SEO

Ahrefs

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. · ahrefs.com

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The In-House SEO Lead v1.0 · The Agency Owner v1.0 · The Technical SEO v1.0 · The Content Strategist v1.0 · The Data Analyst v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v1 · evaluated 5 Oct 2026

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Skeptic

Weighted verdict

Knows every vendor claims the largest index and the most accurate rankings, and that no buyer can check either. Reads instead for what can be held to: refresh frequency, stated limits, credit costs per endpoint, and what the invoice does when the team adds a seat.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Skeptic

Crawling & technical audit

How this is scored

Site crawling at real scale: what the crawler finds, how deeply it checks, whether Core Web Vitals and indexation problems are diagnosed rather than merely listed.

0 — No site crawler; the product is keyword data only.

3 — A crawler with a low page cap that reports broken links and missing tags, with no prioritisation and no rendering of JavaScript.

5 — Scheduled crawls at a stated page limit, JavaScript rendering, issue categories with severity, and Core Web Vitals pulled per template.

8 — Log-file or Search Console integration to compare what the crawler sees against what Google fetched, indexation and canonical diagnosis, structured-data validation, and issues prioritised by traffic impact rather than count.

10 — The audit is diagnostic rather than a list: crawl budget analysed, rendering differences surfaced, regressions detected between crawls with the deploy that caused them inferrable, and remediation guidance specific enough for a developer ticket.

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The Skeptic

A dedicated crawler with scheduled crawls, user-set limits, regex scoping and a JavaScript execution toggle is documented, and the crawl-credit mechanics are stated down to which HTTP status consumes them — limits I can hold a vendor to. What the captured pages don't show is issue categories with severity prioritisation, Core Web Vitals per template, or any log-file and Search Console comparison; the speed check runs through PageSpeed Insights only if you supply your own Google API key. 4 12 9

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Keyword research & content guidance

How this is scored

Keyword discovery, intent classification, SERP feature analysis and on-page guidance — judged on the depth of the German-language data as much as the English.

0 — A keyword list with volumes from one source and no intent or difficulty signal.

3 — Volume and difficulty for major markets, with thin or stale German data and no SERP feature detail.

5 — Keyword research with volume, difficulty and intent across German and other EU markets, SERP feature presence, and basic on-page recommendations.

8 — Topic clustering, competitor gap analysis, SERP composition tracked over time, content briefs with entity coverage, and cannibalisation detection.

10 — Research and guidance close the loop: opportunity sized against realistic traffic, content scored against what currently ranks rather than against a keyword density heuristic, and recommendations that reference the specific pages in the customer's own site.

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The Skeptic

Volume, difficulty and intent filtering are documented, and seventeen SERP features are tracked with position tracking for those carrying URLs — more checkable detail than most vendors publish. But we found no public information on German-language data depth, topic clustering, content briefs or cannibalisation detection, so this reads as keyword research without the guidance layer. 6 7

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Rank tracking & index quality

How this is scored

The proprietary data: ranking accuracy and frequency, backlink index size and freshness. Scored on what the vendor documents about their own data, because nothing here can be verified from outside.

0 — Rankings and backlinks with no stated update frequency, no country or device granularity, and no documentation of how either is collected.

3 — Weekly rankings for one country and device, a backlink index with no stated refresh cadence or size.

5 — Daily rankings with country, language and device selection, local results, and a backlink index with a documented crawl frequency.

8 — Rankings at stated frequency across many locations including city-level, SERP feature attribution, backlink index size and refresh published, lost-and-found link detection, and historical data retained for the life of the account.

10 — The vendor is accountable for their own data: methodology documented, index size and freshness published and updated, historical rankings retained and exportable in full, and discrepancies against Search Console explained rather than hidden.

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The Skeptic

The freshness statements are unusually holdable: fresh index data every 15–30 minutes, a complete database refresh of about two months, and crawl priority explained through their own metrics. We found no public information on a published index size, ranking frequency, country or device granularity, or historical retention — the only history statement is unlimited historical data reserved for the Enterprise plan. 8 9 2

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Reporting, integrations & API

How this is scored

Getting the data out and in front of someone: dashboards, white-label reporting for agencies, Search Console and analytics integration, and an API a team can build on.

0 — On-screen views only; export is a manual CSV and there is no API.

3 — Scheduled PDF reports and CSV export, one analytics integration, no API worth building against.

5 — Customisable dashboards, scheduled reports, Search Console and analytics integration, and a documented API with stated limits.

8 — White-label reporting with client access, data-warehouse or BigQuery export, multi-site and multi-client management, and an API with credit costs published per endpoint.

10 — The tool is a data source rather than a destination: full historical export in open formats, a versioned API with a deprecation policy, integrations the vendor maintains, and reporting an agency can hand a client unedited.

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The Skeptic

A versioned API (3.0.0) is documented and the built-in assistant runs API queries and generates exports, which is a foundation a team could build on. But the vendor's own help pages state that white-labelling reports is not allowed, and we found no public information on API limits or credit costs per endpoint, Search Console or analytics integrations, or scheduled reporting. 11 10 1 2

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Data portability & exit

How this is scored

Whether the ranking and crawl history — the only thing a multi-year subscription actually accumulates — remains the customer's when they leave.

0 — No bulk export; history is visible in the interface and nowhere else, and ends with the subscription.

3 — CSV export of current views only, with historical data capped or unavailable in bulk.

5 — Bulk export of rankings, keywords and crawl results including history, via interface or API.

8 — Complete historical export in open formats without credit metering that prices it out of reach, plus a documented retention period after cancellation.

10 — Exit is designed for: the full account exportable including every historical data point, API access sufficient to mirror the data continuously, and a stated grace period during which the archive remains retrievable.

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The Skeptic

Exports exist through the interface and the built-in assistant, and an API is documented, but nothing captured shows bulk export of historical rankings or crawl results in open formats. Unlimited historical data is an Enterprise-plan feature, so history below it is capped, and we found no public information on retention or any grace period after cancellation. 12 2 11

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the account and crawl data live and who the contracting entity is. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted lower here than in categories holding personal data, because an SEO tool mostly holds the customer's own strategy rather than their customers' identities.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and site or user data of unclear scope leaving the EU.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published, and any analytics or Search Console data handling described with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a DPA that covers the crawl and analytics data the tool ingests.

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The Skeptic

The contracting entity is Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, with a US arm and a US-specific data processing addendum, and we found no public information on hosting location or data residency. The one checkable disclosure is a published sub-processor list with services and locations; everything else about where the data sits is unstated. 3

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

The category where the headline price is least often the invoice. Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost including keyword limits, crawl credits, API units, extra users and client seats — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A monthly headline exists, but keyword limits, crawl credits or the cost of an additional user are unstated — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Tier prices public with the main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (extra seats, API credits, historical data) is unpriced or metered opaquely.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with keyword, crawl and API limits, overage rates, per-seat costs, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given keyword count, crawl volume, API usage and team size, with overage and every credit cost published.

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The Skeptic

Every tier carries a public monthly price from € 27 /mo up to € 1,394 /mo with the annual discount stated, which is more than most vendors show. But the invoice is not computable: additional users are described with plan-specific credit limits and no price, Starter and Lite are credit-metered without stated credit amounts, and we found no public information on VAT treatment — only the Enterprise plan states its annual commitment. 2 12

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Ownership	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Data residency	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Subprocessors	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 2 Sep 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Legal entity. Not confirmed on the vendor’s own pages as captured.
AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

We could not confirm any compliance information on the vendor’s own pages as captured, so this page shows none rather than a statement we cannot stand behind. Know more? Tell us
127 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
122 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
26 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
21 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
9 data facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
7 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
2 hosting facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 sovereignty dimension could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and is shown as unknown. Know more? Tell us

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Sources (12)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Vendor homepage ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 +3 earlier captures: 2 Sep 2026, 2 Sep 2026, 2 Sep 2026 Details →
2 Pricing ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 +4 earlier captures: 11 Sep 2026, 2 Sep 2026, 2 Sep 2026, 2 Sep 2026 Details →
3 Legal notice ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
4 Crawling & technical audit — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
5 Crawling & technical audit — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
6 Keyword research & content guidance — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
7 Keyword research & content guidance — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
8 Rank tracking & index quality — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
9 Rank tracking & index quality — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
10 Reporting, integrations & API — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
11 Data portability & exit — found from sitemap docs.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
12 Data portability & exit — found from sitemap help.ahrefs.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →