Ahrefs, a new marketing research tool, is necessary for webmasters. Ahrefs currently supports 9 countries and over 45 million keywords. These numbers are growing and their index is refreshed every thirty minutes to keep data fresh and up to date.
There are four main tools offered by Ahrefs; 1) Site Explorer, 2) SERPs Analysis, 3) Reports, and 4) Tools. Within each there is a multitude of options available which will be discussed in further detail below. The tools are comprehensive with all the necessary information needed to help run successful SEO campaigns, manage keyword rankings, and see when websites are lacking.
Site Explorer
Ahrefs Site Explorer is similar to Yahoo’s old Site Explorer, but on steroids. There is so much more than just the standard YSE links. You do not need to input special coding in your results to find .gov or .edu links as they are displayed as well as .net and .org. Manage your backlinks to ensure that you do not lose backlinks with their graphs. Look at your anchor text and so much more. You have to try the free trial today!
Ahrefs gives an excellent competitor analysis so you can know exactly what your competitor’s off-site search engine optimization strategy is and how to compete with them. You can enter an exact URL, a domain without subdomains, or a domain with all the subdomains.
You are able to check the referring pages, total backlinks, referring IP addresses, subnets, domains, .edu, .gov, .com, .net, .org, backlink types, nofollow, redirects, images, frames, and much more. These are all shown in an easy to read chart as well and can be exported multiple ways. In addition to the external links tool there are many other tools available such as new links, lost links, anchors, crawled pages, referring domain, and search engine positions.
New Links
By using the new links tab you are able to view your current links at any point in time. Select a day and view the type of link, source URL, anchor text, crawl date, and more.
It is nice to be able to go back in time and review inbound links and keyword rankings to see what may have caused an increase or decrease in your SERPs. Ahrefs has a rating scale next to each link based on traffic estimations.
Lost Links
The lost links looks exactly the same as new links, but rather shows exactly when a website lost inbound links. Use this tool to track links to the exact date and see when they were lost. Then contact the webmaster and see why the links were dropped off.
Anchors
Here you can see what anchor text is used and how often it is used. Even has a drop down off example linking domains to see who is linking to you and whit what anchor text. View 50 anchors per page, but you are able to export all results to CSV.
Crawled Pages
View page URL’s with the exact crawl date. All URL’s are shown with the page title. Look at the page size, internal and external link count. Explore your linking structure and spy on competitors linking structure and popular pages within their website.
Referring Domains
When viewing the referring domains you can see the number of links from that website and its Alexa tanking. They links have a dropdown that shows the exact domain location and what page it is linking to.
SERP Positions
View keyword positions in Google and Yahoo/ Bing which are merged together. View the results in other country search engines. View keyword current positions, daily changes, rating, cost per click value, estimated cost, URL, US and global traffic volume, competition level, and the date last updated. Very thorough and easy to read and explore. Export all your results to CSV for deeper analysis.
SERPs Analysis
The SERP (search engine results page) analysis from Ahrefs Site Explorer is a comprehensive tool that displays PayPer Click Ads, keyword position with analysis, along with a way to monitor daily stats and changes in keyword rankings. Enter a URL to get data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results. All the data is exportable to CSV.
Position Analysis
Simply enter your URL and you will get a full depth analysis of your domains position, keyword, rating, CPC, cost, URL, site explorer, SERPs analysis, US volume, global volume, competition level, and date last updated.
Daily Stats
An excellent report that breaks down multiple data points such as; new and lost keywords, total keywords that moved up and down, total positions up and down, rating change, and the cost of change. Rating change is the number of visitors per month and the cost of change is rating multiplied by cost per click. Within the daily stats are multiple charts to make analyzing data easy comprehend.
History Of Changes
View the changes keywords go through in daily, weekly, monthly, and custom date ranges.
Ads Analysis
With the ad analysis from Ahrefs you can view paid advertising data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Look at ad text, volume, CPC, competition level, and date last updated.
Reporting
The reports offered by Ahrefs are very thorough and complete. I have used their domain reports and have received more than I could have expected. The Analytical standpoint was beyond my expectations with more information that I thought I could have used. This has led me to new ideas and marketing techniques to use on my own sites.
You can run reports on your website or any other website. Each domain is counted as a separate report, so look at your monthly subscription. You are allowed as many reports as your monthly subscription allows. This is extremely powerful and allows multiple ways to find good links and ignore bad links.
The report has multiple tabs and filtering options available to analyze websites and export the data. Filters are able to be layered as well for more flexibility.
Filtering options include: URL’s, backlinks type, pages, subdomains, counties, anchor text, referring domains, IP addresses, subnets, top level domains, and dates when the pages were crawled and indexed in the SERPs.
Here is a screen shoot of how to register your domain for the reports.
Tools / Labs
Ahrefs is constantly pushing out new products and services for their subscribers. As of how there is a backlink checker, domain comparison / analysis, batch analysis results, and even top rated SEO toolbars to streamline your daily workload.
Ahrefs Top Backlinks
This shows the top million domains by the number of backlinks. You can also search the list for a specific domains exact position.
Domain Comparison
Compare and analyze up to 5 domains at once for an in-depth competitor analysis. This is excellent when starting a new site or trying to outrank a tough website.
Batch Analysis Results
You can easily analyze batches of domain with a report stating total backlinks, referring domains, and IP addresses for each link. You can export all the results to CSV.
SEO Toolbar Integration
Ahrefs is compatible with SEO Doctor and SEO Quake, excellent SEO plug-ins for Firefox and Chrome. This integration allows for in depth analysis that the add-ons do not offer. This is just an added bonus to all of their tools.
Plans & Packages
Their packages are competitively priced and well worth it. The basic plan starting at $49 monthly allows for daily limits set at 2,500 results per query, 500 queries, and 20 standard reports that are exportable to Excel or CSV. This package includes an additional bonus of 5,000 API’s. Larger packages are available depending on the amount of data you want to use. For an individual managing a few websites the basic package is more than enough.
Overall, I am very impressed with this tool and its capabilities. I really like the fact that the data is updated every 30 minutes to give you real time numbers. The functionality and ease of use is very nice. There is not a steep learning curve like other tools. Try it out and let us know what you think of Ahrefs below.
About Brandon Leibowitz
