AHREF Keyword Difficulty EXPLAINED...

cplay

cplay

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Right, so i have been getting to grips with the ahref system and is brillant.

I am however struggling with one thing, the kd metric.

Now i understand it is as follows;

0-10 easy (<10 referring domains)
11-30 medium (11-36)
31-70 hard (37-200)
71-100 don't even bother (200+)

What i dont understand however is this;

How does the dr and url ranking of the competitors affect the keyword difficulty in reality?!?!

For example, although a kd ranking of 0 appears easy it just does not seem logical that if the top 10 ranking in serps have above 50 dr EACH and above ur10 that even when 10 backlinks to a dr 30 site of mine i SURELY would not be able to leap frog them?

Does anyone have any experience with how dr and ur ACTUALLY affect the keyword difficulty if you obtain more links than all of the top 10 but have significantly lower dr?
 
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No tool can define the difficulty of a keyword, each kw difficulty tool shows you an estimation of the difficult based on a correlation. If you want to do real kw difficulty, grab the top 3, check their backlinks. dr/url rank means nothing, a fresh website with few links can often times outrank an authority site with many but weak links.

tldr; no tool can really tell you the difficulty except a personal check of onpage and offpage seo :)(the tools are shams.)
 
Tools were more useful back when PR was a thing and Google worked more off simple metrics rather than AI adjusted algorithms. Today its a joke what people pay for blind guesses that some tools seem to make. They won't be around for much longer the way things are headed unless the make some advancements.

-ThopHayt
 
any tool is using some kind of also to calculate the value of something like KW difficulty .... its just a guess not more .... it gives you a estimate.
 
rickydzine said:
No tool can define the difficulty of a keyword, each kw difficulty tool shows you an estimation of the difficult based on a correlation. If you want to do real kw difficulty, grab the top 3, check their backlinks. dr/url rank means nothing, a fresh website with few links can often times outrank an authority site with many but weak links.

tldr; no tool can really tell you the difficulty except a personal check of onpage and offpage seo :)(the tools are shams.)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply!

That exactly where i hit the confusing part; i would see a low kw difficulty word (like 0 - so by ahref documentation would require only a few links to get into top 10) however upon inspecting serp results top 3 results had huge amount of dr but no links?

So, what you are saying is that google will allow for low dr websites to rank higher than high dr sites providing they have high quality and relevant links?

I mean on a personal level that sounds great for me but surely if two sites have hypothetically the same number and quality of links point to a page then the one with higher domain rating prevails?

Cheers!
 
ThopHayt said:
Tools were more useful back when PR was a thing and Google worked more off simple metrics rather than AI adjusted algorithms. Today its a joke what people pay for blind guesses that some tools seem to make. They won't be around for much longer the way things are headed unless the make some advancements.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!

Could you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by they won't be around for much longer the way things are headed unless they make some advancements?

Cheers man!
 
W9go said:
any tool is using some kind of also to calculate the value of something like KW difficulty .... its just a guess not more .... it gives you a estimate.
Click to expand...

From the sheer amount i have done of reading on ahref it appears by large to be most accurate at predicting kw difficulty (a quick search will attest).

But, like you said they are always estimates and never concrete.

What i'm more interested in though is the correlation between domain rating (ahref) / domain authority has on ranking for certain keywords.

I would be a moron not to notice a huge division in the top 10 rankings between huge dr/da sites who just churn content and super niche websites with huge topical relevance to the whole domains theme.
 
Keyword difficult tools rely upon backlinks and no one has access to a full range of any page's links except Google.
 
cplay said:
Thanks for the reply!

Could you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by they won't be around for much longer the way things are headed unless they make some advancements?

Cheers man!
Click to expand...

They are VERY overpriced and they offer relatively little value to consumers given that the metrics aren't bible anymore.

-ThopHayt
 
ThopHayt said:
They are VERY overpriced and they offer relatively little value to consumers given that the metrics aren't bible anymore.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

^^ this

Plus, Google uses a complex algorithm that these KW tools are basically trying to reverse-engineer in a much much simple way, with maybe 1% of Google's budget. They are, more often than not, just a wild guess based on few factors. Sometimes they are close, sometimes they are completely off.
 
ahrefs is amazing.
except the kwdiff. its 99% bullshit.
thats why i paiy the 30 bucks for kwfinder.
if dudes dont use any hidden shit for their links, its highly accurate.
 
ThopHayt said:
They are VERY overpriced and they offer relatively little value to consumers given that the metrics aren't bible anymore.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

have pmed you.

Have not pmed you as can not work out how to :)

Could you quickly tell me how to?

Apparently they are referred to as conversations here but i can find a way to start a conversation on your profile?
 
Tim provides some good info from time to time in their blog.

https://ahrefs.com/blog/keyword-difficulty/
 
Nargil said:
^^ this

Plus, Google uses a complex algorithm that these KW tools are basically trying to reverse-engineer in a much much simple way, with maybe 1% of Google's budget. They are, more often than not, just a wild guess based on few factors. Sometimes they are close, sometimes they are completely off.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!

What would you say is the best way to gauge kd then?

By checking serps and analysing backlinks and the actual content on the website itself?

It appears ahref has a very useful feature i've just found that shows what movements are happening in the top 10 serps for that keyword.

I.e you can see who has not moved in a while and thus create the same kinds of content which clearly satisfies users intent except longer, more in depth and reach out for link building.

What is your view on the above?

Cheers!
 
darulez said:
ahrefs is amazing.
except the kwdiff. its 99% bullshit.
thats why i paiy the 30 bucks for kwfinder.
if dudes dont use any hidden shit for their links, its highly accurate.
Click to expand...

That's the issue i am having with it.

It appears to solely base the kw difficulty on how many links to that url the website has. But, its evident to see serps are dominated by mega domain rating sites or highly topical niche sites that are built somewhat around that keyword.

Could you tell me how kwfinder bridges this gap?

Cheers!
 
MisterF said:
Tim provides some good info from time to time in their blog.
Click to expand...

I have read that previously and provides a good insight (have had to remove url because i cant post them yet).

However, they openly say they don't take into consideration anything other than page links in their kd metric.

But, of course domain rating etc come into play but their kd score does not take this into account.

How do you get around this when finding words that are difficult or not?

I understand check on page seo, title in tag and h1, but i just can't work out a formula/process for working out how much domain authority/ranking affects ranking?
 
cplay said:
I have read that previously and provides a good insight (have had to remove url because i cant post them yet).

However, they openly say they don't take into consideration anything other than page links in their kd metric.

But, of course domain rating etc come into play but their kd score does not take this into account.

How do you get around this when finding words that are difficult or not?

I understand check on page seo, title in tag and h1, but i just can't work out a formula/process for working out how much domain authority/ranking affects ranking?
Click to expand...


I use several different tools, including theirs, plus Keysearch ( from a seller here on BHW ), Keyword Revealer, Moz, Semrush etc.

I have my own criteria as to what looks worth going after, opportunities etc, using a mix of the above tools.
 
MisterF said:
I use several different tools, including theirs, plus Keysearch ( from a seller here on BHW ), Keyword Revealer, Moz, Semrush etc.

I have my own criteria as to what looks worth going after, opportunities etc, using a mix of the above tools.
Click to expand...

Do you know anyone who offers kwfinder on blackhatword? I notice you have posted a few links to group buys for tools (i think it is you anyhow).

Also, do you mind elaborating on what kinds of criteria for what is worth going after, opportunities etc?

It would really be useful for me starting out to have a legitimate structure to work from, from someone who clearly knows their shit. (send a pm if you don't wish to share here).

As you can probably imagine, i have read a shit ton on absolutely everything but have no idea what to really trust. from what i researched on keywords it appears ahref has got it to a degree right about the backlinks and their ranking affect, i can manually review onpage factors like h1, content structure etc - BUT i still feel like i am missing something?

Cheers man!
 
Just because a website is ranking for an easy keyword, does not mean they are targeting it. The keyword is just simply there. If you target the keyword, you out rank them.
 
mickyfu said:
Just because a website is ranking for an easy keyword, does not mean they are targeting it. The keyword is just simply there. If you target the keyword, you out rank them.
Click to expand...

Well i thought as much BUT do you have actual experience in out ranking huge websites for certain keywords they dont target properly by actually properly targetting a word with onpage seo and backlinks?

I've read about it, but its normally from bloggers trying to sell a product.
 
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