When on the hunt for SEO tools, there’s one name you will regularly see crop up: Ahrefs. There’s a good reason for this – it’s regarded as one of the market’s most powerful, effective digital marketing tools.
So, what is Ahrefs exactly, and is Ahrefs free or paid? Also, SEMrush vs Ahrefs: which one is best? All of these questions – and more – are answered below!
What Is Ahrefs?
Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO software suite. It’s a popular with marketing professionals due to the wide range of tools it features, along with the unprecedented amount of data it collects.
Regarding the latter, its database includes over 19 billion keywords, 10 billion pages, and over 30 trillion internal and external backlinks. To put it into perspective, only Google has a bigger crawler than Ahrefs!
As for the tools available, the main ones include:
- Site Explorer: This provides the ability to analyse the competition
- Site Audit: Optimise website performance by performing a full audit
- Keywords Explorer: Discover the keywords that are in demand among your audience
- Rank Tracker: Keep track of your ranking progress
- Content Explorer: Gain valuable data about the best performing content in your industry
What Is Ahrefs Used For?
Now, you have a good idea of how Ahrefs works – but what is Ahrefs used for by SEO professionals? As you can likely gather from the tools listed above, it is used for a multitude of purposes in the digital marketing world. Still, there’s one overall goal with Ahrefs: to climb the search rankings and attract more organic traffic.
With the data you gain from Ahrefs, it’s possible to optimise your entire marketing strategy. You can find the right keywords and content ideas to target, uncover rewarding backlink opportunities, and perform a complete site audit to fix any current problems on your website. The list goes on and on – that’s why Ahrefs has built its reputation as one of the most powerful SEO tools!
Is Ahrefs Free?
With so many features under the hood, this question is asked more in hope than expectation. So, is Ahrefs free?
You might be surprised that Ahrefs has many free SEO tool, including a keyword generator, a backlink checker, and a website authority checker. The following link has the full list of free Ahrefs tools you can start using straight away.
As you would expect, there are generally limitations to these free tools. You’ll have to subscribe to enjoy the full Ahrefs experience. How much is Ahrefs? Plans currently start from £66 per month when paid annually.
Which Is Better Ahrefs vs SEMrush?
SEMrush vs Ahrefs. Whenever one gets brought up, inevitably, the other is soon to follow. Let’s answer this once and for all – SEMrush vs Ahrefs: which one is better?
The reason these two SEO tools are compared so much comes down to their similarities. SEMrush is another feature-packed tool that offers a wealth of SEO-related features, all with the intention of boosting the organic performance of your website.
As you might expect in the SEMrush vs Ahrefs battle of the two SEO titans, each one has different advantages in its favour. For example, the rank tracking tools supplied by Ahrefs are generally seen as superior to the SEMrush equivalent. On the other hand, SEMrush is viewed in some circles as the best option for backlink analysis.
Is Ahrefs worth it over SEMrush? The answer is ultimately down to the SEO requirements of your business. Yes, we’re sitting on the fence on this particular debate. Each tool has pros and cons; you’ll have to compare these to see whether Ahrefs or SEMrush is a better fit for your specific company and its unique goals.
Conclusion: Is Ahrefs Worth It?
So, is Ahrefs worth it? The answer is dependent on your SEO needs. Still, if you want to improve your backlink profile, find the right keywords, uncover valuable data about your competition, and more, the answer is a clear one. Ahrefs is arguably the best all-in-one SEO tool on the market today.
Need Help with SEO and Getting Website Traffic?
Click Intelligence is one of the UK’s leading digital marketing agencies backed up by a 97% client retention rate. With over two decades of experience, our SEO experts have the latest know-how and tools to create a tailored strategy that works for your business’s bespoke needs and goals.
If you need a professional approach to your SEO and digital marketing, why not contact our friendly team today?
We receive a lot of questions about Ahrefs. We also see a lot of queries searched for about the platform. After covering some of the main points above, we have compiled the following list of other Ahrefs frequently questions.
One of the most common questions we see is how to disavow backlinks in Ahrefs. It’s a prevalent query because it’s not a straightforward process. When it comes to understanding how to disavow backlinks in Ahrefs, you need to realise that it cannot be done solely through Ahrefs alone.
With Ahrefs, you first put together the list of backlinks you want to disavow. However, it won’t be able to complete the disavowing process for you. This list has to be submitted to Google via the Disavow Links tool page.
Ahrefs is known for having a massive amount of data for you to access, including the largest index of live backlinks. As for how it gets this data, let’s go to Ahrefs for the answer:
“We have our own search crawlers that work 24/7 and use data from our independent database. We are not affiliated with other search engines or similar services to use their data (meaning we do not use the output from Alexa, Altavista, Google, Webalta, etc.).”
Yes, you’re able to do this with Ahrefs. If you want to know how to find expired domains with Ahrefs, this can be done through the Site Explorer. Via the “Outgoing links” section, select the “Broken links” option. Then, under the selections you made, it will provide a list of expired domains you can target.
When learning how to increase domain rating Ahrefs can be a great tool to have in your repertoire. With the data you can uncover, from competitor analysis to keyword research, this information can be used to improve the quality of your SEO output.
