Never understood data from Semrush Traffic Analytics

I've read Semrush docs one million of times but I've never been able to grasp an idea about how Traffic Analytics works in Semrush

Let's say for example, the traffic journey for BHW, it says that for April they have averaged around 1.1M from organic search traffic



But then we go to the Organic Research and they suggest their total organic search traffic estimated is 60K



Just to compare, I went into good ol'Ahrefs to see a number very similar to Semrush, 50K, just 10K traffic less



This said:

Have anyone figured out WTF is that Search traffic coming from the traffic analytics in Semrush? If they have their Organic Search Traffic analytics, why are they doing this weird estimations that are almost 20x their search traffic difference?

I've tested this with many sites of my own, and Search Traffic from Traffic analytics is not precise, but not even near, it's completely obnoxious. I cannot grasp a simple pinch of utility in such apart that is deceiving data that could confuse in many of their reports like their bulk competitor analysis, unless someone can bring some light to this topic.

Estimated impressions on searches maybe?

Semrush is good tool butt is slow. also ahrefs tool fast quick show result.butt both tool is good i m also use.

SirLouen said:

I've read Semrush docs one million of times but I've never been able to grasp an idea about how Traffic Analytics works in Semrush

Let's say for example, the traffic journey for BHW, it says that for April they have averaged around 1.1M from organic search traffic

View attachment 255953

But then we go to the Organic Research and they suggest their total organic search traffic estimated is 60K

View attachment 255954

Just to compare, I went into good ol'Ahrefs to see a number very similar to Semrush, 50K, just 10K traffic less

View attachment 255955

This said:

Have anyone figured out WTF is that Search traffic coming from the traffic analytics in Semrush? If they have their Organic Search Traffic analytics, why are they doing this weird estimations that are almost 20x their search traffic difference?

I've tested this with many sites of my own, and Search Traffic from Traffic analytics is not precise, but not even near, it's completely obnoxious. I cannot grasp a simple pinch of utility in such apart that is deceiving data that could confuse in many of their reports like their bulk competitor analysis, unless someone can bring some light to this topic.

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Semrush traffic estimates have always been wrong. On some keywords it overestimate how much traffic and site gets on others it underestimate. My sites have been victim of both.
So I never take the traffic data shown on the 'Organic Research' section of the tool, seriously at all.


Talking about the traffic journey section, I genuinely do not know what they are doing, it's so difficult to understand that I just don't bother.

HenryObi said:

Talking about the traffic journey section, I genuinely do not know what they are doing, it's so difficult to understand that I just don't bother.

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Yep, I don't understand why this could be useful at all, why they could have invested time on building a whole section on this topic.

sherry driver said:

Semrush is good tool butt is slow. also ahrefs tool fast quick show result.butt both tool is good i m also use.

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Are you sure butt that?

DomingaWalker said:

While both Semrush and Ahrefs are great tools, there is a noticeable difference in their speed. Semrush can be slow at times, while Ahrefs is known to deliver quick results. However, as someone who has used both tools, I can attest that they both have their strengths and are worth considering for your SEO needs.

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I agree with your opinion, and I would like to add that these two tools are ridiculously expensive. It's undeniable that both Semrush and Ahrefs are extremely effective for analyzing competitors on search engines and helping improve website rankings significantly. However, their prices are exorbitant.

ch9353842 said:

I agree with your opinion, and I would like to add that these two tools are ridiculously expensive. It's undeniable that both Semrush and Ahrefs are extremely effective for analyzing competitors on search engines and helping improve website rankings significantly. However, their prices are exorbitant.

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Money talks, my friend. If you want a tool that is both cheap as dirt and effective, it's quite a challenge. You want a tool that can find the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors, helping you improve your website ranking and outperform other competitors on search engine results. But how can you expect it to be cheap? Have you ever thought about how much investment Ahrefs and Semrush have put into building their systems of bots to crawl billions of websites worldwide and provide you with results with just a few clicks?

If you're looking for a budget option, I have one suggestion for you: look for discounted accounts from group-buying services. However, most of these services come with certain limitations on specific features of Ahrefs and Semrush, such as the number of reports you can access. You won't have 100% access to all the features like you would with a personal account.

Thanks for the analysis, I find it reasonable. It's true that Ahrefs and Semrush must have invested millions of dollars into their server systems. I've also tried some group-buying services, and as you mentioned, they do come with limitations on certain features. Some of them are downright terrible. If you don't mind, could you share the group-buying service you're currently using?

Ah, you can consider this service that I've been using for a while. However, I must mention that they limit the account usage based on connection hours, which is quite peculiar. Most other services limit the number of reports, similar to the official Ahrefs package. But this particular service limits the connection hours. I assume they log in to Ahrefs accounts on specific servers, which can sometimes result in slower connections. Overall, I find it satisfactory.

The Traffic analysis is like visitor analytics which shows of the number of visitors a given website is receiving. Even if it's just an estimation, it's a good one.
If you compare it to Similarweb data which is more accurate most of the time, you can assume the traffic is somewhere around those 2 numbers.

Personally I think of traffic like this:

SEMrush + Similarweb / 2 = estimated traffic.

And, SEMrush "Organic Search Traffic" is based on the keywords the website is ranking for. It is not number of visitors nor number of pageviews.

It's just a relative number. You can think of it as some kind of points. The more keywords SEMrush can find ranking for a given website, the more it will show a large number.

For example, If you can rank #12 for "walmart near me" which is a 6M/month volume keyword, SEMrush will still show a nice number in your "Organic Search Traffic" even if not a soul clicks on your website.

It's on the second page, no one even knows your website is there but semrush will give you some points for this.

Before I used to put a lot of weight on SEMrush and there data.

I have multiple websites and done extensive testing and there data is far from accurate

The amount of money I’ve wasted chasing keywords which were supposed to have 100k searches for it too drop too 12k - is a massive difference

I know longer use there tool.

There’s websites according to SEMrush i am getting 20k searches, with all the keywords I have on page 1 but when in reality I check Google analytics and search console and I am getting only 30 people if that maximum on my website each month

GTC said:

The Traffic analysis is like visitor analytics which shows of the number of visitors a given website is receiving. Even if it's just an estimation, it's a good one.
If you compare it to Similarweb data which is more accurate most of the time, you can assume the traffic is somewhere around those 2 numbers.

Personally I think of traffic like this:

SEMrush + Similarweb / 2 = estimated traffic.

And, SEMrush "Organic Search Traffic" is based on the keywords the website is ranking for. It is not number of visitors nor number of pageviews.

It's just a relative number. You can think of it as some kind of points. The more keywords SEMrush can find ranking for a given website, the more it will show a large number.

For example, If you can rank #12 for "walmart near me" which is a 6M/month volume keyword, SEMrush will still show a nice number in your "Organic Search Traffic" even if not a soul clicks on your website.

It's on the second page, no one even knows your website is there but semrush will give you some points for this.

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When you said there “estimation” is a good one . That statement could not be any further from the truth

There estimates and the numbers they pull are useless in all honesty. I’ve got multiple sites and there estimations were wrong , those estimation numbers can change when I was putting a lot of effort for a 100k keyword. I got page 1 and it dropped to 12k but my analytics showed on Google, I was only getting 30 searches a months

There backlink checker is crap aswell compared to ahrefs

GTC said:

If you compare it to Similarweb data which is more accurate most of the time, you can assume the traffic is somewhere around those 2 numbers.

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This is similar web:





These are basically saying almost the same, that BHW is getting like 750K/monthly visits from organic search, when simoultaneously you can observe that from the aggregated organic traffic it's nothing near 100K/mo. So basically estimations that can go specifically for Organic Search, 7-10 times more

What kind of joke is this?

That is exactly their success story

SirLouen said:

This is similar web:

View attachment 256016

View attachment 256017

These are basically saying almost the same, that BHW is getting like 750K/monthly visits from organic search, when simoultaneously you can observe that from the aggregated organic traffic it's nothing near 100K/mo. So basically estimations that can go specifically for Organic Search, 7-10 times more

What kind of joke is this?

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Trust me. SEMrush are a huge joke.

Naively, back in the day I believed it.

It was only till I extensively used the tool and the data and even spending thousands of dollars of my own money and getting that page 1 keyword that was 100k and it dropped to 12k

I was so mad… It ended up happening many more times of this. Even the estimations are wrong

I want actually market intelligence, like they claim they provide but they only provide wild guesses that are massively wrong

Some of my website from the my competitiors eyes looks good on SEMrush but the reality of the matter is that I do not get more than 30 people on it a month but the SEMrush data says I have thousands of people on my website haha

This is why with countless times now, I can’t use there tool anymore.

I’ve also seen keywords that had 70 searches on SEMrush generate more traffic than keywords with 12k searches on SEMrush. It’s so bizarre in all honesty

It’s not a market intelligence tool. It’s fluff with a fancy UX. I have more luck pulling numbers out my ass with accuracy than SEMrush

ch9353842 said:

could you share the group-buying service you're currently using?

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Flikover & SEOtooladda actually work! Ahrefs and Semrush both have limitations!

stephen88 said:

That statement could not be any further from the truth

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I think you meant any nearer from the truth.
Although I also agree with what you say, I almost must admit that ultimately SEMRush brings info from traffic sources beyond our reach, like GSC imports from other users + obviously KWP which is within our reach
You could argue that KWP is useless also, but generally speaking you cannot target what you cannot see. Or you can but it feels to risky.

Anyway, I don't really care about Organic search because it's something I've been using for ages. What it always surprises me, it's that they have these Traffic Analytics metrics section, and they keep it forever. It's like pure bullshit.
Organic traffic could be bullshit for some, but Traffic Analytics is OMEGA bullshit. I can do a bulk competitor search, to find that a page is supposedly getting 500K visits per month in total, with 200K from organic according to Traffic Analytics, when they probably not even getting 20K. And from Organic Search, they say they are barely getting 15K which even worse, because the reality is that they don't even reach 10K from organic traffic.

So imagine the difference from the 200K visits from Traffic Analytics, to the 15K from the Organic Search to the 10K that is the reality. I would admit the 15K from Organic Search, but the Traffic Analytics, is deceiving, basically they are offering a feature that is a deliberated lie, a scam.

I would like to ask a SEMRush representant to see what's the point of this if I attend a conference in a future where they are showcasing.

sherry driver said:

Semrush is good tool butt is slow. also ahrefs tool fast quick show result.butt both tool is good i m also use.

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Yes you are right both are good tools.

Semrush is weird for me, it sometimes gives me pure Jibberish