Ahrefs is undoubtedly one of the most loved SEO tools. We have been using this effective platform for years now. So, this Ahrefs review will examine every key aspect of this platform to help you understand it more thoroughly.

While Ahrefs can do many things, it is also quite expensive and certainly tricky to use. Before investing, it is important for business owners to understand precisely how to use this SEO tool and who it is designed for.

Is Ahrefs worth it or not? Let’s find out in this Ahrefs review.

Ahrefs Review: Overview

In this Ahrefs review, let us first look at it at a glance first and then explain it one by one.

• Founded in 2010, Ahrefs is a Singapore-based SEO software tool.
• It is an extensive suite of SEO tools to help business improve their online visibility and search ranking organically.
• Its essential features include a content explorer, keyword explorer, site audit, site explorer, and rank tracker.
• Forbes Advisor’s experts rank Ahrefs as the overall best SEO platform for small businesses.

One of the complete SEO software suites is Ahrefs. It offers a wide range of tools to manage your SEO plan. 

Ahrefs is an effective SEO platform for performing keyword research, managing backlinks, competitor analysis, rank tracking, running site audits, and more. 

This platform offers exhaustive insights into your website’s SEO health. You can also use Ahrefs to manage all factors that enhance your search engine rankings.

Marketing professionals primarily use Ahrefs. It has multiple functions and features, and the platform can honestly be complex. It is not important to have a complete understanding of SEO when using this tool.

Imagine you are looking for a comprehensive software solution to help you assess your website’s search engine performance, optimize your website, and guide your SEO and content strategy. In that particular case, Ahrefs is one of the finest tools out there.

Pros	Cons
Advanced keyword explorer	Not the most competitively priced
Rank tracking	Does not have unlimited keyword lists
Traffic values on keywords	No free trial
Free SEO tools	Involves a learning curve
Site audit	Limited integrations
Backlink analysis
Content analysis

How Ahrefs Work?

As a complete SEO tool, Ahrefs offers various features that broadly help increase search rankings organically. 

For example, users can upload a keyword list to track, use content analysis to get an improved idea of how well the efforts of content marketing are working, receive a site audit to explore areas of opportunity, and lastly, use tools for keyword research to determine the best keywords, including traffic values on keywords.

Altogether, these useful features help businesses more effectively build and employ a strategic SEO plan. Ahrefs also helps businesses make more detailed SEO-related strategies, such as which portion of content is much more likely to rank quickly or outrank the competition. It offers users the ability to utilize their team’s marketing resources and time more efficiently.

Ahrefs Security:

In this Ahrefs review, this tool maintains rigorous practices to help uphold the data’s integrity. For example, it encrypts sensitive information, has measures around user identifications, and has measures in place to assure ongoing confidentiality. However, while it has rich built-in security systems, it doesn’t offer users multiple security features they can control.

For example, it doesn’t provide two-factor authentication. Though it does offer users the feature to add members, its user permissions and roles are very limited, offering users the option to add users with the mentioned three access level options, including member, admin, and guest (only available in the Enterprise Plan).

Ahrefs Customer Service and Support:

Ahrefs Customer Support is available through live chat 24 hours a day, 5 days a week and also by email at support@ahrefs .com. It also provides a comprehensive help centre with a wide library of educational resources and documents.

However, in this Ahrefs review, one disappointing aspect is that it isn’t available by phone, especially given its price point or at all over the weekend.

Ahrefs Review: Key Features

In the Ahrefs review, talking about the features is the most important factor. All of its key features centre around SEO (search engine optimization). For example, its core features and effective tools include the following:

• Site Explorer: Here, users can perform competitor research.
• Site Audit: This helps scan your website and offers insights into multiple ways to enhance its performance.
• Keyword Explorer: Users can research keywords to discover the finest opportunities to target.
• Content Explorer: This helps you to find the latest content marketing ideas.
• Rank Tracker: Here, you can check your keyword rankings.

Now, read about each of the features in more detail to help understand the features and tool more comprehensively.

Site Explorer

First up, in this Ahrefs review, we have the Site Explorer feature. To obtain vast insights into your opposition’s web performance, Ahref’s Site Explorer features let you analyse the backlinks and search traffic of any website using its URL alone. 

By gaining a better understanding of the keywords your competitors are using, as well as which backlinks they have received, you can effectively compete with your target keywords, inform your own SEO plan, and stand out from others.

Site Audit

Ahref’s Site Audit tool is an automatic tool that examines your website for SEO issues and offers a detailed report on its state. This can be a very helpful tool for exploring otherwise hard-to-find issues, including technical SEO issues.

Granted, we do not like Ahref’s site audit because it is not available as a free tool but only as a part of the paid plans. However, many of its leading contenders provide the site audit tool without any cost. So, if that is the only feature you are searching for, then you may want to look for an alternative provider.

Keyword Explorer

Ahref’s Keyword Explorer is for keyword research. It has its own keyword research dashboard where users can see traffic volumes, look up keywords, view related keywords, calculate search difficulty, and uniquely gain potential traffic insights. Ahref is very similar to many other top keyword research tools. It does a great job of showing information, making it much easier to understand.

On the other hand, one thing that is not so good is that it limits the keyword lists you are creating. For example, the entry-level lite plan ($83/monthly with annual billing) has a limitation of 50 keyword lists. For many users, it is sizable. However, it is worth being aware of as it might not be significant enough for some.

Content Explorer

Ahref’s Content Explorer tool allows users to explore content ideas and link opportunities. It also enables users to discover top-performing content in their area. These include which keywords the content is ranking for in organic search and in which links the content has succeeded.

The Content Explorer feature can be useful for businesses that want to create a strategic SEO content plan backed by genuine performance data. Of course, using a competitor’s top keywords doesn’t guarantee link-building or higher rankings, but it helps to offer businesses some insight into opportunities within their niche.

However, it is important to note that Ahref’s Content Explorer is unavailable with its entry-level Lite plan.

Rank Tracker

Ahref’s Rank Tracker allow you to monitor your ranking for particular keywords and efficiently chart your performance. We like how it offers a simple way to analyze how your site and its specific target keywords are doing and the way they are trending.

In other words, it offers you a quick way of analyzing whether your keywords are improving, holding steady, or worsening. This, in return, can enable you to adjust your SEO and content management strategy.

Ahrefs Pricing And Plan:

Features	Lite Plan	Standard Plan	Advanced Plan
SEO Dashboard	✔️	✔️	✔️
Site Audit	✔️	✔️	✔️
Competitive Analysis	✔️	✔️	✔️
Web Explorer	❌	❌	✔️
SERP Updates	✔️	✔️	✔️
Site Explorer	Available with limited features	Full features available	Full features available
Keyword Explorer	Upto 50 keyword lists	Upto 100 keyword lists	Upto 200 keyword lists
Rank Tracker	Upto 750 keywords	Upto 2000 keywords	Upto 5000 keywords
Monthly Price (billed monthly)	$99 monthly	$199 monthly	$399 monthly
Monthly Price (billed annually)	$83 monthly	$166 monthly	$333 per month
Customer Support	Ahrefs academy, email, live chat, and help centre	Live chat, Ahrefs academy, help centre, and email	Ahrefs academy, email, live chat, and help centre

Now, let’s briefly talk about Ahref’s three plans.

Lite Plan

Ahref’s Lite Plan costs $83/month with annual billing or $99/month with monthly billing. It also includes access to many of its features within Ahrefs suite of tools, including

• SEO dashboard (which offers users a centralized view of their SEO efforts).
• Rank Tracker (upto 750 keywords).
• Site Audit.
• Keyword explorer (a keyword list with a limitation of 50).
• Competitive Analysis (a lower version of Site Explorer with a fixed number of features.

Lite Plan is perfect for the average small business searching for a complete SEO suite.

Standard Plan

Ahrefs Standard Plan costs $166/month with annual billing or $199/month with monthly billing. It comprises everything from the Lite Plan but with some additional features, including

• Complete access to Site Explorer.
• SERP updates.
• Up to 2000 tracked keywords.
• Up to 100 keyword lists.

It’s an improved version of the Lite Plan and a better choice for those who have already used it.

Advanced Plan

Ahrefs Advanced Plan starts at $333/month when annually billed and $399/month when billed month to month. It specifically includes everything from the Standard Plan with some extra features, including

• Web Explorer (enabling users to run advanced searches by link, domain, or page).
• Maximum tracked keywords are 5,000
• The maximum keyword list is 200.

Ahref’s Advanced Plan is ideal for large businesses with various product offerings.

Ahref Setup:

For setting up the Ahrefs account, go to Ahrefs. Choose a plan and finish the process to purchase a plan. Remember that it does ask for your Social Security’s last 4-digit number with specific credit cards, so this might be an issue for staff who are utilizing their company’s card.

After submitting the payment, you will need to activate the account using a link sent to your email address. From there, you will be required to select a password to invite team members to your personal account and import or manually add a project, that is, your website.

After you have added your project, you will then be asked to verify your domain (optional), add keywords to track, schedule site audits, and add competitors to analyze. You will then be redirected to your new SEO dashboard. Here, you can access all the features that are in your plan.

Ahrefs Review On 3rd-Party Platforms

Ahrefs is one of the most widespread SEO software tools out there. So, it has got many reviews on third-party sites. Let’s check out some of those first:

Trustpilot Reviews: While writing this Ahrefs review, we noticed that the platform has a meagre 1.9-star average on Trustpilot. Multiple users complain about Ahref’s limitations of the software, pricing strategy, and how the platform can deceive small businesses.

G2 Reviews: G2 indicates an average rating of 4.5 stars for this complete SEO Suite, Ahrefs. Again, multiple users gave their positive responses to the platform, telling how effective the various features are and how precise the SEO software is.

Gartner Reviews: Ahrefs has a much more impressive 4.4-star average rating on Gartner. Multiple happy users have well appreciated the platform’s user-friendly interface and its effective features.

Ahrefs Alternatives And Their Comparison:

Let us first look at the table chart to compare multiple Ahrefs alternatives.

Features	Ahrefs	Semrush	Moz	SpyFu
Free Tools	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Competitor Research	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
24/7 Support	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
Site Audit	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Content Analysis	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
Backlink Analysis	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Free Trial	Not available	7 days	30 days	Not available
Keyword Tracking Limit	Starts at 750	Starts at 500	Starts at 500	Starts at 5,000 weekly
Keyword Research	✔️	✔️	150 queries monthly	✔️
Customer Support Channel	Live chat and Email	Live Chat, contact form and phone	Email and contact form	Phone, live chat, and email
StartingPrice	$83/month (billed annually)	$108.33/month (billed annually)	$70/month (billed annually)	$33/month (billed annually)

Let us now compare the alternatives with Ahrefs.

Ahrefs vs Semrush

Two of the most prominent names in the SEO software space are Semrush and Ahrefs, leaving many of us to wonder which is better. While both of them are quite similar platforms, they each have multiple price and selling points.

For example, Ahrefs is quite cheaper than Semrush at $83/month with annual billing. On the other hand, Semrush is available at $108.33/month. In the Ahrefs review, we also noticed that Ahrefs has a higher keyword tracking limit at 750, which is 50% more than Semrush at 500.

In terms of features, Ahrefs is best known for its backlink tracking, whereas Semrush is better known for rank tracking. So, Ahrefs is best suited for those users searching to build and sustain backlinks as a key component of their SEO plan. On the other hand, Semrush is best for those who rely more on content marketing and only want a way to analyze how their content performs smoothly.

Ahrefs vs Moz

When it comes to Ahrefs vs. Moz, the latter is the more affordable SEO tool. Moz’s plans start at $70 per month, compared to Ahrefs’s annual billing of $83/month. Also, Moz gives users one of the extended free trials in the industry, which is 30 days. Meanwhile, Ahrefs doesn’t offer a free trial.

Both offer quite similar feature sets. However, one significant difference is that Moz provides more in-depth data in its reports. This makes it an ideal choice for data-driven marketing teams. However, the Moz tool has a keyword limit of 150 queries monthly, which is quite limiting.

Meanwhile, Ahrefs doesn’t cap the number of keywords a user can explore in a month. Moz doesn’t have a strong content analysis feature like Ahref’s, making Ahrefs an ideal choice for businesses focusing heavily on content marketing efforts and needing some help with content planning and ideation.

Ahrefs vs SpyFu

Between SpyFu and Ahrefs, SpyFu is much more attractively priced, with its plans starting at $33/month with annual billing. It has one of the highest keyword tracking limitations in the industry at 5,000 keywords weekly. However, pricing is not the only distinction between these two. 

SpyFu is the best for users searching for advanced insights into their competitive area, and it is widely known as a competitor analysis tool. On the other hand, Ahrefs stands out from SpyFu for its content analysis and backlink tracking features. 

Conclusion:

Ahrefs is a robust SEO tool that offers a wide array of vital SEO features. In this Ahrefs review, we have mentioned its effective features, including keyword tracking, keyword research, backlink building, backlink analysis, and much more. While it offers a quality solution, it is not the most affordable solution in the market.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

1. Is Ahref trustworthy?

Ahrefs is one of the most trusted and effective SEO suites of tools in the world.

2. Can I use Ahref for free?

Ahrefs offers a 7-day free trial for new users, and after that, a paid subscription is needed to access its features.

3. Is Ahrefs or Semrush more accurate?

Ahrefs is best for those searching to build and maintain backlinks, whereas Semrush is best for those who depend on content marketing.

4. Which is the best SEO tool?

Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Majestic, SEO Spider, and SpyFu, among others, are some of the best SEO tools you can try. 

5. Is it possible to do SEO for free?

Yes, you can use free SEO tools to help plan and execute your SEO strategy without any cost.