Ahrefs is an SEO tool providers. Ahrefs Site Explorer provides a suite of tools including a component for backlink & on-page SEO analysis, online brand mentions tracking, and domain comparison tool for competitor analysis, etc. They refer to themselves as “the largest index of live backlinks.”
$99
per month
Moz Link Explorer
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Link Explorer from Moz is a link building utility, replacing the former Open Site Explorer. Moz describes Link Explorer as a highly accurate link tool that lets users check the backlink profile and Domain Authority of any site.
Moz was acquired by iContact in June, 2021.
$99
per month
SpyFu
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search engine optimization and paid listings management platform touts the ability to lower costs and raise rankings via a Kombat-oriented approach... basically a cute way of saying "it makes comparisons" of how well your site does in niche…
Ahrefs and SpyFu compliment each other. Ahrefs is better for backlinks and overall performance tracking. SpyFu is the leader for keyword analysis, especially with their combat tool. Conductor strives to replace or supplement Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics and build custom …
Owner, Cofounder, and Chief Creative Marketer and Strategist
Chose Ahrefs
Ahrefs is easier to use, their features deliver understandable and logical recommendations, and in my opinion and most importantly — they list parent topics, which is huge when designing/redesigning a website.
We found the user interface of Ahrefs slightly better than the rest. Also, the details involved in the outputs we more informative. For example, once an audit is done, the steps that are involved in fixing that issue are well explained in Ahrefs. Also, I found Ahrefs backlink …
Ahrefs is one of the best platforms available in the market dealing in developing online SEO tools and free educational material for marketing professionals. It has all the best features related to SEO and gives all the performance and analytics based on digital presence.
Sadly we are coming [to] terms that even trough there are more and more options that Ahrefs has they are still incomplete or not working good enough. And the most important options (like frequent updates on rankings) are behind the most expensive membership.
Ahrefs has the best backlink data even compared to funded competitors. On top of that, their analysis and tutorials make it possible to get value easily. Monitoring your website, your competitors, and finding SEO opportunities is very easy and there are some sophisticated …
Web Production Manager Responsible for SEO, Web Design, & Social Media Marketing
Chose Ahrefs
Ahrefs has more features and more accurate data than its competitors. While both Moz and Majestic are great tools and can be used as complimentary to Ahrefs, if you have to choose one tool, definitely choose Ahrefs. It has the biggest database of links and better stats for …
SEMRush is the clear competitor and beats Ahrefs for keyword position tracking and keyword competitive analysis. However, Ahrefs is a clear winner in the quality and timeliness of their backlink database. Both should be used in conjunction.
I like these other softwares too. If you work in an agency you will likely have uses for many different platforms. I do like the way that ahrefs indexes and tracks links more than anything else I have used though. I think it is very effective with competitive research as well.
I think when it comes to keyword tracking, Ahrefs is not as good BrightEdge, but Ahrefs Site Explorer trumps BrightEdge when it comes to anything backlink related. I would use Ahrefs Site Explorer for backlink analysis, identifying 404 error pages, examining anchor texts, and …
This was our internals score based on a bunch of factors. These will obviously vary depending on need: Ahrefs -93 Majestic - 87
Verified User
Supervisor
Chose Ahrefs
Honestly, we use all three of them. The truth is that not one of them is perfect and we want a complete view of a client backlink profile. We really like ahrefs for the price point and the freshness of their index as mentioned earlier. Their interface is not as user friendly as …
Ahrefs is much more comprehensive than Open Site Explorer. If you are in need of a deep backlink analysis there are better options out there for your money. If you need a quick look at the state of a client's backlink profile than OSE is for you. It will give you the top …
Ahrefs is an awesome tool and, I'd say, more in-depth than Open Site Explorer. It tends to give more detailed lists of inbound links. But, we use Open Site Explorer because we use other tools in Moz Pro. We track our domain authority (a Moz concept) and we use the MozBar to …
I think Moz Link Explorer is a great add-on to the overall Moz tool, but compared to Ahrefs, it’s not as robust because Ahrefs' main focus is on the backlink profile. I like SEMRush’s function of being able to reach out to websites directly from the platform and track all of …
Spyfu fails to hit the mark at least when it comes to SEO since both Ahrefs and Semrush has a bigger directory and fetches data from more countries than Spyfu does, however Spyfu offers a great deal when it comes to cost effective solution to almost every digital marketing …
Compared to Semrush or Ahrefs, neither of the competitors stacks up against SpyFu in terms of competitor insight of paid ad performance. It can even identify specific ad copy changes, which can be crucial for high-demand periods like Black Friday. In my opinion, SpyFu is an …
SpyFu is more cost-effective than both (Ahrefs and Semrush), but we have to compromise on the data's accuracy. However, the data reporting and user interface of SpyFu make it easy to decipher. For Paid Ads keyword lookup, we prefer SpyFu to any other tool maybe, because it's …
I use Ahrefs for Site audit, Keyword Research, Backlink analysis, and some parts of competitor analysis. SpyFu I always wanted to keep primary, but it's not doable with the limitation of their database, which forces me to use Ahrefs for that reason.
Verified User
Manager
Chose SpyFu
I've used Semrush as well. Semrush does organic SEO analysis better than SpyFu and backlink research. I find the data more intuitive. I much prefer SpyFu for their advertising/PPC analysis and use SpyFu when researching competitors' advertising campaigns. These are the main two …
SpyFu is a good tool and it certainly provides a good starting point for any basic PPC or SEO campaign. I dont believe it has the comprehensive features that a tool like Ahrefs has, as it doesnt have the granular data these tools possess. However, it is still well worth using …
It's a great little tool that offers pretty much everything you can get from Moz or Semrush at a fraction of the cost. My company uses a few different tools but I always come back to SpyFu because it is so easy to use and their build-in reporting is great.
Personally, the only tool I use as often as SEMRush. If you have the SEMRush paid version, I personally choose to use that over SpyFu. SpyFu is the best free search analytics tool online though. It has the greatest offerings in its free pack and allows you to have the most …
I would say that the above tools each offer their own unique skillset to be able to enhance what we find with SpyFu. For competitive analysis at a low cost point SpyFu really follows through on the promise of delivering actionable competitive insights with additional tools that …
I think that these are both really good products. If you are in an agency there is probably room for both in your budget because you will want to use them with different clients. If you are at a smaller company or a start up I would go with SpyFu. Much more affordable and very …
Ahrefs is a must have in the SEO toolbox. It is one of the leading tools in the industry for serious SEO research. It can do almost everything you need on the non-technical side of SEO. In my opinion, it is not great if you need a detailed technical tool that identifies errors and helps with fix suggestions. In that instance, I think there are better tools on the market. But - for content and keyword related tasks, I think it's must have.
It is helpful if you are trying to understand where a site stands in terms of the links coming to it from different websites. It is less helpful in terms of providing specific actions or steps to take to get more links. However, it is a part of a larger Moz package so other areas provide information that can help there.
If you have a Google ads PPC campaign and then I would say this is more or less essential if you want to know what your competitors are doing. You can get very useful data out of it even if you subscribe for one month. And the pricing is very reasonable. Even if you don't use Google ads, I would say this is still useful for your SEO/SMO team since it gives you a great idea of what keywords and traffic your competitors are working on.
I have been using this platform in my organization to develop several SEO tools to help to grow our website much.
It has all the main features which include competitor research, keyword research, website audit, content research, and rank tracking.
I have been using all these functions in the organization for several purposes. It provides complete information and complete performance details of the SEO.
It provides us the detailed keyword research with volume, CPC, and other information.
Moz Link Explorer has a straightforward and easy to use interface. It’s very simple to navigate and understand the data.
The anchor text tool gives you an idea of the most widely used anchor texts other websites use when linking to your site. It can raise a red flag when too many sites are linking to you using exact match keyword anchor texts.
Can't export graphs: some graphs within the tool would be useful as an export. Unfortunately, exporting them is not an option.
No "blanket" reporting options: though Ahrefs is excellent for gathering and exporting intel/data, there are no blanket SEO reports provided. Exporting data is great, but simple report exporting would make it better.
You need to subscribe to Moz Pro to get all features, which is pricey if you aren’t using the tool regularly.
I’ve found that competitor tools give larger lists of inbound links.
You’ll need some understanding of how SEO works to maximize the tool. Would non-SEO specialists understand the difference between domain authority and page authority, or the difference between follow back, and non-follow backlinks? Moz offers lots of training resources, but it takes time to learn what you need.
Their index is too vast to ignore when looking at a complete backlink profile. We find links in Ahrefs that do not appear in any other link detection tool. For this reason, it's a must for our agency to use for the foreseeable future. Plus, it's very affordable considering the data you get
Love this tool but would like insights from all 3 major search engines not just Google. I would also like deeper understanding of the placement for local businesses on Google Places/Maps. Insight into mobile search rankings and best landing pages per industry would also help :) Overall, SpyFu is a necessity for serious search marketers.
Ahrefs is very easy to use - you can jump right in and understand most of the assets. Overall, the dashboard snapshots give a very good picture of inbound link activity. For deeper analysis of historical trends, the system can become cumbersome, making it hard to do full work without exporting and reformatting the data.
SpyFu is an easy to use tool, and has a self -explanatroy dashborad to generate the data needed to provide insights into any B2B SEO and PPC campaign. It is not comprehensive, but it certainly provides good enough insight to make it a valuable part of any agency tool stack
Ahrefs has always been responsive when there's been a technical issue with the site. There are usually very little problems, but if there are, they announce it on their social media accounts which keeps its customers informed. Email support is prompt and the customer service people are very helpful, knowledgable and friendly.
I put a middling score here because of the difference in support between the free and premium uses. The Free tool was a great service, but there wasn't much support. It was tool that was intended to have a skilled SEO utilize it and save time. The Premium version has great support, but also offered more information so that skilled SEOs and novices alike could benefit from the tool.
SpyFu comes with a link to tutorial videos. I recommend you watch them. The software is capable of so much you really need to watch the videos and learn how to get the most out of it. When I have a question 90% of the time it's there. When it isn't, and I reach out to them, support is always quick and concise.
Majestic and Ahrefs are really close in terms of tool. Ahrefs does offer competitive comparison and they do have a more up to date data base. Majestic however has a more comprehensive historical view of sites which is also extremely valuable. Majestic also offers a link velocity chart that is missing on Ahrefs. Ahrefs makes up for this with their links gained/lost calendar which Majestic is missing.
Ahrefs is much more comprehensive than Open Site Explorer. If you are in need of a deep backlink analysis there are better options out there for your money. If you need a quick look at the state of a client's backlink profile than OSE is for you. It will give you the top metrics you are looking for and then some. I find OSE to be more user-friendly than competitors
I was surprised to find I preferred Semrush when it comes to keyword research. SpyFu is great (and less expensive than Semrush), but I felt the data Semrush provided was vaster than SpyFu. I was able to get more competitors spending insights in Semrush than SpyFu. Overall, I liked the ability to use both in our keyword research for both paid and organic marketing.