Ahrefs is one of the most important and well-known SEO tools in the industry. Originally built as a backlink analysis tool, it has evolved into a comprehensive platform covering keyword research, site audits, content exploration, and competitor analysis. Website owners can access and analyze data across every major SEO operation.
Core Metrics in Ahrefs
Understanding Ahrefs metrics is essential for interpreting the data correctly.
- Ahrefs Rank (AR): Ranking based on backlink strength where 1 is the strongest globally
- URL Rating (UR): Score of 0–100 showing the backlink value pointing to a specific page
- Domain Rating (DR): Score of 0–100 reflecting inbound backlink value to an entire domain
- Backlinks: Total count of URLs referring to a domain or page
- Referring Domains: Number of distinct domains linking to a target
- Organic Keywords: Count of keywords ranking in Ahrefs monitored data
- Organic Traffic: Estimated traffic volume based on keyword rankings and search volumes
- Traffic Value: Estimated PPC cost equivalent, indicating the commercial value of rankings
Backlink Profile Analysis
The backlink profile panel displays metrics in graphical format for domains, subdomains, URLs, and slug-level pages. Filter by time period ("all times," "last year," "last 30 days"), export as CSV or PDF, and categorize by link type.
Link Types
Dofollow Links are interpreted by Google as endorsements, signaling trust and relevance. Nofollow Links indicate that the link exists for reference without passing trust signals and do not impact backlink profiles for ranking purposes.
Gained and Lost Links
Track recently acquired and lost backlinks with filters for link type, time period, and URL grouping. Identify broken (404-response) referring links — these represent valuable opportunities to request updated links from existing referring sites.
Link Intersect for Backlink Opportunities
The Link Intersect module compares your site's inbound links with competitors', identifying linking domains that reference competitors but not you. This reveals potential backlink targets from authoritative, industry-relevant sources. Add competitor domains, review the listed sites, then target the strongest ones for outreach.
Keyword Research with Ahrefs
The Keyword Explorer covers Google, YouTube, and Amazon — select your platform, enter a keyword, and choose a geographic location. For "real estate" in the US, you would see 465K monthly average search volume, keyword difficulty, click metrics, and historical trend graphs.
- Exact match keywords: Precise query matches for your seed term
- Question keywords: Interrogative format variations — great for featured snippets and FAQ content
- Related keywords: Terms appearing on the top-10 results pages
- Broad suggestions: Terms from top-100 results for expanded topic coverage
SERP history allows viewing ranking changes across 1, 6, and 24-month periods, plus SERP feature data showing ads, featured snippets, images, news, local results, and zero-rank positions.
Organic Traffic and Top Pages
The Organic Traffic panel in Site Explorer presents traffic data, keywords, traffic value, and country distribution. The Top Pages module displays pages with the highest organic traffic, including keyword ranking counts and historical comparison data — particularly useful for identifying which content types drive the most traffic to competitor sites.
Competitor Analysis
Competing Domains
The Competing Domains module identifies websites appearing on the same SERPs as you. Review metrics including common keywords, unique rankings, and uniqueness percentage. Always manually verify listed sites — not all SERP competitors are true business competitors.
Content Explorer
Content Explorer accesses historical keyword content creation data from over 44 million websites. Features include custom filtering, time period restriction, social media-specific results, traffic value sorting, and republished content identification. Use it to discover what content attracts links and social shares in your niche.
Site Audit Tool
Ahrefs Site Audit crawls your website and identifies technical issues. Set up weekly crawls for ongoing monitoring. Common issues detected include:
- Redirect chains consuming crawl budget
- Non-indexable pages that should be indexed
- Broken 404 links both internal and external
- Duplicate titles and meta descriptions across pages
- HTTPS redirect errors and mixed content issues
- Missing or duplicate H1 heading tags
- Hreflang implementation errors for multi-language sites
- Orphan pages receiving no internal links
- Images lacking alt attributes
- Canonical tag conflicts and errors
Rank Tracking and Alerts
The rank tracking module monitors both your site and competitors against a keyword list, providing organic visibility metrics, average position tracking, and position change history.
Create email alerts for continuous monitoring. Set frequency to daily, weekly, or monthly for new referring sites, new ranking keywords, and keyword rank fluctuations. Ahrefs alerts enable proactive management rather than reactive discovery of ranking changes.