Build my stack Key takeaways
- Ahrefs wins on backlink data quality and keyword difficulty accuracy.
- Semrush wins on breadth: PPC data, social tracking, content toolkit.
- Ahrefs found 23% more referring domains in our 90-day test.
These two dominate the SEO conversation for good reason. Both are excellent. But excellent at slightly different things.
Backlink data: Ahrefs finds more, faster
Ahrefs crawled 23 percent more referring domains than Semrush on our test site (2,418 vs 1,967).
Keyword research: Semrush has volume, Ahrefs has intent
Semrush's keyword database is larger (25B vs 19B) but Ahrefs' Traffic Potential metric is more useful for content planning.
Who should pick which
Small team doing only organic SEO: Ahrefs. Agency managing paid and organic: Semrush.
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