=Ahrefs%20Review%20$2026$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons "Share to LinkedIn") - [Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20$2026$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons "Share to Pinterest") - [Reddit](https://reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fahrefs-review&media=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stylefactoryproductions.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2022%2F03%2Fahrefs-review.png&description=Ahrefs%20Review%20$2026$%20%E2%80%94%20All%20the%20Key%20Pros%20and%20Cons "Share to Reddit") ## Comments (1) ### [Cancel reply](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review#respond) ![](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20width='120'%20height='120'%20viewBox='0%200%20120%20120'%3E%3C/svg%3E)Sebastiansays: [November 25, 2025 at 8:39 am](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review#comment-240991) My experience with Ahrefs has unfortunately been consistently negative — and it keeps getting worse over time. The number of system errors, where credits are deducted but the platform returns nothing but a blank page, now far exceeds the number of times the tool actually works as expected. On top of that, the reported data has become increasingly unreliable. In many cases, Ahrefs’ results differ dramatically from what you see in GSC, to the point where the insights are no longer trustworthy. Customer support is essentially nonexistent. Instead of talking to a human, you receive vague, AI-generated replies that don’t address the problem and provide no real assistance. Overall, the value and reliability of the tool have declined sharply, while the price keeps going up. I absolutely cannot recommend Ahrefs based on my recent experience. 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Readable Markdown	We have a strict honest review policy, but please note that when you buy through our links, we may receive a commission. This is at no extra cost to you. ![Ahrefs review](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ahrefs-review.png) In this Ahrefs review, I test a leading SEO tool and explore its key pros and cons. Should you choose it for your SEO needs — or go with an alternative solution? * ## Quick verdict Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive and reliable SEO tools on the market, offering an exceptional amount of data for keyword analysis, backlink building, and competitor research. It’s particularly strong for agencies or businesses running multiple SEO projects, thanks to the option it provides to work with unlimited verified domains and its generous reporting limits on higher-tier plans. That said, Ahrefs is far from cheap — and the lack of a free trial makes committing to it a bit of a leap. Reporting limits on its lower-cost plans are restrictive; only one user seat is included, regardless of plan; and its add-ons for monitoring brand visibility, content creation and daily rank tracking may prove too expensive for small business users. ![A video review of Ahrefs on the Style Factory YouTube channel](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ahrefs-review-video.jpg) I’ll start my full review off with a quick look at Ahrefs’ background. * ## Ahrefs: the background Founded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko, Ahrefs is now one of the best-known SEO tools available; it’s used by millions of companies around the world, including big brands like Shopify, eBay, LinkedIn, Uber, Adobe, Zoom and Facebook. ![The Ahrefs platform](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ahrefs-platform.png) Ahrefs It works by crawling search engines and websites for data, and giving you tools that you can use to: - find out what people are searching for on Google and other search engines - create web content that is likely to generate traffic - identify link-building opportunities - tweak technical aspects of your site content so that it achieves a higher search ranking. That’s just scratching the surface of the tool though — there are many other features provided by Ahrefs that are designed to help you improve your search rankings. Let’s go through these now, starting with a look at domain analysis. * ## Domain analysis The starting point for many SEO projects is domain analysis. This simply means getting a basic overview of the SEO ‘quality’ of a website — how highly it ranks for certain phrases, roughly how much search traffic it gets and so on. Generally speaking, you perform domain analysis either on your own website — to see where SEO improvements could be made to it — or on a competitor’s*, to see how hard it will be to outrank them in search results (and identify ways to do so). ![Ahrefs' Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-site-explorer.png) Ahrefs’ Site Explorer feature — you use this to perform domain analysis You might also perform domain analysis on a website in order to see if it’s worth approaching its owner for a link from that site to yours (a ‘backlink’). This is because attaining backlinks from high-quality websites can bring significant improvements to your rankings — Google and other search engines view inbound links as a sign of trustworthiness, and can treat sites with a lot of good backlinks preferentially in search results. It’s very easy to perform domain analysis in Ahrefs — you just enter a domain into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool to get an immediate overview of that site’s backlink profile and how it’s performing in search results. (You can do this for whole domains, or individual pages on a domain). ![Performing domain analysis using Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-domain-analysis.png) Viewing domain analytics in Ahrefs Now, the results page you see after entering a URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer contains a lot* of information. Key metrics provided include: - A ‘domain rating‘ (DR) score - An estimate of the total number of visitors to the website per month - The number of AI citations found for that domain (across Google AI Overviews, Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot) - The total number of external links / domains (‘backlinks’) pointing to the URL entered - The total number of keywords the URL ranks for - [Anchor text](https://ahrefs.com/blog/anchor-text/) commonly used in links to the URL - The ‘traffic value‘ of the URL — the equivalent sum of money you’d have to invest in pay-per-click advertising to show links to your site at the top of Google search results - Historical information about the number of referring domains and the website’s domain rating over time. (Clicking on most of these metrics will take you to detailed breakdowns of the statistics provided, which you can use to really drill down into the data.) Of the above metrics, the one that gives you the quickest understanding of site quality is the ‘domain rating’ (or ‘Ahrefs DR’ for short). Ahrefs calculates this score [based on the number of domains that point to a website](https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/1409408-what-is-domain-rating-dr) (and their quality). ![The domain rating ('DR') metric in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/domain-rating-metric.png) The domain rating (‘DR’) metric in Ahrefs The higher this score, the more likely a website is to rank for competitive search terms — and the more valuable a ‘backlink’ from it to your site will be. Now, what’s important to remember about Ahrefs’ Site Explorer statistics is that while they are based on hard data, they are ultimately estimatesbased on that data. In most cases, this is totally fine. Since nobody really knows the inner secrets of search engines’ algorithms (other than the software engineers working for the relevant companies!), search engine optimization is always a process that involves working off best guesses. ![A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-traffic-estimate.png) A search traffic estimate from Ahrefs In my experience, the only area where you might need to treat the Ahrefs’ results with a bit of extra caution is traffic statistics. Based on reviewing Google Analytics data that I have access to for various websites, I’ve found that the ‘organic traffic’ figures provided by Ahrefs can often be quite inaccurate, especially where sites with lower levels of monthly organic traffic are concerned. So, it’s best to treat the traffic stats in Ahrefs as something that gives you an indication of site popularity. You can use these figures to help you put your site into context against those of your competitors — or identify websites that clearly generate enough traffic to make it worth approaching them for backlinks (or other marketing and content collaborations). You can access some of the Ahrefs data on a per-country basis — by using the ‘countries’ dropdown provided, you can view organic traffic, keywords and traffic value for your chosen country. ![Toggling site data by country in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/site-data-by-country-in-ahrefs.png) Toggling data by country Overall, the domain analysis features of Ahrefs are strong — no complaints here. Now, let’s take a look at Ahrefs’ keyword research features. * ## Keyword research using Ahrefs Keyword research generally involves four main things: - finding out how many people are searching for a given keyword - determining how difficult it is to rank for that keyword - identifying who is already ranking for that keyword - getting suggestions for other ones. Let’s take a look at these four aspects of keyword research with Ahrefs. ### Getting keyword data in Ahrefs To get keyword data in Ahrefs, you need to use its ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool. This is accessible via the main navigation. ![Using Ahrefs 'Keywords Explorer' tool to perform keyword research](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-explorer.png) Using Ahrefs ‘Keywords Explorer’ tool to perform keyword research You can either enter your own target keywords directly into the Keyword Explorer tool, or if you’re stuck for ideas, make use of an AI-powered ‘seed keyword’ suggester. Once you’ve entered a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, you’ll see: - its ‘keyword difficulty’ score - the number of searches per month for that keyword (and on higher-tier plans, a forecast of how many searches you can expect to see for it over the next 9-12 months) - some suggestions for alternative keywords to target - a list of the sites that are ranking for it. (All of this data relates to Google — Ahrefs used to cater for additional search engines, but now focuses exclusively on Google.) This information is presented in a simple dashboard format (see my screenshot below), but clicking on individual items will let you drill down into the data in more depth. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-explorer-results.png) Accessing keyword research data in Ahrefs As with domain analysis, Ahrefs lets you perform this research on a per-country basis, with a dropdown menu letting you view keyword research data for individual territories. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-research-per-country-results.png) Performing per-country keyword research One of the things I like most about this section of Ahrefs is the data it gives you on the pages that are already ranking highly for a particular search phrase (a ‘SERP overview’). Not only does this show you things you’d expect — like the domain rating of the sites at the top of the rankings, and the number of backlinks to the pages involved, it also provides a bunch of other useful SEO metrics, like the value of the top ranking pages (based on what it would cost to use PPC to drive an equivalent amount of traffic) and an estimate of the traffic to top ranking pages. ![A SERP overview in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/serp-analysis-in-ahrefs.png) A SERP overview in Ahrefs Interestingly — and somewhat uniquely among the leading SEO tools I’ve reviewed — this feature also gives you a word count metric** (highlighted in my screenshot above). Now, debate rages over [whether word count is technically a ranking factor in SEO](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/word-count-seo-importance/441742/). But personally, I find word count data quite helpful, because it helps you get a sense of how ‘in-depth’ the top ranking content on a given topic typically is, and gives you at least some idea of the kind of depth that Google expects you to go into in order to rank for a particular keyword. So a thumbs up from me anyway for this particular feature. ### Keyword difficulty scores The most important metric returned by Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is probably its keyword difficulty score. Ahrefs uses a score out of 100 to indicate this — with a higher score letting you know that it’s going to be harder to rank for a keyword. As you can see from the below screenshot, Ahrefs can also give you an indication of the number of referring domains (i.e., links from other sites to yours) that you will need to attain in order to start ranking in the top 10 results for a particular phrase. ![A keyword difficulty score provided by Ahrefs — it gives you an estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-difficulty-score.png) Estimate of the number of referring domains needed to rank in top 10 This is a really nice feature, and one of my favourite things about Ahrefs’ keyword research tool. ### Search volumes Another key metric returned by Ahrefs’ domain analysis feature is the search volume for a particular phrase — the number of people searching for a keyword per month. Knowing this is vital, as there is not much point in trying to rank for a keyword that nobody is searching for\! ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-volume.png) Search volume being displayed in Ahrefs But in addition to the main monthly search figure (highlighted in my screenshot above), Ahrefs also gives you an indication of the number of times per month that people click on organic results for that keyword. In the screenshot below, you can see that of the 57,000 searches that are made for ‘cake’ each month in the UK, 13,000 lead to clicks on the organic results. ![Clickthrough data being displayed in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/click-data-ahrefs.png) Click-through data being displayed in Ahrefs (In an increasingly [zero-click content](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/zero-click-content) environment, where Google tries to answer queries immediately, this kind of information is becoming ever more important.) Ahrefs also shows you how much it would cost to generate a click-through using PPC advertising (\$0.25 in the example provided above), and a ‘clicks per search’ ratio (the proportion of people who search for a phrase then click an organic result — 0.24 in the example). And finally, you get a quick at-a-glance view of trend data — the graph accompanying Ahrefs’ keyword volume metric shows you when there were particular spikes or declines in searches for the phrase in question. ![Keyword trend data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-trend-data.png) Keyword trend data in Ahrefs Ahrefs can also show you a forecast of search volumes for an entered keyword. This is helpful for establishing the long-term potential of building content around particular phrases. However, you’ll need to be on an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Enterprise’ plan to access this information — this is a bit frustrating, as both of these plans are very expensive. ![Search volume forecast data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/forecast-data-ahrefs.png) A search volume forecast provided by Ahrefs Overall, the keyword research data provided by Ahrefs is all laid out in a very digestible way, and makes it easy to see if a keyword is worth your time. ### Keyword suggestions Although a few keyword suggestions will be surfaced when you enter a keyword into Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool, to get detailed suggestions based on a phrase you’ve entered, you need to use the platform’s ‘Keyword Ideas’ section, which is located to the left of the main keyword overview dashboard. ![The keyword ideas section in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-ideas-section-in-ahrefs.png) Using Ahrefs to source new keyword ideas Within this, there are four types of keyword suggestion reports to choose from: matching terms, related terms, search suggestions and global terms. With regard to what these all do: - The ‘matching terms‘ report gives you a list of keyword suggestions that include your target keyword. - The ‘related terms‘ report shows you a list of keywords that might not include it, but which Ahrefs thinks might be relevant anyway. - The ‘search suggestions‘ report gives you a list of relevant Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions. - The ‘global terms‘ (only available on an ‘Advanced’ plan or higher) shows you keyword ideas drawn from all languages and locations in Ahrefs’ database, rather than limiting suggestions to the country and language you’re currently targeting. Which set of suggestions is right for you will depend on the type of keyword research you’re doing — but all provide a comprehensive range of keyword suggestions that you can drill down into. ![ Google 'autocomplete' suggestions](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/google-autocomplete-suggestions.png) Google ‘autocomplete’ suggestions The trick here is to identify phrases that have: - reasonably high search volumes - a relatively low keyword difficulty score. A ‘traffic potential’ metric (pictured below) helps you further evaluate the merits of a particular keyword — this figure includes traffic generated by searches for a keyword which involve variations of that phrase, and lets you know roughly how much traffic you’d get if you ranked number one for a given term. ![Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/traffic-potential-scores.png) Traffic potential data being surfaced in Ahrefs Below is an example of Ahrefs’ ‘traffic potential’ metric in action. You can see that although the ‘online store builder’ keyword has a search volume of 1,600 per month, when phrase variations are factored in, the term actually has the potential to generate 52,000 visits per month to a site that ranks number one in Google for it. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/traffic-potential-metric-example.png) ‘Traffic potential’ data in Ahrefs As things stand, this sort of data isn’t available from leading competitors Moz and Semrush — it’s a really useful metric and something of a USP for Ahrefs. (In fact, it’s one of my favourite Ahrefs features.) In each type of keyword suggestion report, you’ll find useful filters that let you spot the ‘juicy’ or ‘untapped’ organic keywords that it might be possible for your site to rank for. ![Using keyword research filters in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-keyword-research-filters.png) Keyword research filters in Ahrefs While not particularly hard to use, one thing that could make these filters slightly more user-friendly would be a more straightforward keyword difficulty score filter — the one provided requires you to enter numerical ranges. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/using-keyword-difficulty-filter.png) Ahrefs’ Keyword difficulty filter This is good from a granularity point of view, but some users — novices, perhaps — might prefer a simple ‘very easy / easy / hard / very hard’ style dropdown, like you get in Semrush: ![Semrush's keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush's](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/keyword-difficulty-filter-in-semrush.png) Semrush’s keyword difficulty filter — due to its more obvious categorization, it is a little more straightforward to use than Semrush’s ### AI-enhanced keyword suggestions in Ahrefs In common with other SEO tools, Ahrefs has gradually been introducing AI-powered features into its platform. When you use its Keyword Explorer tool, you can ‘ask AI to suggest keywords related to your topic.’ ![AI keyword research presets in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ai-seed-keywords-ahrefs.png) AI keyword research presets When you use this feature, you’ll see a bunch of presets that you can apply to your research — these involve user challenges, comparative phrases, trends and more. ![Using an AI preset feature to get seed keywords in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/preset-for-seed-ideas-in-ahrefs.png) Using an AI preset feature to perform keyword research in Ahrefs Applying them will surface keywords that the AI thinks are particularly relevant to your chosen topic. In essence, this feature is good for brainstorming ‘seed keywords,’ suggesting a host of phrases that you might have struggled to come up with on your own. ![Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/seed-ideas-ahrefs.png) Seed keywords output by the Ahrefs AI Overall, I quite like this AI tool — it is indeed useful for sparking ideas. It would be better however if you were able to use it in a way that shows keywords that are easy to rank for — when testing the tool I found that it tended to give me a lot of suggestions that had really high keyword difficulty scores. ### Accessing search intent data SEO professionals tend to categorize keywords into four different ‘search intent’ buckets: ‘navigational’, ‘informational’, ‘commercial’ and ‘transactional.’ For example: - “Gmail” is navigational (the user is looking for the Gmail login page) - “What is a brownie?” is informational (the user wants to know what a brownie is) - “Ahrefs vs Semrush” is commercial (the user is researching a product before committing to a transaction) - “Ahrefs pricing” is transactional (the user is probably ready to buy an Ahrefs subscription). The aim of all this is to get a basic understanding of why somebody is entering a particular phrase into a search engine. If you have this, you can then filter keywords by intent type — and zoom in on the most relevant ones. So for example, if you wanted to sell coffee online, a good search intent feature would — at your request — hide a lot of informational or navigational queries (how to make a latte, the location of your nearest Starbucks etc.) and show you only the most relevant commercial / transactional queries instead. Now, for a long time Ahrefs didn’t like this approach to classifying keywords —not too long ago, its CMO Tim Soulo had this to say about it: “We’re not big fans of shoehorning the search intent into 4 ambiguous buckets: Informational, Transactional, Bla-blablional, etc.” [Tim Soulo](https://x.com/timsoulo/status/1737670354095800764?s=20), CMO, Ahrefs And accordingly, the platform didn’t have much in the way of search intent features. Thankfully there was a shift in thinking on this, which over the past year or so led to the introduction of a very good search intent identification feature (pictured below). ![Search intent filters in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-search-intent-filters.png) Search intent filters in Ahrefs Not only does this feature let you filter keywords by the ‘traditional’ search intent categories, it also lets you filter by ‘branded searches’ (i.e., those featuring brand names) and local searches (those featuring location-based keywords). The feature is really easy to use, and because of its comprehensive categories, is actually better than the search intent tools available in [Moz and Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/moz-vs-semrush) (which for some time it lagged behind in this area). ![Video guide to Ahrefs alternatives](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-alternatives-video.jpg) ### Dealing with competing domains When conducting keyword research, you have to keep an eye on the domains that already rank for the phrases you’re targeting — if a bunch of really high-authority websites are already ranking for your chosen keyword, it will obviously be much harder to rank for that phrase. Domains that are already performing well for a particular search phrase are really easy to identify in Ahrefs. You just scroll down to the bottom of its Keyword Explorer \> Overview screen, where you’ll see a list of them in the ‘SERP overview’ panel, along with their domain rating scores, the URLs of pages that are ranking, the number of backlinks they have pointing to them and more. ![SERP data being surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/serp-data-in-ahrefs.png) The ‘SERP overview’ panel in Ahrefs It’s worth pointing out here that Ahrefs gives you a related feature for spotting keywords that only lower authority sites are ranking highly for. ![Using Ahrefs to spot keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/lowest-dr-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Spotting keywords that lower-authority websites are ranking for When you’re reviewing keyword suggestions, you can use Ahrefs’ ‘lowest DR’ filter — pictured above — to only see keywords that are ‘owned’ by low authority domains. If you have a high-authority site, these domains should, in theory, be easy to outrank (so long as the quality of your content is high). * ## Rank tracking ‘Rank tracking’ — also known as ‘position tracking’ — is the process of monitoring how your content (or that of a competitor’s) performs in search engines for particular keywords over time. It’s easy to set this up in Ahrefs — you go to its suitably-named ‘Rank Tracker’ section, enter a domain name and the keywords you’d like to track, and you see a report showing you how that site is currently ranking for those keywords. ![Using the 'Rank Tracker' feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/rank-tracking-in-ahrefs.png) Using the ‘Rank Tracker’ feature in Ahrefs to keep tabs on keyword rankings You can also track keywords on a per-country or even a town/city basis; this is helpful for [local SEO efforts](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/local-seo). As time goes by — and more data about the keywords you’re tracking flows into Ahrefs — you’ll be able to monitor the progress of your attempts to rank a site higher for your chosen keywords. ![Monitoring search position changes over time in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/monitoring-positions-over-time-in-ahrefs.png) Viewing search position changes over time in Ahrefs If you like, you can set up email notifications about your current ranking status — and schedule these to be sent out automatically to you (or your SEO clients) on a weekly or monthly basis. You should note however that daily updates are not available by default: you have to pay for a \$200/mo per project ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on to access them. Now, ordinarily speaking, access to daily rankings won’t necessarily be a problem — but when there’s a significant Google algorithm update, a lack of access to this feature will mean waiting several days to find out which of your rankings have improved or declined. Many competing tools include daily rank tracking as standard, and I think Ahrefs should too. Another thing that you should note about rank tracking features in Ahrefs is that they are only available when you assign a domain to one of your Ahrefs ‘project slots.’ ![Best Rank Trackers (2025) — for SEO and Google AI Overviews](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/best-rank-trackers-video.jpg) I’ll come back to project slots in more depth later, but basically each slot lets you track one domain. And you only get a limited number of them as part of your Ahrefs subscription (with the number available depending on how much you pay per month). To be fair to Ahrefs, this is generally how most SEO tools approach rank tracking ([SEO PowerSuite](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/seo-powersuite-review) being a notable exception). ![Ahrefs vs Semrush video comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ahrefs-vs-semrush-video-comparison.png) * ## Backlink analysis How strongly a piece of content performs in search results usually depends on how many ‘[backlinks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlink)‘ — links from other sites to it — point to it. To perform backlink analysis in Ahrefs, you enter a URL into its ‘Site Explorer’ tool. This gives you access to detailed ‘backlink profile’ data that lets you see: - who is linking to that URL - what anchor text is being used in those links - what sort of domains (.edu, .com, org etc.) link to it - if any links pointing that URL are broken. The point of having this data is usually to let you ‘reverse engineer’ a competitor’s SEO success — by knowing who’s linking to their site, you can approach the same websites, asking for a link to yours. ![Ahrefs referring domains data](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/referring-domain-data-in-ahrefs.png) The Ahrefs ‘Referring Domains’ report Ahrefs’ backlink data provided is laid out clearly, and lets you see when a particular domain has gained or lost links, along with the value of the links in question (via domain rating and URL rating metrics). How accurate this backlink analysis is, of course, depends on the size and quality of the Ahrefs link database. At time of writing, Ahrefs claims to have 35 trillion backlinks in its database — somewhat fewer than those of key competitors Semrush and Moz, which claim to have 43 trillion and 45 trillion respectively in theirs. ![Ahrefs' database statistics (February 2026)](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-database-stats-2026.png) Ahrefs’ database statistics (February 2026) I was curious however to see how this played out in some real-world tests, so I performed some backlink analysis on some well-known sites (domains for the ecommerce platforms and design tools we typically work with) to see how Ahrefs fared against leading competitors Semrush and Moz. Here are the number of referring domains for these sites that I found with each tool: \| \| \| \| \| \|---\|---\|---\|---\| \| Website \| Ahrefs \| Moz \| Semrush \| \| Amazon \| 3\.9m \| 5\.5m \| 4\.2m \| \| BigCommerce \| 88k \| 344k \| 208k \| \| Canva \| 415k \| 479k \| 562k \| \| Ecwid \| 31k \| 76k \| 48k \| \| GoDaddy \| 5\.7m \| 7m \| 10\.1m \| \| Jimdo \| 431k \| 3\.6k \| 618k \| \| Shopify \| 3\.2m \| 5\.3m \| 4\.6m \| \| Squarespace \| 1\.3m \| 22k \| 374k \| \| Webflow \| 122k \| 206k \| 242k \| \| Wix \| 1\.1m \| 1\.2m \| 3\.4m \| Now, it should be said that this piece of backlink research involved a small number of domains — so it shouldn’t be treated as gospel. But that said, the results did follow a pattern that generally aligned with the database sizes of the platforms being tested. The tools with the bigger link databases (Moz and Semrush) surfaced more referring domains than Ahrefs — Ahrefs ‘won’ just one of the above contests. ![Ahrefs vs Moz vs Semrush video comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush.jpg) Next, let’s take a look at link building. But just before that, a quick note about one of its key competitors. The key alternative to Ahrefs: Semrush It’s worth dwelling for a moment on a key alternative to Ahrefs — Semrush. Alongside Ahrefs, this is probably the best-known SEO tool on the market and comes with a similar set of features. ![The Semrush platform](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/semrush-platform.jpg) Semrush Semrush’s main advantage over Ahrefs is that its entry-level plan lets you pull far more reports than the Ahrefs equivalent — 3,000 per day, far more than Ahrefs’ 500 per month. It also boasts more powerful advertising research and content marketing features. And significantly, while Ahrefs doesn’t let you try the platform out for free, Semrush does — you can [access a special extended, 14-day trial of its flagship ‘Semrush One’ plan here](https://semrush.sjv.io/qzeVmO). * ## Link building in Ahrefs Many prospective users of Ahrefs will be interested in using it for backlink building. After all, the more high-quality links that point to a website, the better it typically performs in search results. There are three main features provided by Ahrefs that can help you with your link building strategies: - its Site Explorer tool, which gives you a list of backlinks to any domain you specify - its Content Explorer, which lets you identify sites or authors that are authorities about particular topics - its Alerts** feature, which can let you know when one of your competitors has acquired a new backlink. Let’s discuss each briefly in turn. ### Using the Site Explorer to identify link building opportunities Using Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ feature is the simplest way to identify link building opportunities. To do this you enter a URL into it — typically a competitor’s — and then click on the ‘Backlinks’ option in the ‘Backlink profile’ section. ![Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/accessing-backlink-data-in-ahrefs.png) Accessing backlink data in Ahrefs You’ll then see a list of all the backlinks that Ahrefs can find which point to that URL (see screenshot below). ![Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-referring-domain-list.png) Referring domains surfaced by Ahrefs You can then try to find contact details for those domains, and approach their owners for a backlink. Now, while this Ahrefs feature definitely gives you valuable data for backlink outreach purposes, what you won’t get here — and you do get from key competitor Semrush — is a way to manage the outreach process. In Semrush, you are given a CRM-style tool to keep tabs on any link building campaign; this gives you a ‘sales pipeline’ style approach that you can use during outreach. Not only that, but Semrush lets you connect your email account to it, and actually surfaces contact details for the websites you identify as targets. ![Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/semrush-domain-prospects.png) Domain prospects surfaced by Semrush With Ahrefs, you end up exporting a list of links to Excel, researching contact details yourself, and making notes on a spreadsheet regarding who you’ve contacted or not. You might also end up using an email marketing app to send out your pitches. It all amounts to a more manual process than you might like, and one which involves a lot more tools / apps. So the data provided is great — but you’re going to have to be prepared to do stuff with it\! ### Using the Content Explorer for link building purposes Ahrefs’ ‘Content Explorer’ feature gives you a really nice, simple way to identify websites that are worth approaching for a backlink. You simply enter a topic into the tool, and it provides you with a list of high-authority pages and websites about that topic. ![The Ahrefs 'Content Explorer' feature in use](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahefs-content-explorer.png) The Ahrefs ‘Content Explorer’ feature You’ll also get a list of ‘top authors’ that are particular experts on the topic, and the sites they publish content on. Where available, you’ll also be provided with their X details, which can help you contact them. ![Top authors data in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/authors-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png) Top authors data in Ahrefs It would be better if a bit more contact surfacing was available — in the form of some author email addresses being provided — but this is nonetheless a useful way to identify good backlink outreach targets. ### Using Ahrefs Alerts to spot backlink building opportunities Finally, there’s ‘Ahrefs Alerts’ to consider as part of your backlink building toolkit. This lets you enter a competitor’s URL into it (or indeed your own); once this is done, you’ll start to receive regular email alerts containing a list of all the latest sites linking to that URL. ![Setting up backlink alerts in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/setting-up-ahrefs-alerts.png) Ahrefs Alerts can be used to get notifications about new backlinks This gives you the opportunity to contact the owner of the linking websites, asking that person to link to your website too. [![A banner advert for Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/semrush-animated-banner-ad.gif)](https://semrush.sjv.io/4PWyMG) *** ## Broken link building Broken link building is an important SEO strategy. It involves finding a broken link (i.e., one that no longer leads to a live page), recreating the ‘dead’ content that it used to point to, then asking anybody who used to link to the dead content to link to your new content instead. This approach allows you to build up new backlinks to your content — and, because of the emphasis that Google places on backlinks to your site, this can bring improved rankings. In order to make the strategy work, you obviously need to be able to identify broken links, and Ahrefs makes it really easy to do this. You just enter a domain name into its ‘Site Explorer’ section and click the Broken backlinks option (in the ‘Backlink profile’ section). ![Accessing the 'broken backlinks' feature in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-backlink-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Accessing the ‘broken backlinks’ feature This then outputs a list of all that domain’s broken inbound links, and the sites where these links feature. ![Broken backlinks surfaced by Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-backlinks-surfaced-by-ahrefs.png) Ahrefs’ broken backlinks report Additionally, Ahrefs makes it very easy to spot broken outbound links too — i.e., links from your site to other URLs that don’t work any more. It’s important to ensure that your web pages don’t contain these, as they can be interpreted as a sign of poor quality content by Google and other search engines (with negative implications for rankings). To find these broken outbound links in Ahrefs, you just enter a domain into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool, go to the ‘outgoing links’ section and choose ‘404 not found’ as your target HTTP code. ![Viewing broken links in Ahrefs](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/broken-links-report-ahrefs.png) The Ahrefs broken outbound link report It should be noted that the way that Ahrefs surfaces broken backlinks (both inbound and outbound) is superb — the process for doing this is much easier in Ahrefs than in competing tools Moz and Semrush. * ## Site auditing and technical SEO One of the key reasons that SEO professionals use tools like Ahrefs is to stay on top of the technical side of SEO. This is because Google and other search engines are increasingly placing a higher emphasis on the [technical performance of websites](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/) — things like site speed, security, and mobile-friendliness. Ahrefs helps you improve your technical SEO via its ‘Site Audit’ feature. During a [site audit](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/how-to-do-an-seo-audit), Ahrefs crawls your site for issues that might be having a negative effect on your search ranking, including: - Slow-loading content - Missing alt text - SSL problems - Crawl errors - Missing headers - Duplicate content - Broken links ![Using Ahrefs' site audit tool to find technical SEO problems](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-seo-site-audit.png) Using Ahrefs’ site audit tool to find technical SEO problems Overall, you’ll get a very useful report from this process and a good picture of your site’s health. And it doesn’t matter what platform or CMS you’ve built your site on — regardless of whether you use [Wix or Shopify](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/wix-vs-shopify), [WordPress or Squarespace](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/squarespace-vs-wordpress) etc., you can use the insights provided via an Ahrefs audit to make technical improvements to your site’s technical SEO setup. ![How to Do an SEO Audit — Simple Checklist](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/how-to-do-an-seo-audit-video.jpg) Ahrefs also includes detailed [Core Web Vitals](https://web.dev/vitals/) data in its site audit reports. These are an important set of targets from Google relating to the speed, responsiveness and stability of a website, and sites that meet them can receive higher rankings in search results. ![Core web vitals report](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-core-web-vitals-report.png) Core Web Vitals metrics in Ahrefs In Ahrefs you get two different types of Core Web Vitals stats: ‘field data‘ which is based on real user experience of your website (this comes from [Chrome users](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-user-experience-report)) and ‘lab data,’ which is performance data collected within a controlled environment. (Note: to get the Chrome data, you’ll need to connect your Ahrefs account to Google’s PageSpeed Insights API — see screenshot below.) ![Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/connecting-ahrefs-to-pagespeed-insights-api.png) Connecting an Ahrefs account to the Google PageSpeed Insights API The availability of both field data and lab data means that Ahrefs has an edge over key competitor Semrush here, because Semrush only provides Core Web Vitals metrics based on [Lighthouse lab data](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/overview/). ### Implementing technical changes on your site using Ahrefs If you pay for \$20/mo per project ‘Project Boost Pro’ add-on, Ahrefs lets you access an ‘Ask AI’ tool that suggests improvements you can make to your page titles and meta descriptions (see screenshot below). ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ask-ai-feature-in-ahrefs.png) Getting AI-suggested meta descriptions from Ahrefs And paying for a ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on lets you ask Ahrefs to implement these changes on your website directly, via its ‘Patches’ feature. But given that this costs \$200/mo per project, I suspect many users will be happy to just add any new titles or meta descriptions themselves using their existing CMS\! And, since using the Patches feature involves adding extra JavaScript to your site, there might be a slight performance hit to avoid by making the tweaks yourself too. * ## Brand monitoring features Since the introduction of Google’s September ‘Helpful Content’ system, an increasing number of SEOs believe that there is a link between the [amount of brand visibility associated with a company’s website](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/beating-google-helpful-content-update-branded-search), and its performance in search. ([Studies by Moz](https://moz.com/blog/helpful-content-update-not-what-you-think) and others seem to indicate that better-known brands are seeing their content rewarded with better placement in search — much to the ire of independent publishers, it looks as though Google may be using brand visibility as a ‘trust’ signal, and surfacing content from better-known brands over lesser-known ones accordingly.) This means that SEO tools are increasingly providing brand monitoring features, and Ahrefs is no exception here. Its recently-introduced ‘Brand Radar‘ feature lets you enter a brand name, and then shows you a list of mentions of that brand it can find across a mix of AI platforms, social media sites, forums and websites. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/brand-radar-feature-ahrefs.png) Ahrefs’ ‘Brand Radar’ tool This, in principle, lets you track the impact of any efforts you’re making to increase your brand visibility over time. When testing this, I found that the tool worked well where bigger brands were concerned — but the brand data returned for smaller ones was pretty limited. Yes, to a degree that’s to be expected, but there were a few smaller brands that I researched that I know have a reasonable amount of brand visibility — and Ahrefs didn’t really seem to find many mentions for them. I really liked the fact however that brand monitoring was not limited to citations in AI tools — it was great to see metrics for other sites and platforms too. In particular I appreciated the presence of YouTube visibility metrics. (As search engines morph into chatbots, [YouTube is becoming an ever-more significant platform for content creators](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/reasons-to-make-youtube-part-of-seo-strategy) — it still operates somewhat like a search engine, is a powerful recommendation engine, and Google is aggressively placing YouTube videos in its AI Overviews and traditional search results.) * ## AI tools in Ahrefs In line with many other business apps, Ahrefs has been busy over the past couple of years in introducing AI-powered tools to its feature set. The two main AI tools available in Ahrefs are its AI Content Grader and its AI Content Helper*. ### AI Content Grader As its name suggests, Ahrefs’ ‘AI Content Grader’ assesses pieces of content that you’ve already created — the aim being, of course, to improve them from an SEO point of view. ![](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-content-grader.png) You give it a URL and a keyword, and Ahrefs will: - grade key parts of your content (in terms of its comprehensiveness) - highlight how those bits of content compare, quality-wise, to your competitors’ output - suggest ways that your content could be improved. For me, the most useful aspect of this feature is the AI-powered suggestions it provides for content improvements — the insights surfaced during my tests were genuinely helpful, and highlighted key omissions in the content I was asking Ahrefs to review (see my screenshot below for an example). ![An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs' 'Content Grader' feature on how to improve site content](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ai-suggestion-for-content-improvement-in-ahrefs.png) An AI-powered suggestion from Ahrefs’ ‘Content Grader’ feature on how to improve site content And the way that the Content Grader gives you easy-to-understand competitor analysis is useful too — as you can see from my screenshot below, Ahrefs pits your site content against key competitors and outputs a table that shows you, in a very clear way, the things that you are doing better or worse than your rivals. ![The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/content-grader-comparison-table-ahrefs.png) The Content Grader makes it easy to see how your content stacks up against competing articles ### AI Content Helper Ahrefs’ Content Helper performs a similar function to its Content Grader feature, in that it aims to help you improve the quality of your content from an SEO point of view. However, unlike the Content Grader, it does so in real time. The idea here is that you create your article within* the Content Helper’s interface, and as you do so, you get a list of topics that you need to cover off, along with keywords that might be worth including. ![Ahrefs' 'Content Helper' feature in use](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-content-helper.png) Ahrefs’ ‘Content Helper’ feature in use You can also ask the Content Helper to write some or all of your content for you, using AI, and there’s a chatbot assistant on hand that you can ask to help you with any aspect of the article writing process in general — content ideas, structure outlines etc. I quite liked the Content Helper — its ability to highlight key topics to cover (and assess how I’d done so) was impressive. However, I didn’t find the actual copy it produced all that useful — I could have got better results, I think, from ChatGPT or Gemini. Overall, the Content Grader and the Content Helper are interesting and useful additions to Ahrefs. However, they come at a price — you’ll have to pay \$99 per month on top of your regular Ahrefs subscription to access them. *** ## Interface and ease-of-use Ahrefs’ interface consists of a horizontal menu of options at the top of the screen; when you click an item, a sub-menu giving you access to more features appears on the left. ![Ahrefs interface](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-interface.png) The Ahrefs interface This is a fairly traditional-style approach to navigation, and one that should feel familiar to most users. The menu options on the left are grouped together in useful and intuitive categories — backlink profile, organic search, paid search etc. ![Ahrefs navigation menu](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ahrefs-navigation-menu.png) Ahrefs navigation There is a lot of data to contend with — this may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you soon get used to it (and the whole point of tools like Ahrefs is, of course, to provide you with a lot of data!). Increasingly, Ahrefs is taking more of a ‘data visualization’ approach to presenting data than it used to — and its clear graphs and other graphical presentation of SEO data do help make all the metrics provided more digestible. As with other leading SEO tools, it would be good if the Ahrefs’ interface could be made to work better with smartphones however — it’s not fully ‘responsive’, meaning that if you log into Ahrefs on a mobile device, you see the standard desktop interface. When I tried Ahrefs out on my smartphone, I ended up dealing with very small text and doing a lot of pinching and zooming. To be fair to Ahrefs however, it’s unlikely you’d want to do an awful lot of SEO research on a phone\! However, it would be good if a mobile version of Ahrefs was available that let you access some core data easily on a mobile device — position tracking perhaps, or new backlink notifications. As things stand, there are no Android or iOS apps available for Ahrefs at all, which puts it at a slight disadvantage to Semrush, which does provide a mobile app (for position tracking only, though). Finally, the Ahrefs interface, while easy to use, could return data a bit faster. Depending on the type of report you’re pulling, you may find yourself looking at a spinning wheel slightly longer than you might like (I found this to be a particular issue when analyzing larger websites). Competing platforms like Semrush and Moz seem to return their metrics more quickly. ![Best SEO Tools (2025) — The Top Platforms Ranked and Rated](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Best-SEO-Tools-WordPress.jpg) * ## Pricing and value for money There’s no way round it: SEO tools like Ahrefs are, by comparison to a lot of other digital tools, very expensive\! That’s understandable however, as with these sorts of solutions you’re not just paying for functionality, you’re paying for access to huge quantities of data, including a lot of competitor intelligence. Ahrefs provides four main pricing plans: - Lite — \$129 per month - Standard — \$249 per month - Advanced — \$449 per month - Enterprise — from \$1,499 per month, with annual commitment required. These fees are broadly comparable to those charged by key competitors Moz, Semrush and Majestic. The key differences between the Ahrefs plans involve: - access to core features - the number of projects you can work with - the number of reports you can pull - the number of keywords** you can track ### Access to core features One of the most significant downsides of the Ahrefs pricing structure is that its ‘Lite’ plan — despite being priced at \$129 per month — prevents you from accessing several key features, including: - search intent metrics - broken link-building tools - keyword clustering - SERP updates - AI suggestions (Historical data is limited to just 6 months on the ‘Lite’ plan too). For context, Semrush’s similarly priced entry-level plan doesn’t really restrict access to core features like these — its limitations are mainly to do with how many projects you can work on, and how much data you can pull each month. The main upshot here is that if you are serious about SEO, you will be nudged firmly in the direction of the ‘Standard’ plan — the ‘Lite’ plan will usually be too restrictive for professional SEO applications. ### Number of projects It’s important to be aware that if you want to use Ahrefs’ site audit or rank tracking features, you can only do so on domains that have been added as ‘projects.’ And how many projects you can add depends on the Ahrefs plan you’re on — you get 5 projects on its \$129 per month plan; 20 on its \$249 per month plan; 50 on its \$449 per month plan; and 100 on its \$14,990 per year plan. These limits are pretty generous by comparison to competing tools, and there’s more good news: if you can [‘verify’ a domain with Ahrefs](https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/4321336-what-is-a-verified-project), it doesn’t count towards your project limit at all\! Verification simply means proving that you have editorial rights to or ownership of a website; you can do this by: - connecting your Ahrefs account to Google Search Console - adding a TXT record to the website’s DNS settings - uploading an HTML file to the website’s homepage - adding an HTML tag to the website’s homepage. The ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains means that it’s possible to analyze a lot of websites in Ahrefs at a comparatively low cost — and for me, this represents the best-value aspect of Ahrefs’ pricing structure. ### Number of reports Until recently, Ahrefs was extremely ungenerous when it came to the number of reports you could pull with the tool each month (keyword query reports, backlink reports etc.). But changes to its pricing structure have seen the introduction of unlimited access to data (with a fair use policy applying) on its \$249/mo Standard Plan and higher. This makes these plans very attractive, especially when you consider that they also let you track an unlimited number of verified websites. The bad news is that ungenerous reporting limits still apply to Ahrefs’ most affordable plans — its \$129/mo ‘Lite’ plan caps the number of reports you can pull at just 500 per month. This isn’t ideal: paying \$129/mo for software is a considerable investment for a lot of small businesses; and, when you factor in all the other feature restrictions that Ahrefs applies to this plan, it starts to feel very expensive for what you get. This feeling becomes more pronounced when you consider that Ahrefs’ arch rival Semrush gives you access to 3,000 reports per day [on its similarly priced plan](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb). Ahrefs is also ungenerous when it comes to the number of rows it outputs in its reports. For example, while similarly-priced Semrush and Moz plans both give you keyword research reports that contain up to 10,000 results, Ahrefs’ equivalent limit on its \$129 plan is 2,500. (As you go up the pricing ladder, the Ahrefs row export limits become more consistent with those of competing tools, however.) ### Number of keywords you can track Another key difference between Ahrefs pricing plans involves the number of keywords you can track. On the ‘Lite’ entry-level plan the limit is 750; this rises to 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000 on the Standard, Advanced and Enterprise plans respectively. (These limits are fairly consistent with those of competing SEO tools). If you need more flexibility on this front however, you can buy a ‘Rank Tracker’ add-on. This lets you pay \$50 per month for each additional 500 keywords you want to track. ### Add-ons for Ahrefs In a recent shake-up of its pricing structure, Ahrefs introduced add-ons into proceedings, namely: - Content Kit (\$99 per month) — this includes access to the Content Helper and Content Grader tools I discussed earlier. - Report Builder (\$99 per month) — this lets you use a tool for creating customized, exportable SEO reports. - Project Boost Pro (\$20 per project, per month) — this gives you AI suggestions for titles and meta descriptions, and audits your site continuously. - Project Boost Max (\$200 per project, per month) — this lets you access daily rank tracking updates and use the ‘Patches’ system to update your site’s page titles and meta descriptions directly within the Ahrefs interface. It also automatically submits your content to the ‘IndexNow’ service (helping you get content indexed faster) For me, some of these add-on fees feel excessive. Competing tools let you access daily rank tracking updates or produce customizable reports without all this extra expenditure being involved. ### 🤔 Is there a free trial of Ahrefs available? Given that the monthly costs of Ahrefs are fairly high, you might be wondering if there’s a free trial available for it. Well, unfortunately, there isn’t! There is a cut-down version of the product available, however, called ‘[Ahrefs Webmaster Tools](https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools)‘, which gives you limited access to its ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ features. But that said, this contrasts negatively with other tools. Moz offers users a fully-functional [7-day free trial](https://moz.pxf.io/gOPmr0); and for a limited time [you can access a 14-day Semrush trial here](https://semrush.sjv.io/qzeVmO). * ## Customer support SEO tools like Ahrefs can be complex and quite hard to understand, so the availability and format of customer support is often a key consideration for users. You get live chat and email support with Ahrefs, but you should be aware that no phone support is available for the tool. This is a shame, because there is definitely a learning curve to contend with. On the plus side, Ahrefs makes its contact details very easy to spot — a live chat box is visible at the corner of each page, with estimated wait times provided on it, too. ![Contacting customer support](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/contacting-ahrefs-support.png) Accessing customer support in Ahrefs — the chat window is available at all times in the dashboard Online help resources for Ahrefs are provided in eight languages — oddly, not as many as the 15 languages that the interface is provided in. * ## User reviews of Ahrefs So far in this Ahrefs review, you’ve heard my take on the platform. But to give you some additional perspective I thought it would be useful to provide some real-world user review data. The table below is a compilation of Ahrefs user ratings that I sourced from popular software review sites: \| \| \| \|---\|---\| \| Review site \| User rating (out of 5) \| \| Capterra \| 4\.7 (578 reviews) \| \| G2 \| 4\.5 (667 reviews) \| \| Trustpilot \| 1\.9 (303 reviews) \| \| TrustRadius\* \| 4\.5 (389 reviews) \| \| Average \| 3\.9 \| \Recalculated from an out-of-ten score As you can see, the data indicates a fairly high level of satisfaction with the tool, and chimes neatly with the Style Factory overall rating for Ahrefs (4 out of 5). Trustpilot reviewers sounded a dissenting note however, providing Ahrefs with an average rating of just 2 out of 5. Their main complaints related to the product’s price (which is admittedly high) and customer service. ## Ahrefs review: conclusion It’s not the cheapest tool of its kind available, but overall Ahrefs will be a very good solution for many SEO campaigns. It gives you access to a huge wealth of information that, used carefully, can help significantly increase the levels of organic traffic to a website. The unlimited reporting on some of its plans aimed at SMEs is very welcome, as is its ‘domain verification’ system that lets you work on a large number of SEO projects simultaneously. The recent introduction of its Brand Radar, Content Helper and Content Grader tools mean that it’s evolving into a tool that is not exclusively about SEO but one that takes a more holistic approach to brand visibility too. Ahrefs is not without its flaws, however. Chief amongst these is the fact that there’s no free trial — given the investment involved in using the software out, it seems unfair not to let users try it out for at least a few days. Additionally, its cheaper plans’ reporting limits are ungenerous; there is only one user account included, regardless of plan; and its daily rank-tracking add-on is extraordinarily expensive. Because of the extensive nature and high quality of core data it gives you, it’s definitely worth serious consideration as an SEO tool, though — and I’ll leave you with a summary of the key pros and cons of Ahrefs below. Feel free to leave any questions or feedback you have about the platform [in the comments section below](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/ahrefs-review#comments). * ### Reasons I would use Ahrefs - Extremely generous reporting limits on its \$249+ plans. - Its generous ‘domain verification system’ lets you use Ahrefs with multiple sites relatively cheaply — making the platform a particularly good fit for agencies. - It gives you access to all the key tools typically needed for a SEO project: keyword research, backlink analysis and site auditing. - Carrying out broken link analysis (both internal and external) is extremely easy in Ahrefs. - You can use Ahrefs to track keywords by at a very local level (right down to town or city). - It lets you know how many words are in top-ranking pieces of content — which lets you gauge how ‘in-depth’ high-ranking content on a particular topic is. - It lets you audit Core Web Vitals performance easily, and gives you access to both field and lab data in one place. - Adding additional ‘seats’ for Ahrefs is fairly inexpensive, especially by comparison to its competitors. - Its ‘traffic potential’ metric provides a truly great way to spot ‘juicy’ or untapped keywords – and you won’t find a similar feature available from its key competitors. - The interface is available in 15 languages. - The learning curve is relatively gentle. ### Reasons I would avoid Ahrefs - There’s no free trial. - The reporting limits on its entry-level plan are ungenerous. - You can’t access daily rank tracking without signing up for a really expensive ‘Project Boost Max’ add-on. - Its new AI-powered tools, while useful, are very expensive. - Its plans aimed at SMEs only come with one user account by default. - There’s no phone support. - There are no built-in contact surfacing or project management tools available to help you with backlink building. - There’s no mobile app for on-the-go SEO work. - The interface can be a bit sluggish. * ## Alternatives to Ahrefs Ahrefs is one of the best-known SEO tools available — but not the only one! [Alternative options for SEO analysis](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-alternatives) include: - [Semrush](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb) - GrowthBar - [Raven Tools](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/raven-tools-review) - Profound (for prompt tracking) - SpyFu - [SE Ranking](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/se-ranking-vs-semrush) - [Similarweb](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-vs-similarweb) - Moz - Serpstat - Mangools - SEO PowerSuite - Majestic - [Ubersuggest](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ubersuggest-review) For more information about how Ahrefs compares to key competing tools, do check out [our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-semrush) and our [Moz vs Ahrefs comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/moz-vs-ahrefs). If you’re interested in checking out Semrush — the most obvious alternative to Ahrefs — you’ll find [our full Semrush review here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-review), our [Ahrefs vs Semrush shootout here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-semrush), and [our Semrush pricing guide here](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/semrush-pricing). We have also published [a comparison of Moz, Ahrefs and Semrush](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ahrefs-vs-moz-vs-semrush) and recently, an [Ubersuggest vs Semrush comparison](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/ubersuggest-vs-semrush). You may also find our [SpyFu vs Semrush blog post](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/spyfu-vs-semrush) and our [Semrush vs SpyFu YouTube comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIIMHf5x65A) of interest. ![How to do keyword research with Semrush (video)](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/semrush-keyword-research-thumbnail.jpg) ## Ahrefs review FAQ ### What is Ahrefs? Ahrefs is a tool that helps you optimize your website for search engines. It does this by giving you information that lets you establish what people are searching for in your niche, identify opportunities for building links from other sites to yours and improve the technical SEO of your website. ### Is Ahrefs free? Ahrefs is not a free tool. However, the company does have a free product called ‘Webmaster Tools’ available that gives you access to cut-down versions of Ahrefs’ ‘Site Explorer’ and ‘Site Audit’ tools. ### Is Ahrefs worth the money? Ahrefs is expensive, with its best plans costing a minimum of \$129/mo. But it gives you an incredible amount of data and competitive intelligence that can prove transformative to a business in the right hands. So whether or not this cost is ‘worth it’ really depends on how you use the product and the data it provides — it definitely helps to have a good understanding of [SEO principles](https://www.stylefactoryproductions.com/blog/six-simple-ways-to-make-your-site-more-visible-in-google-search-results) before investing in it. ### What’s the best alternative to Ahrefs? Based on the tests we’ve done and SEO products we’ve reviewed to date, we’ve found that [Semrush](https://semrush.sjv.io/an1DGb) is probably the best alternative to Ahrefs. It beats Ahrefs when it comes to providing project management tools, advertising research data and content marketing tools; but Ahrefs is more generous when it comes to the number of projects you can work with and the amount of data you can access (so long as you’re on one of its more premium offerings). ### How we tested this product — and why you can trust this review We tested this product via independent research and, more importantly, hands-on experience of it. We regularly work on SEO projects — both for our own site and client ones — and have used Ahrefs extensively to do so. So this Ahrefs review is based on first-hand experience** of its keyword research, link building and domain analysis features. And finally, we have a strict honesty policy — while we do make use of affiliate links to fund our research and testing, we strive to be 100% impartial in all our conclusions. ### Update details This review was updated on February 4, 2026. The following key changes were made: - Product screenshots were updated - A new section about the ‘Content Helper’ and ‘Content Grader’ features was added. - The user ratings section was updated. - Data pertaining to referring domain surfacing was updated.
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