Is Ahrefs keyword difficulty metric reliable?

[MisterF]

Ahrefs is good for overall research, but Semrush is better for KD metric. However, none of the available tools gives you the accurate KD.

Check this thread for more info:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/keyword-difficulties.1229535/

Yeah cheers.

The results from Ahrefs are way out at times. It's a great tool for reverse engineering etc.

 

[mindcrimes]

My suggestion would also be the same.

To make this process easy, you can use market samurai and also there's a similar tool in Neil Patel website I guess.

Thank you.

Just went to market samurai's site and... well, it looks like all those shady automated link building tool sites that promise the world. Fits the name. Is it actually good or?

 

[askary]

both Ahrefs and Semrush KD is useless. But KWfinder is pretty accurate as it bases its metics on DA\PA and CF\TF. Ahrefs calculate KD based on quantity of backlinks for exact pages in top10, not on DR\UR and this is really unlogical

 

[farrow26]

Just went to market samurai's site and... well, it looks like all those shady automated link building tool sites that promise the world. Fits the name. Is it actually good or?

A tool is like a sword, depends on the user. If the user depends on the tool then it's the worst decision ever made in seo. Tools are used to analyze and study about your keywords, competitors, your own website etc. If you depend on a tool to give automated results then I'm sure it won't.

It was good for me to use Market samurai for analysis and not for some automated link building. You should give it a try.

Thank you.

 

[mindcrimes]

I know, but branding and visuals do not inspire confidence in the capabilities of the tool which is why I asked if you had used it for this purpose and if the data it provided matched with your personal analysis and results.

 

[thescrrr]

Ahrefs seems to ignore the root domain authority, so no, not accurate at all.

 

[WANTED MAN]

I using Ahrefs...but SEMrush and Ahrefs both are best...

 

[Sweetrevenge]

I do Ahrefs for keywords research too.
But I don't really rely on him about KD.
I take each keyword and analyse the SERP using some criteria that I found here.

 

[Zshan]

Ahrefs is good for keyword research and to find competitor backlinks. Not good enough for KD

 

[HenryObi]

Ahrefs seems to ignore the root domain authority, so no, not accurate at all.

I noticed this, what tool do you know takes the root domain's authority into account when it's formulating its KD?

it'll go a long way in giving one very close KD.

 

[HenryObi]

I do Ahrefs for keywords research too.
But I don't really rely on him about KD.
I take each keyword and analyse the SERP using some criteria that I found here.

This will be easy to do if your site has just few pages.

If you're trying to write up to 100 articles this won't be very feasible.

 

[Sweetrevenge]

This will be easy to do if your site has just few pages.

If you're trying to write up to 100 articles this won't be very feasible.

Yes, one of my niche is so narrow that I can probably rank it with just 15 pages. I didn't wrote them yet as I want to domain to age first. But I've already analysed its keywords.
The thing is : I can use Semrush too, but I don't know very well how to filter the results to find the real gems there so I use Ahrefs instead. And I'm still noob at all this.

 

[thescrrr]

I noticed this, what tool do you know takes the root domain's authority into account when it's formulating its KD?

it'll go a long way in giving one very close KD.

keysearch and ahrefs and common sense.

 

[HenryObi]

keysearch and ahrefs and common sense.

Common sense

How much for a month of that?

Thanks by the way

 

[SprintBoog]

all that you can get from ahrefs is keywords ideas then you need to find your formula to check those keywords

 

[SEOzack]

I used to think all keyword tools were good.

How wrong was I.

The best thing you can do is SERP analysis. Which isn't as hard as you may think.

If you find a keyword have a look through the SERPs;

- What kind of sites are ranking? e.g. is it an authority in the niche, or is it a single page on Amazon or eBay?

- Are there any authority sites on the subject?

- How many backlinks and quality?

- How many words of content are on the site if it is an authority?


You will find in certain niches that the pages which are ranking are just one-off pages, not authorities.

 

[Saba1991]

Both platforms (Ahrefs and KWfinder) have the different algorithms of understanding the KW difficulty. I guess none of them are fully correct and actually you've to find which one stands close to reality.

KD of Ahrefs is way out of reality because I've seen big competition keywords (where very powerful websites are in top 5) that had 5-10 KD on Ahrefs; as of now the closer to reality for me is KWfinder but don't trust any of them; Just focus on both and then do personal research;

 

[Writerly]

Hello,

I've been using Ahrefs and Kwfinder for my keyword research for a while now.

However, i have noticed something weird in Ahrefs, when i find a few keywords with a 4 value keyword difficulty when i check the same keyword in Kwfinder i get a keyword difficulty of around 30-45.

This is a dilemma to me, which one of those to believe to determine the actual keyword difficulty. One says the keyword is easy the other one says it's hard.

Does anybody have a serious opinion on the matter?



Thank you



NOTE: My site is still quite new and not ranking for any content in the first page yet.

Ahrefs’ keyword difficulty feature is notoriously unreliable. The results it gives you may prove correct, or they may be miles off the mark. You never really know what you’re getting. It is the service’s weakest link, and the main reason so many people use both Ahrefs and SEMrush.
If you can’t afford both, then you should at the very least manually check the accuracy of your KW difficulty results.

 

[kurosaki4d]

I use ahrefs for keyword research but their keyword difficulty score is not accurate.

That's really good to know. If you don't mind me asking, since you use Ahrefs for keyword research, how do you get to determine how

Ahrefs’ keyword difficulty feature is notoriously unreliable. The results it gives you may prove correct, or they may be miles off the mark. You never really know what you’re getting. It is the service’s weakest link, and the main reason so many people use both Ahrefs and SEMrush.
If you can’t afford both, then you should at the very least manually check the accuracy of your KW difficulty results.

Thank you! Manual research seems more accurate and reasonable, even though it's more time consuming.

Before the manual search, when narrowing the keywords with the tools, what is the maximum keyword difficulty that you set?

 

[Writerly]

Thank you! Manual research seems more accurate and reasonable, even though it's more time consuming.

Before the manual search, when narrowing the keywords with the tools, what is the maximum keyword difficulty that you set?

That is a difficult question to answer accurately. Do you mean with Ahrefs, SEMrush, or in general? I’m assuming that you’re asking about Ahrefs.
I wouldn’t go over 40 (the lower end of the “difficult” zone), and even then I’d be careful and recheck. As so many others have said, use it to get keyword ideas, then either check those ideas manually or with SEMrush.
It also depends on the keyword in question. Sometimes you’re in luck and simply find accurate information right off the bat. You never know.