There are several tools, software programs, and platforms across the web used by marketers and advertisers during their daily work. Tracking tools, conversion optimization tools, CRM systems, and more. Within the list of external tools and aids, you can also find Ahrefs. This tool is one of the leading SEO tools in the world, and we use it on a daily basis for site and link analysis, comprehensive keyword research, competitor research, and more. In the first article of the series on Ahrefs, we will get to know the platform, its pricing, and the popular terms used regularly in the system.
What is Ahrefs?
Ahrefs is a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform containing many SEO features: link building tools, keyword research, competitor tracking and analysis, rank tracking, and more. Most of the features and capabilities in Ahrefs are designed for marketers and SEO professionals in particular. The main goal of Ahrefs is to help SEO professionals achieve higher rankings on Google by providing detailed data on elements from your website and the competitor websites you choose to inspect.
Why do we use Ahrefs?
The Ahrefs tool has many uses. The primary use of Ahrefs is mainly for analyzing a website’s backlink profile, checking ranked keywords, and reviewing the overall SEO of the site. Ahrefs can be used to research keywords for additional search engines besides Google, such as YouTube or Amazon. In addition, many users work with Ahrefs to identify high-quality content across the internet that is shared on websites or social networks.
When Ahrefs was founded in 2011, the purpose of the platform was to analyze external links (backlinks we receive to our site from other sites). Over the years, the system expanded and the number of features grew significantly. Today, Ahrefs is mainly relevant for the following users:
- Small business owners doing SEO for their own businesses
- SEO agencies and companies working with a large volume of clients
- In-House SEO specialists optimizing the websites of the company they work for
- Affiliate marketers managing multiple different websites
- SEO consultants advising and building SEO strategies for clients.
How much does Ahrefs cost?
The monthly cost of Ahrefs depends on the chosen package and whether you select monthly or annual billing. Unfortunately, pricing on Ahrefs is not particularly friendly and there is no trial period option on the platform. These are the package costs according to monthly pricing:
As can be seen, the cheapest monthly package (Lite) will cost you $99 per month and includes many features within the system, including Site Audit, a project management dashboard, rank tracking, and alerts. The Standard package will cost you double – $199 per month and contains the entire Lite package while also expanding the analysis options when analyzing sites within the system. In the Advanced package, which costs $399 per month, you will receive everything you got in the previous packages, including connection to Google Data Studio and additional integrations. The Enterprise package at a cost of $999, which also allows API connections to the system, is intended primarily for agencies that work with a large volume of clients.
In this table, you can see Ahrefs’ new credit system, how many credits you get in each plan, and how to actually use and spend these credits. In the cheapest package (Lite), you get 5 websites that can be tracked without verifying ownership, 750 keywords for weekly tracking, and 100,000 credits that can be used to analyze other sites in Site Audit. In the Standard package, you will receive 20 projects for tracking without ownership verification, 2,000 weekly keywords for tracking, and half a million credits for site analysis and additional actions. In the Advanced package, you will get 50 sites for tracking without needing to verify them, 5,000 keywords for weekly tracking, and 1.5 million credits for analysis and additional actions. In the Enterprise package, alongside everything you receive in the cheaper packages, the amount of units in API connections you can make is also added (2 million in this package).
Note: The cost of a specific action in the Ahrefs system will cost you 1 credit, so even the Lite package, which comes with 100,000 analysis credits per month, will be great for you.
Is Ahrefs a better platform than Semrush?
Semrush is another SaaS platform from the marketing world whose main goal is to provide an All-in-one tool for marketers and advertisers. Although the platform includes features related to organic search engine optimization (mainly keyword work), this system is still more recommended for marketers running frequent PPC campaigns. The Semrush tool started as a tool for organic SEO and over the years shifted its focus slightly (although if you ask Semrush’s CEO, he will still state that it is a tool for both SEO and PPC simultaneously). Several key features in Semrush:
- Optimization of your site’s content for better SEO
- Analysis of competitors’ PPC campaigns (recommended)
- Daily keyword tracking
- Social media account tracking
Even though Semrush is defined as a tool designed for both SEO and PPC, Ahrefs’ sharpness in everything related to organic SEO and competitor website analysis makes it the preferred platform in my view, which is why my choice is Ahrefs. At the same time, many marketers and SEO specialists prefer to work specifically with Semrush.
Key Metrics and Terms in the Ahrefs System
If you have already logged into the Ahrefs system and browsed through the tool, you have probably already seen a relatively high number of different terms and metrics that you might not know the meaning of. This is completely understandable since Ahrefs does not make enough effort to explain to new users what these metrics are. Even the question marks next to the terms in the system that are meant to explain the term or metric do so in a suboptimal way, and the definitions they provide for the metrics are not always clear. I have compiled a list of the most relevant metrics and terms in the Ahrefs system for you:
- URL Rating (also called UR) – The link authority of the web page. This metric is calculated by the quality and quantity of links pointing to this page.
- Domain Rating (also called DR) – The overall rating of the website’s domain relative to the entire site (this is the equivalent metric to DA – Domain Authority)
- Anchors – A breakdown of the common anchor texts in the website’s backlink profile.
- Referring Domains (RD) – The number of different unique websites linking to the page or website you are checking. A high number of referring domains increases DR and also improves rankings on Google.
- CTLDs Distribution – A breakdown of the links the site receives by top-level domain extension (.com, .net, etc.).
- Ahrefs Rank – A global ranking of your website’s backlink profile according to Ahrefs. Similar to Alexa Rank – the lower your site’s Ahrefs Rank, the better its backlink profile is.
- Parent Topic – A broad topic that contains keywords within it. For example: the keyword “SEO” is under the Parent Topic of SEO.
- Traffic Potential – The amount of traffic you might receive if you rank in first place for the keyword.
- Keyword Difficulty – How hard (or easy) it will be to rank on the first page for the keyword.
- Also Rank For – A list of keywords that rank for multiple terms for a single page. For example: a page that ranks for the word “dropshipping” can also rank for the phrase “what is dropshipping”.
Summary
We have made an initial introduction to the Ahrefs platform, which assists marketers and SEO professionals in analyzing competitor websites, tracking keyword rankings, tracking backlinks, and several other actions. In this chapter of our journey with Ahrefs, we went over what this tool actually is, explained why we use the tool, discussed the costs of the various packages, explained the difference between Ahrefs and Semrush, and reviewed a glossary of terms that will also help you in the next chapters.
About the Author
Dvir Naaman, 27 years old, graduate of the digital marketing course at HackerU College. Experienced in WordPress web design, PPC advertising across Google, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok platforms. Specializes in organic SEO at Fialkov Digital. Has extensive experience in e-commerce and dropshipping, and is the owner of Merchant Center – a website aggregating information on advanced e-commerce and marketing platforms to increase business conversions with an emphasis on e-commerce store sales.
