If you’re in the world of online marketing, you’ve likely heard of Ahrefs. It’s a powerful tool for improving your website’s SEO, but with so many options on the market, is it worth the investment? In this Ahrefs review, we’ll take an in-depth look at this tool and explore its features, benefits, and drawbacks.
By the end of this review, you’ll have a clear idea of whether Ahrefs is the right choice for you and your business. So, let’s dive in and explore the world of Ahrefs.
Who Is Ahrefs For?
Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool that is ideal for a wide range of users, including:
- SEO professionals: Ahrefs is a popular tool among SEO professionals who are responsible for optimizing websites and driving organic traffic to their clients’ sites.
- Digital marketers: Ahrefs provides a suite of tools that can help digital marketers to improve their website’s search engine ranking, track their competitors, and identify new opportunities for growth.
- Website owners: Ahrefs can be an excellent choice for website owners who want to improve their website’s visibility in search engine results and drive more traffic to their site.
- Content creators: Ahrefs Content Explorer tool can be a valuable resource for content creators who are looking for new ideas and inspiration for their blog posts, articles, and other content.
Overall, Ahrefs is a versatile tool that can benefit anyone looking to enhance their website’s search engine optimization and achieve better results in organic search.
Ahrefs Features
Ahrefs offers a range of powerful tools for SEO professionals and website owners. The Site Explorer is a particularly useful feature that allows users to conduct a comprehensive backlinks analysis and obtain valuable insights into a site’s performance, including keyword rankings, traffic, and value. It also offers a view of a site’s paid search presence.
Another valuable tool is the Site Audit feature, which crawls your site and provides a Health Score based on a detailed analysis of the site’s technical SEO. It provides suggestions on areas for improvement, allowing you to optimize your website for better search engine performance.
Ahrefs Rank Tracker is another popular tool that allows users to monitor their website’s search engine ranking for specific keywords over time, providing valuable data for tracking performance and identifying opportunities for improvement.
Finally, the Keyword Explorer is a powerful tool that offers keyword suggestions from a range of search engines, including Google, YouTube, and Amazon, making it easier to discover new keywords or expand your existing range. Overall, Ahrefs offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can help users to improve their website’s search engine optimization and drive more organic traffic to their site.
Dashboard
The Ahrefs dashboard offers users a graphical snapshot of key metrics for the sites they are monitoring. This includes a site Health Score generated by the Site Audit feature, along with essential metrics such as backlinks, authority, and traffic obtained through the Site Explorer.
Additionally, users can track the evolution of their site’s ranking for specific keywords using the Rank Tracker.
The dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of all tracked sites in a single line, allowing users to quickly and easily access more detailed reports by clicking through. This feature provides a convenient way to stay on top of the most important metrics for multiple sites in one central location, making it easier to monitor progress and identify opportunities for improvement.
Site Explorer
At the core of the Ahrefs suite of tools lies the Site Explorer, which is home to the Ahrefs backlink checker. Widely recognized and respected for its backlinks crawl and extensive index, this feature was likely the original tool that has kept its more generic name rather than being called simply Backlinks Explorer.
Over time, it has evolved to include a range of additional SEO metrics, as well as a paid search view, further enhancing its value and usefulness for SEO professionals and website owners alike.
Upon entering a site in Ahrefs, a range of essential metrics are presented to users in a comprehensive overview:
- Ahrefs Rank: This indicates a site’s rank in Ahrefs index of sites, with a lower rank being better.
- URL Rating (UR): This metric shows the strength of a target page’s backlink profile on a scale of 0 to 100.
- Domain Rating (DR): A proprietary metric used to indicate the strength of a target website’s overall backlink profile on a scale of 0 to 100.
- Backlinks: The number of backlinks detected by the Ahrefs crawler.
- Referring domains: The number of domains that the backlinks come from.
- Organic keywords: The total number of keywords the site ranks for within the top 100 search results.
- Organic traffic: An estimated monthly figure for the amount of organic traffic the site receives.
- Traffic value: An estimated value of the traffic if one wanted to purchase it via paid search.
While many of these metrics can also be found in competing tools, Ahrefs is particularly advanced in its estimation of organic traffic, which is used extensively throughout the tool
Keywords Explorer
The keyword explorer feature within Ahrefs stands out for its exceptional functionality. It offers more than just traditional Google lookups, as it integrates with other major search engines such as Amazon and YouTube, as well as a range of international search engines including Baidu and Yandex, among others.
Upon entering a keyword into Ahrefs, you gain access to a comprehensive overview of keyword metrics, which are detailed below:
- Keyword Difficulty: A score between 0-100 that estimates the difficulty of ranking for the keyword from a backlinks perspective.
- Search Volume: The number of searches for the keyword within the selected market.
- CPC: The average cost per click advertisers pay for the keyword in paid search.
- Clicks: The average number of clicks the keyword generates. This number can vary based on the nature of the query and the search results page.
- CPS: Estimated average number of clicks each search for the keyword generates.
- Global Volume: The total search volume for the keyword across all markets where it is used.
Site Audit
The Ahrefs website audit tool is user-friendly and straightforward. Upon setting up your account, you are prompted to utilize the site crawler both immediately and on a weekly basis. Upon agreeing, Ahrefs initiates the crawling process of your website, generating a comprehensive overview that includes a Health Score, a summary of the crawl characteristics, and a breakdown of any errors, warnings, and notices that require attention.
The tool may not necessarily answer the underlying question of whether the absence of a description meta tag should be classified as an error, given that search engines hardly utilize them. Nonetheless, it excels in effectively crawling and generating statistics on a site in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand manner, granting users access to specific details required to resolve individual problems.
Rank Tracker
Using Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker, you can easily monitor the rankings of specific keywords and locations. A comprehensive list of keywords that you are currently ranking for and related keyword suggestions are provided by Ahrefs. Even with the Lite plan, the keyword allowance is reasonable.
A detailed breakdown of each keyword that you’re tracking is provided by the Rank Tracker, along with an overall summary of all your projects using various metrics such as visibility, average position, traffic, SERP features, positions, distribution, comp, locations, and keywords.
These metrics offer insights into the estimated percentage of clicks, the average position of your tracked keywords, the number of clicks your keywords generate, and any changes in your rankings.
The distribution of your keyword positions across various categories is also provided, including top 1-3 results, other first page, other top 5 pages, other top 10, and not appearing. The number of competitors and locations you’re tracking is also displayed, along with the total number of keywords you’re tracking for in the domain.
Content Explorer
With the Ahrefs Content Explorer, you have the ability to search for significant pages and authors that are relevant to your content. By starting with a search engine query, this tool organizes search results into clusters of related pages and ranks authors who have published these pages. Additionally, you can toggle to identify broken links and pages that link builders can use to find potential backlink opportunities.
This tool enables you to discover the most influential websites and authors related to a particular topic. When the author is identifiable, their name is displayed, and if Ahrefs detects any profile information for the author, a link to their Twitter profile is provided.
Ahrefs Pricing
Ahrefs offers four pricing plans: Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise, providing different levels of access to its tools and data.
The Lite plan, starting at $99/month, provides essential data for small businesses and hobby projects, including:
- SEO Dashboard
- Site Explorer
- Keywords Explorer
- Site Audit
- Rank Tracker
- Alerts, and six months of history
It also includes features such as position history chart, SERP updates, Content gap, Broken backlinks, Broken links, Outgoing links, Link intersect, Domains and countries comparison, Calendar view, Content Explorer, and Mentions.
The Standard plan, starting at $199/month, is suitable for freelance SEOs and marketing consultants. It includes all the features of the Lite plan and expands with two years of history, Site Structure, HTML source, and soon to be added features like Site Audit, HTTP authentication, Google Data Studio, Dashboard folders, and Ahrefs Search.
The Advanced plan, starting at $399/month, provides more tools and data for lean in-house marketing teams. It includes all the features of the Standard plan and offers unlimited history, access management, pay by invoice, Directory listing, Audit log, API, and SSO.
The Enterprise plan’s pricing starts at $999/month, and it’s ideal for agencies and large enterprises. This plan includes all the features of the Advanced plan, but with customized pricing based on the customer’s requirements.
Overall, Ahrefs pricing plans provide a range of features and tools that cater to different business needs and sizes. The plans vary in terms of history, data access, and management tools.
A feature comparison chart is available on the Ahrefs website, allowing users to compare the features of each plan and choose the best option for their business.
How Ahrefs Compares To It’s Competition
Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz Pro are three of the most popular SEO and digital marketing tools on the market. While each tool has its strengths and weaknesses, they share many similar features and capabilities.
One of the primary differences between the three tools is their focus. Ahrefs primarily focuses on backlink analysis, while SEMrush and Moz Pro offer a wider range of SEO and marketing features, including keyword research, site audits, and content analysis.
In terms of backlink analysis, Ahrefs is considered to be one of the most comprehensive tools available, providing accurate and up-to-date information on backlinks, referring domains, and anchor text. SEMrush and Moz Pro also offer backlink analysis, but some users report that Ahrefs is more accurate and detailed in this regard.
For keyword research, SEMrush is often considered to be the leader in the market, offering detailed data on keyword search volume, difficulty, and competition. Moz Pro and Ahrefs also offer keyword research capabilities, but some users report that SEMrush’s data is more comprehensive and accurate.
Site audits are another important feature for these tools, and all three offer this functionality. However, Moz Pro is considered to have one of the best site audit features, providing detailed information on technical issues, content quality, and on-page SEO.
Wrap Up
In summary, Ahrefs is a powerful and comprehensive SEO and digital marketing tool that offers a wide range of features, including backlink analysis, keyword research, site audits, and content analysis. Its backlink analysis is considered one of the most accurate and detailed in the market, providing up-to-date data on backlinks and referring domains.
Ahrefs also offers a user-friendly interface and excellent customer support. However, its pricing plans can be more expensive compared to other competitors in the market.
Overall, Ahrefs is an excellent tool for businesses, agencies, and individuals who are serious about optimizing their website’s SEO and digital marketing efforts.
Ahrefs Review: The All-in-One SEO Solution