Keyword Research Tutorial for Google and AI SEO
Published by AhrefsWatch on YouTube
Updated Oct 4, 2026
SEO Tools
Ahrefs
SEO platform for backlink, keyword and competitor research
From $29/mo
Ahrefs at a glance
from our research
SEO platform for marketers and agencies, covering backlinks, keywords, site audits and rank tracking
Site Explorer shows any domain's backlinks, organic keywords and paid keywords without access to the site
Rank Tracker updates weekly, and Starter and Lite spend a credit on each report opened or filter applied
Standard: $249 a month, or $2,490 a year on yearly billing, with unlimited credits for each user
Overview
What is Ahrefs?
Ahrefs is an SEO platform from Ahrefs Pte. Ltd., a Singapore company founded in 2010, which describes it as a marketing platform for discoverability across search, AI and the web. It combines data from its own crawlers, AhrefsBot and AhrefsSiteAudit, with keyword data from third-party sources.
In Site Explorer you enter any domain or URL, and Ahrefs shows its backlinks, referring domains and anchor text, the keywords it ranks for, its top pages, its organic competitors and the keywords it bids on in paid search. Keywords Explorer works from a seed keyword and returns search volume, a Keyword Difficulty score based on links to the pages already ranking, Traffic Potential and a Parent Topic. Your own sites go into projects. Site Audit crawls a project for more than 170 issues, sorted into errors, warnings and notices, and can execute JavaScript. Rank Tracker follows keywords in more than 190 locations, down to ZIP code, on desktop and mobile, and updates weekly. AI Content Helper grades a draft from 0 to 100 against the topics top-ranking pages cover.
Ahrefs runs in the browser, and the SEO Toolbar brings its metrics into Chrome and Firefox. API and MCP access start on Lite, Looker Studio connectors on Advanced. Ahrefs Free covers Site Explorer and Site Audit for sites whose ownership you verify. Starter through Advanced include one user, and Lite and higher sell more seats. Starter and Lite charge a credit for each report opened or filter applied, while Standard and higher give every user unlimited credits.
Our verdict on Ahrefs
Updated Oct 4, 2026Pricing checked Oct 4, 2026
Ahrefs suits SEO specialists, content teams and agencies whose research starts with other people's websites. Site Explorer shows who links to any domain, which of its pages bring in organic traffic and which keywords it ranks for or buys ads on, without any access to the site. That covers the groundwork of link building and competitor research in one place. Keyword Difficulty is calculated from the links pointing at pages that already rank, which makes it a practical first filter when choosing targets. Site owners get something for nothing, too: verify a site and Ahrefs Free gives you Site Explorer and Site Audit for it.
Tracking and reporting are weaker. Rank Tracker updates weekly, so a drop can sit unnoticed for days, and reports can't be white-labeled for clients. Starter and Lite also meter the research itself. Opening a report, applying a filter or loading more data each costs a credit, and a long session of competitor digging spends them quickly. There's no free trial, and Ahrefs doesn't issue refunds as a rule.
Starter, at $29 a month with monthly billing only, is a cheap way to try Keywords Explorer, but 200 credits and 50 tracked keywords suit occasional checks rather than ongoing work. Lite costs $129 a month, or $1,290 a year, for one user with 1,000 credits a month, 750 tracked keywords and API access, and up to 2 more users cost $40 a month each. Anyone working in Ahrefs daily should budget for Standard, at $249 a month or $2,490 a year. Credits stop being counted there, since each user gets unlimited credits under fair use, and Content Explorer, Batch Analysis and scheduled reports are included. Extra Standard users are $60 a month each.
Choose Ahrefs when backlinks and competitor research drive the work and weekly rankings are enough. Teams that report rankings to clients every day should look at Semrush, whose Position Tracking updates daily on its $139-a-month SEO plan. If technical audits of your own sites are the main job, Screaming Frog's SEO Spider costs $279 per user a year, runs on your own computer and has no crawl cap beyond your machine's memory and storage.
Written by Lokesh Kapoor
Pros & cons
Ahrefs pros and cons
What it does well
- Ahrefs Free runs Site Explorer and Site Audit on any site whose ownership you verify
- Site Explorer reports a competitor's paid keywords, ad copy and estimated paid traffic cost
- Site Audit checks for 170+ issues and can execute JavaScript as it crawls
- Yearly billing charges ten months' price for twelve months of access
Where it falls short
- Rank Tracker updates positions weekly, not daily
- Reports can't be white-labeled, and scheduled report emails start on Standard
- No free trial of paid plans, and refunds aren't issued as a rule
Editor's assessment from vendor documentation and published pricing
Pricing
Ahrefs pricing
Ahrefs's paid plans start at $29/month, below the $49 median across the 5 tools in our SEO Tools ranking. A free plan is available.
Ahrefs Free
$0
Free plan
- Site Explorer for sites you verify
- Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits
- Web Analytics up to 1,000,000 events
- Social Media Manager
- AI Content Helper, 1 document a month
Usage: Works only for websites whose ownership you verify. Site Explorer shows 1,000 backlinks and keywords at once and Site Audit gets 5,000 crawl credits a month per project. Keywords Explorer and Rank Tracker are not included.
Starter
$29/mo
per month, monthly billing only
For one person
- 200 credits a month for reports and filters
- Keywords Explorer and Site Explorer
- Rank Tracker with 50 tracked keywords
- 1 project, 1 month of historical data
- SEO Toolbar with SEO metrics
Usage: Monthly renewal only. Most tools draw on 200 credits a month (Site Audit and Rank Tracker have their own limits); verifying a site adds 500 credits for that site. Extra users and credits can't be bought on this plan, and there is no API access.
Lite
$107.50/mo
per month, 1 user included
or $129/mo billed monthly
Up to 3 users
- 750 tracked keywords in Rank Tracker
- 100,000 Site Audit crawl credits a month
- 5 projects, 6 months of historical data
- API and MCP access
- 5 tracked AI prompts
Usage: Billed $129 a month, or $1,290 a year (about $107.50 a month). One user is included with 1,000 credits a month; up to 2 more users cost $40 a month each. Extra credits are $50 per 500 once pay-as-you-go is switched on (off by default).
Standard
$207.50/mo
per month, 1 user included
or $249/mo billed monthly
Up to 6 users
- 2,000 tracked keywords in Rank Tracker
- 500,000 Site Audit crawl credits a month
- 20 projects, 2 years of historical data
- Content Explorer and Batch Analysis
- Unlimited credits per user
Usage: Billed $249 a month, or $2,490 a year (about $207.50 a month). One user is included; up to 5 more cost $60 a month each. Exceeding other limits, such as tracked keywords or export rows, is billed pay-as-you-go if enabled.
Advanced
$374.17/mo
per month, 1 user included
or $449/mo billed monthly
Up to 11 users
- 5,000 tracked keywords in Rank Tracker
- 1,500,000 Site Audit crawl credits a month
- 50 projects, 5 years of historical data
- Looker Studio integration
- HTTP authentication in Site Audit
Usage: Billed $449 a month, or $4,490 a year (about $374.17 a month). One user is included; up to 10 more cost $80 a month each. Credits per user are unlimited.
Enterprise
$1,499/mo
per month, annual commitment required
- 10,000+ tracked keywords
- 5,000,000+ Site Audit crawl credits a month
- Uncapped API access and custom endpoints
- SSO, access management and audit log
- Unlimited historical data
Usage: Annual commitment required (minimum one-year subscription); the button reads Talk to sales. Three users are included and extra users cost $100 a month each.
Checked against Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.'s pricing page on October 4, 2026 · see the full breakdown
Capabilities
Ahrefs features
Checked against the same feature list as every other tool in its category.
Platform
- Included:Data APIProgrammatic access to the tool's data for dashboards and internal reporting.
- Not included:White-label reportingClient-ready branded reports on a schedule.
Research Data
- Included:Backlink index & analysisA crawler-backed index of links pointing at any domain, with history and anchor data.
- Included:Competitor traffic analysisEstimates which keywords and pages drive a competitor's organic traffic.
- Included:Keyword research databaseVolume, difficulty and intent estimates across a large keyword corpus.
- Included:Paid search & ad dataCompetitor ad copy, spend estimates and paid keyword coverage.
Site Auditing
- Included:Automated site auditScheduled crawls that flag technical issues with severity and guidance.
- Not included:Custom data extractionScrape arbitrary elements from pages during a crawl with XPath or CSS selectors.
- Included:JavaScript renderingRenders JavaScript so single-page applications are crawled as a browser sees them.
- Included:Log file analysisReads server logs to show what search engines actually crawled.Beta, reads CDN request logs
Content & Rankings
- Included:Automated content briefsGenerates an outline and requirements for writers from SERP analysis.Topic list, no generated outline
- Included:Daily rank trackingTracks positions daily across locations and devices.Updates weekly, not daily
- Included:Local SEO toolsListing management and local pack tracking for physical locations.Google Business Profile only (beta)
- Included:On-page content editorScores a draft against currently ranking pages and suggests terms and structure.1 document a month, more as paid add-on
Ecosystem
Ahrefs integrations
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Looker Studio
- Slack
Videos
Watch Ahrefs in action
Product walkthroughs from Ahrefs's own YouTube channel.
Official Ahrefs Tutorial: How to use Ahrefs to Improve SEO
Published by AhrefsWatch on YouTube
Alternatives
Top Ahrefs alternatives
Tools that do the same job, from the same category.
Semrush
Best for marketing teams that want daily rank tracking and competitor research in one login
Free plan
Moz Pro
Best for in-house marketers tracking a few sites' rankings and crawl issues week to week
Free plan
Surfer SEO
Best for content teams that brief writers and check each article against the search results
From $49/mo
Fit check
Will Ahrefs fit your team?
Support
- Email support
- Live chat
- Knowledge base
Training
- Webinars
- Documentation
- Video tutorials
Deployment
- Web
Typical users
- Freelancers
- Small businesses
- Mid-size companies
- Enterprises
FAQs
Ahrefs FAQs
Written by our editorial team.
Is Ahrefs free?
Yes, for websites you own. Ahrefs Free is a permanent plan, not a trial, and it works only on sites whose ownership you verify. It includes Site Explorer, showing up to 1,000 backlinks and keywords at a time, and Site Audit with 5,000 crawl credits a month per project. Keywords Explorer and Rank Tracker need a paid plan, from $29 a month on Starter, and Ahrefs offers no free trial of those. A cancelled paid plan drops back to Ahrefs Free when the paid period ends. See Ahrefs pricing.
How do Ahrefs credits work?
Credits apply only on Starter and Lite. On those plans, opening a report, applying a filter or requesting more data costs 1 credit, while Site Audit and Rank Tracker run on their own limits. Starter includes 200 credits a month, plus 500 for the URLs of a site you verify. Lite gives its included user 1,000 credits a month, and extra credits cost $50 per 500 once pay-as-you-go is switched on, which it isn't by default. Standard and higher plans give each user unlimited credits under a fair-use policy.
Does Ahrefs show PPC data?
Yes. Site Explorer shows a domain's paid keywords, the text of its ads and an estimate of what its paid traffic would cost, next to its organic data. That shows which search terms a competitor pays for and how its ads are worded, without leaving the tool you use for backlinks and keywords. For how Ahrefs and Semrush compare on data and price, see Ahrefs vs Semrush.
How often does Ahrefs Rank Tracker update?
Weekly. Rank Tracker refreshes positions once a week on every plan. Each tracked keyword counts as one keyword in one location in one project, so following the same phrase in two cities uses two. You can track in more than 190 locations, down to ZIP code, on desktop and mobile. Starter includes 50 tracked keywords, Lite 750, Standard 2,000 and Advanced 5,000, and extra keywords are sold in batches of 500.
Does Ahrefs use your data to train AI?
Its terms allow it. Section 13.3 of Ahrefs' terms lets the company use User Content, including what you enter into its AI tools, to train its machine learning models. The help article for AI Content Helper says that tool's AI chat runs on the OpenAI API and that Ahrefs doesn't use that chat input for training. The terms also say Ahrefs has no duty to store or return your content, and deleting an account and its data takes a request to support.
Sources & methodology
Product details come from Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.'s public website and documentation (Singapore). Every plan and price was checked against the vendor's pricing page on October 4, 2026. We haven't tested this product hands-on; the verdict is a desk assessment. How we research and rank tools
- Founded 2010
- 8 languages supported
- ahrefs.com
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