What's Better Semrush or Ahrefs for SEO and Digital Marketing

Semrush and Ahrefs are two of the most popular tools in the digital marketing industry, offering a range of features to help with SEO and content optimization.

Semrush has a larger database of keywords, with over 20 billion keywords crawled, while Ahrefs has a smaller database, but with a focus on more accurate and up-to-date information.

For backlink analysis, Ahrefs has a more comprehensive database, with over 12 trillion links crawled, compared to Semrush's 30 billion links.

Ahrefs also has a more user-friendly interface, making it easier for beginners to navigate and use.

SEMrush and Ahrefs are both powerful tools, but they have some key differences in their features and tools. SEMrush has a more robust set of features for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, including a competitive PPC analysis and a CPC map that shows average CPC based on state.

SEMrush also has a content marketing platform that includes a topic research tool, content templates, an AI writing assistant, and an on-page SEO checker, which is only available on its $249-per month 'Guru' plan or higher. This platform is particularly useful for creating high-quality content that can help with SEO.

SEMrush's site audit tool is also considered the best among the three tools, as it not only highlights technical SEO issues but also provides suggestions on how to improve content. Additionally, it lets you send any problem it finds to a CRM tool, Trello, or a task manager of your choice.

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO and keyword research tool that helps users understand the search engine landscape.

It provides data on keyword rankings, backlinks, organic traffic, and more, giving users a comprehensive view of their online presence.

Ahrefs offers competitive analysis features that allow users to see what their competitors are doing and how they perform in search engines.

This information is invaluable for making informed decisions about SEO strategies and improving chances of ranking higher in search engines.

Ahrefs' "Traffic Potential" metric is a unique feature that offers a comprehensive view of the possible traffic a keyword can bring by accounting for its main search term and associated variations.

It helps with a better assessment of a keyword's total value beyond just its immediate search volume.

Semrush provides detailed analysis tools to evaluate traffic prospects, but Ahrefs' "Traffic Potential" metric is a singular and beneficial tool for strategizing content and SEO priorities.

Explorer is a powerful tool in both SEMrush and Ahrefs that helps you understand the search engine landscape and improve your visibility in organic search results.

SEMrush's SEM features are a standout, with a competitive PPC analysis tool that shows you what keywords competitors are bidding on, how much they're spending on average, and what their ad copy is.

Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer, on the other hand, provides an array of keyword-related data for SEO, grouped into six different reports: Phrase match, Having Same Terms, Also Rank For, Search Suggestions, Newly Discovered, and Questions.

The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer offers valuable metrics such as Keyword Difficulty (KD), Volume, Clicks, CPC, CPS, RR, SF, and Parent topic, giving you a comprehensive view of your keywords.

Here's a breakdown of what each report consists of:

The "SERP" button in Ahrefs Keyword Explorer allows you to view the search engine results page, providing insights into the current top-ranking pages.

Semrush offers three principal subscription levels: Pro, Guru, and Business, with pricing starting at $129.95/month for the Pro plan.

The Pro plan is geared towards individuals and small teams, and it doesn't include historical data, but it does allow for up to 3,000 reports per day and 250 keyword metrics updates per month.

Ahrefs, on the other hand, has four main pricing tiers: Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise, with the Lite plan starting at $99/month.

The Lite plan includes historical keyword data for the last 6 months, with a report capacity of 2,500 rows and a monthly export limit of 500,000 rows.

Semrush's higher plans offer more historical data and updates, but at an extra cost per user, while Ahrefs' flat rate for additional users across all plans could be more budget-friendly for teams.

Here's a comparison of the report capacities and monthly export limits for Semrush and Ahrefs:

Semrush's higher plans offer more data per report, with up to 10,000 rows, while Ahrefs' highest plan offers up to 150,000 rows.

Browser Extensions can be a game-changer for SEO research. Both Ahrefs and SEMrush offer browser extensions that provide quick access to website data.

Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar is available with a paid account, while SEMrush's SEOquake is free. SEMrush's SEOquake bar shows the number of pages on Google's index for a site, the number of backlinks pointing to a particular page, and the site's Alexa rank and age.

The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar shows page-level stats, such as the number of backlinks and referring domains, estimated search traffic, and the estimated number of keywords a site ranks for. It also displays the Ahrefs rank, which is Ahrefs' own way of calculating a domain's strength.

Ahrefs and Semrush offer more data access than Moz, with Ahrefs allowing unlimited reports on its higher plans and Semrush allowing between 3,000 and 10,000 reports per day.

The number of projects you can facilitate varies across plans, with Ahrefs generally offering more projects per subscription. Here's a comparison of the three products' project limits:

Ahrefs also offers unlimited verified domains, giving it a unique selling point.

Technical SEO and Audits are crucial for any website, and both Semrush and Ahrefs offer site audit tools. Ahrefs' site auditing tool gave a site an 89% health score out of 2,657 crawled URLs, highlighting 164 internal URLs with errors, including 3XX redirects and missing meta descriptions.

SEMrush, on the other hand, provided a similar "Health Score" at 86%, with a more user-friendly interface that shows errors and warnings right away. The tool also offers suggestions on how to fix issues and even lets you send problems to a CRM tool or task manager of your choice.

Ahrefs and Semrush both identify common site audit issues, such as broken links, slow-loading pages, and duplicate content. However, Semrush's site audit tool is more comprehensive, even suggesting ways to improve content, and offers a more structured way to address problems.

Semrush has a keyword database of 25.3 billion, making it one of the largest keyword databases. Ahrefs has a keyword database of 28.7 billion, which is the largest among the three tools.

Moz's backlink database is the largest, boasting 44.8 trillion backlinks. Semrush has 43 trillion backlinks, while Ahrefs has 35 trillion.

Ahrefs' keyword database is the largest of the three tools, with 28.7 billion keywords. This is a significant advantage for Ahrefs in terms of keyword research.

Here's a comparison of the keyword database sizes of the three tools:

Note that the size of the keyword database is not the only factor to consider when choosing an SEO tool. However, it is an important aspect to consider, especially for those working in ultra-niche areas.

Technical SEO Audits are a crucial aspect of maintaining a healthy website. SEMrush and Ahrefs both offer site auditing tools, but they're not built for deep technical SEO audits. Tools like Screaming Frog or DeepCrawl are better suited for that.

Both SEMrush and Ahrefs provide a basic audit, which can help identify glaring technical errors. Ahrefs' site audit tool gave our site an 89% health score out of 2,657 crawled URLs, highlighting 164 internal URLs with errors.

SEMrush's site audit tool is very easy to use and intuitive, making it easy to see what's wrong and how to fix it. Ahrefs' auditing tool is still good, but it's new and not as refined yet. SEMrush's tool also provides suggestions on how to improve content.

Site auditing tools identify issues that might be having a negative effect on your search rankings, including broken links, slow-loading pages, and duplicate content. You're then given an overall 'health score' along with a report detailing the problems you need to fix.

Here are some common issues that site auditing tools can help identify:

SEMrush's site audit tool comes out on top, as it doesn't just focus on technical SEO, it gives you suggestions on how you can improve your content too. It also lets you send any problem it finds to a CRM tool or a task manager of your choosing, making it easier to stay on top of site health.

Moz's Standard plan allows for up to 400,000 pages to be crawled per month, a much higher limit than Ahrefs and Semrush's entry-level plans.

This generous page crawl limit can be a game-changer for large websites or those with many domains to analyze.

Ahrefs and Semrush restrict their entry-level plans to a 100,000 monthly page crawl limit, which may not be enough for complex websites.

Moz's higher page crawl limit means you can get a more comprehensive view of your website's issues and problems, without hitting a limit too quickly.

As you move up the pricing ladder, Moz remains the more generous tool when it comes to page crawl limits.

This can be a significant advantage for businesses or agencies that need to crawl and analyze large websites on a regular basis.

SEMrush has a more developed content marketing platform, offering features like a topic research tool, content templates, an AI writing assistant, and an on-page SEO checker, available on its $249-per month 'Guru' plan or higher.

SEMrush's content auditing tool, also known as the Real-Time Content Checker, uses TF:IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) to help you optimize your content for better readability and LSI keywords. It even gives you an overall score based on various metrics.

Ahrefs' Content Explorer tool, on the other hand, is great for discovering and analyzing top-performing content in your niche, and it's also trialling a content grader tool. However, SEMrush's Topic Research tool is still useful, although not as robust as Ahrefs'.

SEMrush offers more developed AI features, including a personalized keyword difficulty tool, a sophisticated content-writing tool called ContentShake, and a 'Co-Pilot' tool that surfaces actionable insights based on your project data.

If you're looking to create content that resonates with your audience, understanding search intent is crucial. Semrush provides search intent data, which helps identify the purpose behind a user's search query.

Semrush's Keyword Overview report displays the intent of individual keywords, and the Domain Overview report offers a distribution chart showing the percentage of keywords that fall into each intent category for a specific domain. This feature is essential for creating content that aligns with user expectations.

Ahrefs, on the other hand, doesn't explicitly provide a dedicated search intent metric like Semrush. However, it does give you access to additional 'intents': branded and local searches, and lets you filter by these criteria.

Here are the four types of search intent labels you can expect to see:

Ahrefs goes one step further by providing these additional labels, making it a win for Ahrefs in terms of search intent data.

Content marketing features are a crucial part of any marketing strategy. SEMrush offers a comprehensive content marketing platform that includes a topic research tool, content templates, an AI writing assistant, and an on-page SEO checker. This feature is only available on its $249-per month 'Guru' plan or higher.

Ahrefs, on the other hand, has a 'Content Explorer' feature that lets you discover and analyze top-performing content in your niche. It's also trialling a content grader tool (currently in Beta mode). While Ahrefs is catching up on content marketing features, Semrush is still the more developed tool in this area.

SEMrush's content marketing features are particularly useful for creating high-quality content that Google's Helpful Content System rewards. This algorithm prioritizes content that is written for people, not just search engines. Semrush's features help you create content that is engaging and informative, which is essential for ranking well in search engines.

Here are some of the key content marketing features offered by SEMrush:

SEMrush's content marketing features are a game-changer for anyone looking to improve their content marketing strategy. With these features, you can create high-quality content that resonates with your audience and ranks well in search engines.

Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer provides a comprehensive overview of a keyword's performance, including its Keyword Difficulty score, Search Volume, and Traffic Potential. This helps you gauge the potential value for paid advertising and estimate the maximum traffic a top-ranking page might receive.

The tool also offers a "Parent Topic" feature, which identifies the broader subject associated with the keyword and its search volume, guiding content categorization. Additionally, "Keyword ideas" suggest related terms and variations, including questions people ask, to assist in expanding content strategy.

Ahrefs' reports are limited to 500 on its cheapest plan, but its more expensive plans offer unlimited data and the ability to work with an unlimited number of verified domains. This makes Ahrefs a strong contender in the reporting limits battle.

Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool provides a comprehensive analysis of a website's backlinks, including the number of backlinks, referring domains, and the domain rating. It also offers the option to track lost and gained backlinks, view anchor texts, and check the status of each link.

Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool provides similar insights into a website's SEO performance, including organic keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and referring domains. It also allows you to analyze competitors' performance and search for popular content within a specific industry or topic.

Here's a comparison of the reporting limits of Ahrefs and Semrush:

Ultimately, the choice between Ahrefs and Semrush depends on your specific needs and budget. If you're looking for comprehensive reporting and unlimited data, Ahrefs may be the better choice. However, if you're on a tighter budget and need more reporting capabilities on your entry-level plan, Semrush may be the way to go.

Ahrefs' user interface is fantastic, presenting information in a really easy-to-understand way and features are intuitive and easy to use.

Their sleek and modern interface gives you an overview of your website's SEO performance, including key metrics like organic traffic and backlinks.

Ahrefs' UI is better in my opinion because it gives you fewer options per page, making it easier to learn and use.

The SEMrush user interface is designed to be both user-friendly and informative, but it can be a bit dated.

SEMrush has a lot of features, which can make it hard to learn the tool and know everything it does.

The Semrush main dashboard overviews your website's performance, including keyword rankings, traffic, and organic search visibility.

Ahrefs' Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Content Explorer are easily accessible from the main dashboard.

The Semrush sidebar menu provides access to all of its features and tools, organized into logical sections.

SEMrush's top bar gives you quick access to your account settings and support options.

Ahrefs' UI is improving Ahrefs' UI is improving all the time, and it's still fairly easy to understand.

Backlink and Link Analysis is a crucial aspect of SEO, and both Ahrefs and SEMrush offer robust tools to help you analyze and improve your backlink profile. Ahrefs has the more complete backlink data, picking up 137 backlinks from 40 referring domains for a given page, compared to SEMrush's 161 backlinks but only 17 referring domains.

SEMrush's backlink checker can still work, but it's not as reliable as Ahrefs. In fact, Ahrefs was able to pick up backlinks from low-authority sites like getcouponnow.com, while SEMrush missed them.

The Backlink Analytics tool provided by SEMrush comprehensively analyzes a website's backlink profile, including the number of backlinks, referring domains, and domain rating. SEMrush also offers the option to track lost and gained backlinks, view anchor texts, and check the status of each link.

Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool provides similar insights into a website's SEO performance, including organic keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and referring domains. This tool can be a valuable resource for both conducting competitor analysis and improving your own search engine rankings.

SEMrush's Backlink Audit tool is an invaluable resource for keeping track of your website's backlinks, allowing you to view each backlink individually and see vital information such as the linking site's URL, anchor text used, and date the link was created. You can also disavow suspicious or low-quality links using the tool's built-in disavowal feature.

Here's a comparison of the two tools' backlink analysis capabilities:

In conclusion, Ahrefs has the more comprehensive backlink analysis capabilities, making it a better choice for serious online marketers and SEO professionals.

Ahrefs and Semrush are both powerful SEO tools that can help you improve your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website. Ahrefs provides data on keyword rankings, backlinks, and organic traffic, making it an essential tool for any serious online marketer or SEO professional.

The Ahrefs Keyword Explorer offers a comprehensive overview of a keyword, including its keyword difficulty score, search volume, and traffic potential. It also suggests related terms and variations, including questions people ask, to help you expand your content strategy.

Semrush's Keyword Magic Tool, on the other hand, provides a full spectrum of insights from organic search data to paid advertising competition. It categorizes keywords by user intent and shows the average cost for advertisers bidding on the term.

Both tools offer SERP analysis, including metrics such as page authority score, referring domains, and backlinks. Ahrefs' SERP analysis also includes a calendar for accessing historical SERP data.

Rank tracking is another essential feature of both Ahrefs and Semrush. Ahrefs' Rank Tracker allows you to add a project and track rankings for specific keywords on specific websites, including competitor tracking and location- or device-based rankings.

Semrush's rank tracking data is roughly the same as Ahrefs', with similar features and accuracy. However, Ahrefs' rank tracker has a cleaner UI, making it easier to quickly see important information.

In terms of content marketing features, Semrush offers a more comprehensive set of tools, including a topic research tool, content templates, an AI writing assistant, and an on-page SEO checker. Ahrefs is catching up with its Content Explorer feature, which lets you discover and analyze top-performing content in your niche.

Ahrefs and Semrush both offer a range of pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets. Ahrefs has four plans: Starter at $29/month, Lite at $129/month, Standard at $249/month, and Advanced at $449/month, with Enterprise plan available at custom pricing. Semrush offers four plans as well: Pro at $139.95/month, Guru at $249.95/month, Business at $499.95/month, and Custom plan available at negotiable pricing.

Both Ahrefs and Semrush offer discounted pricing for annual billing, which can save you up to 20% off the monthly prices. For example, Ahrefs' Standard plan costs $179/month, but with annual billing, it's $82/month. Semrush' Pro plan costs $139.95/month, but with annual billing, it's $83/month.

Here's a comparison of the two tools' pricing plans:

It's worth noting that both tools offer a free trial period, but Ahrefs doesn't provide a free trial in the classical sense, while Semrush offers a 14-day free trial for its Guru plan.

Ahrefs and Semrush offer a range of pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets.

Ahrefs has four plans: Starter ($29/month), Lite ($129/month), Standard ($249/month), and Advanced ($449/month), with Enterprise offering custom pricing. Semrush also has four plans: Pro ($139.95/month), Guru ($249.95/month), Business ($499.95/month), and Custom (negotiable).

Both Ahrefs and Semrush provide a free trial period to test their services before committing to a paid plan. Ahrefs offers a 7-day money-back guarantee, while Semrush has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Paying annually can save you money on both Ahrefs and Semrush. Ahrefs' prices drop by 20% when billed annually, while Semrush's prices decrease by a similar amount.

Here are the prices for Ahrefs and Semrush when billed annually:

Keep in mind that the Lite plan on Ahrefs has some limitations, such as only seeing keyword positions up to position 20 and not being able to see recent or historical index data.

If you're considering signing up for Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush, you might be wondering if there's a free trial available to test the waters.

Moz and Semrush do offer free trials, but Ahrefs doesn't provide one. However, Ahrefs does offer free access to some limited versions of its tools.

Moz's trial is more generous, lasting 30 days, while Semrush's trial lasts just seven days. However, Semrush occasionally makes longer trials available, so it's worth keeping an eye on their website.

Here's a quick rundown of the free trial options:

When comparing customer support and API access between Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz, it's clear that Semrush stands out in both areas.

Semrush offers the most comprehensive support channels, including phone, email, and live chat, whereas Ahrefs and Moz only offer live chat and email support. Semrush's support materials are also available in 14 languages, giving it an edge in terms of accessibility.

Moz offers the cheapest API access, with prices starting at $5 per month for 750 API rows. Ahrefs, on the other hand, only provides API access on its 'Enterprise' plan, which costs between $500 and $10,000 per month, and gives you access to 2m API calls. Semrush requires a custom quote for its API access, which can be confusing and expensive.

Here's a quick comparison of the three platforms' API access options:

Semrush offers the most channels for customer support, providing customer service via phone, email, and live chat.

Ahrefs and Moz's support is more limited, restricted to live chat and email only.

Semrush's online support material is available in 14 languages, making it more accessible to a global audience.

Ahrefs and Moz's online support material is only available in English.

Semrush's comprehensive support makes it stand out from the competition.

API access can be a game-changer for businesses and individuals who need to import SEO data into custom dashboards and reports, or incorporate it into their own applications.

Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz all permit API access, but this comes at a price.

Ahrefs only provides API access by default on its 'Enterprise' plan, which gives you access to 2m API calls, but you can also buy API subscriptions from Ahrefs, which cost between $500 and $10,000 per month.

Semrush provides API access on its $499.95+ 'Business' plan, but you then have to purchase 'API units' separately to use the API.

Moz doesn’t bundle API access with its plans, but instead charges you additional fees of between $5 and $10,000 per month to use its API.

The cheapest option for API access is Moz, which starts at just $5 per month for 750 API rows, making it a great choice for those on a budget.

Here's a comparison of the API access costs for each tool:

Overall, if you need API access, it's worth doing your research to find the option that best fits your budget and data needs.

Choosing the right tool depends on your needs, and both Semrush and Ahrefs have their strengths. Semrush offers Search Intent information, which Ahrefs lacks.

If you're looking for a tool with a larger keyword database, Semrush is the way to go. With 25.3 billion keywords compared to Ahrefs' 9.5 billion, you'll have more data to work with. Semrush also offers more results per search (10,000 vs. 2,500) and more monthly export rows (900,000 vs. 500,000).

Ahrefs, on the other hand, is more cost-effective in its first three plans. However, its high-end enterprise plan is twice as costly as Semrush's. If historical data isn't a requirement, Semrush's Pro plan is a better value than Ahrefs' Lite plan.

Here's a quick summary of the key differences:

Ultimately, the choice between Semrush and Ahrefs comes down to your specific needs.