Ahref Keywords Explorer Or SEMRush Keyword Difficulty? Which Is More Accurate?

[Mr Cracker]

I know this has likely been asked before but I just signed up to the Ahref three days ago, I don't want to make a mistake and upgrade the package or buy into SEMRush just for this one feature to check keyword difficulty. I understand I'll need to implement manual keyword research as well, but I do want to get some final data from a tool to give me some numbers too

Which will give me the most accurate overall data out of: Ahref Keywords Explorer / SEMRush Keyword Difficulty?

Thanks

 

[mondovo]

For keyword difficulty and general keyword research, I use a combination of SEMRush, KWFinder and Mondovo. Never tried Ahref Keywords Explorer, always found their pricing to be a bit on the higher side to justify even trying. SEMRush you might find some coupons floating around, KWFinder is cheap and Mondovo doesn't even have any monthly subscription, you just pay per report.

Relying on any one tool's difficulty score is though something I'd never do and would need to do some amount of manual research.

 

[Mr Cracker]

For keyword difficulty and general keyword research, I use a combination of SEMRush, KWFinder and Mondovo. Never tried Ahref Keywords Explorer, always found their pricing to be a bit on the higher side to justify even trying. SEMRush you might find some coupons floating around, KWFinder is cheap and Mondovo doesn't even have any monthly subscription, you just pay per report.

Relying on any one tool's difficulty score is though something I'd never do and would need to do some amount of manual research.

Hi @https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/theproblemo.923522/

Thanks a lot for taking the time to respond back to me. I see your point about using different tools and money is not an issue really. Can I ask though what do you do if each tool spits back different overall competition results does it not confuse you even more. I 100% understand about the manual research already regarding the top 10-20 results, checking their links, DA, PA, keywords, content, and more.

What I'd like to do is just get some type of target to aim towards. The other thing I wanted to ask you was when using SEMRush or any of the other tools you mentioned is there a number you aim towards based on the keyword difficulty scores etc.

Thanks

 

[mondovo]

To me, irrespective of tool, any keyword below a score of 80 looks good to me. At least for the niches I target, I know I have some authority sites already in the niche that can help my content that I develop targetting those terms. So what I look for is:
1) reasonable volume
2) there seems to be at least 2 sites that don't quite fit in there - meaning that the regular metrics imply that they're quite weak which means they're a "replaceable opportunity" (of course they could have PBN links and other things favoring them which dont show up in any backlink tool, but still gives me a good sense that these sites can be beaten)

 

[Mr Cracker]

To me, irrespective of tool, any keyword below a score of 80 looks good to me. At least for the niches I target, I know I have some authority sites already in the niche that can help my content that I develop targetting those terms. So what I look for is:
1) reasonable volume
2) there seems to be at least 2 sites that don't quite fit in there - meaning that the regular metrics imply that they're quite weak which means they're a "replaceable opportunity" (of course they could have PBN links and other things favoring them which dont show up in any backlink tool, but still gives me a good sense that these sites can be beaten)

Hi @theproblemo

Awesome advice thanks so much for that, so if you implement the research for the keyword and you find one which ticks all the boxes, one which all the tools you mentioned above gives you some decent close scores based on keyword difficulty, and you have already checked the backlinks via the results as well.

What types of numbers do you aim for when it comes to the TF/CF and PA/DA. I assume you would avoid certain numbers for them as well, it would be AWESOME if you could let me know some type of numbers for that too. If I can come away with them and the score of 80 for the keywords I should be able to at least have some type of plan over all.

I'll put in the manual work and then crunch some numbers.

Thanks

 

[mondovo]

Quite honestly, I don't really give as much importance as perhaps I could to metrics like TF/CF and PA/DA. I usually spend more time looking at the sites ranking, their structure, their link profiles and then based on an intuitive call, I decide whether it's something I want to pursue. I haven't got it down to a formula.

 

[Mr Cracker]

Quite honestly, I don't really give as much importance as perhaps I could to metrics like TF/CF and PA/DA. I usually spend more time looking at the sites ranking, their structure, their link profiles and then based on an intuitive call, I decide whether it's something I want to pursue. I haven't got it down to a formula.

Hi @theproblemo,

Thanks well I might go ahead and post a thread asking about that on here in a few, it would be pretty good to get an idea about numbers to aim for based on TF/CF and then PA/DA. Thanks for all your help it's appreciated.

When you check the link structures and so on are you using Aref, I subscribed to that only the other day actually, I can see by using the explorer / anchors or referring domains you can adjust the DR/UR and so on, is that what you do and look at their best links overall to see if it's something you can compete with.

This is all really interesting stuff to me right now,!

Thanks

 

[mondovo]

I use Mondovo which shows a Link Strength score for each link and sorting by that shows the strongest links first. There's a group by option as well where can view all links by IP and by anchor to dig deep into finding whether there are any network links that have been obtained.

 

[Mr Cracker]

I use Mondovo which shows a Link Strength score for each link and sorting by that shows the strongest links first. There's a group by option as well where can view all links by IP and by anchor to dig deep into finding whether there are any network links that have been obtained.

Nice! thanks I'll defo grab that tool then and use it for that purpose too.

 

[Nut-Nights]

You will get only estimated keyword difficulty with these tools. I found few keywords which is consider easy to rank with these tools but when i tried them it was not that easy KWFinder is better.

 

[Mr Cracker]

You will get only estimated keyword difficulty with these tools. I found few keywords which is consider easy to rank with these tools but when i tried them it was not that easy KWFinder is better.

Thanks for sharing @Nut-Nights - I understand any scores given by the said tools are never something you should go by 100%, since you need to implement lots of other research for many different factors. The KWFinder just finds keywords it does not really give you scores for the difficulty does it?, either way it's the same thing though even if it does, since you will only get as you said (estimated) scores.

Edit: Just checked and see they offer the keyword difficulty factor too, but then like you pointed out it's all just an estimate anyway. I guess comparing all the scores between different keyword difficulty features will be the way to go still.

 

[Nut-Nights]

Thanks for sharing @Nut-Nights - I understand any scores given by the said tools are never something you should go by 100%, since you need to implement lots of other research for many different factors. The KWFinder just finds keywords it does not really give you scores for the difficulty does it?, either way it's the same thing though even if it does, since you will only get as you said (estimated) scores.

Yes KWFinder gives you a score for Keyword diff.

 

[Mr Cracker]

Yes KWFinder gives you a score for Keyword diff.

I'll add that into the list of tools to get then thank you. Thus far (thanks also to the help of the user above you) I have made a note of the following tools: keysearch(dot)co + keywordrevelor + kwfinder + SEMRush I already own the keysearch(dot)co so it will be great to compare the keyword difficulty scores between all the tools before making a final decision.

 

[vsching]

I use a combination of semrush + keysearch + keywordrevealer and longtailpro . I am thinking of trying ahref, but its pretty expensive. For keyword difficulty on ahref, i recently saw an article comparing it. Here is the link. According to them, it seems to be pretty accurate.

https://www.authorityhacker.com/best-keyword-research-tools/

 

[darulez]

-1 for ahrefs.
perfect tool for everything else, but not for kwdiff or finding mass kw

 

[Pinktoe]

Ahrefs's KW difficulty tool would probably be the best one if it considered more than just links to the page. As it stands right now, a page with only authority sites, could still show 0 difficulty in ahrefs

 

[darulez]

perfectly true.
+1 for your comment.
i experienced the same several times...
HIGH DA sites, perfectly optimizsed title and meta, but diffcultiy = 1...

 

[Total Noob]

They are all equally inaccurate

 

[Iconoclast]

ahrefs kc of less than 10 = equal to ltp score of less than 30

i like secockpit, its fast and in case it shows pa da 1 of a website then i check the site myself.

kr is easy once you get hang of it