Measuring traffic volume of any site is the basic parameter of checking authority of a website. Every SEO Professional Wants to gain maximum traffic to his website. In this race of traffic, SEO professionals put their best efforts to win this race. SEMrush and Ahrefs are two basic and most frequently used tools to check and analyze the overall performance of a website. The most common feature which you can get from SEMrush and Ahrefs is the traffic parameter. SEMrush and Ahrefs show a certain amount of traffic for every website. But the question is either the traffic shown be these two tools is authentic or not? So in this article we will cover the discussion that either the traffic and volume shown by SEMrush and Ahrefs is fake or not. For this we will understand how does Ahrefs and SEMrush work.
How does Ahrefs and SEMrush Work?
Ahrefs and SEMrush Uses their own crawlers and methods to analyze the performance of website. Both tools show the readings of key features like traffic, volume, keyword data and many more. It relates the number of searches on keyword to the actual volume of the traffic on any site. Both tools rely on the search behavior of the keyword in order to decide the flow of traffic on a site.
Estimation Method
Estimation method of Ahrefs and SEMrush is keyword data based. Both tools decide the traffic number on the basis of ranking position of the website for some top keywords. Ahrefs and SEMrush algorithm works on the set algorithm that high rankings mean high number of CTR. So, any website which will be ranking at top of the research pages Ahrefs and SEMrush will give that site maximum share of traffic from the total volume of the keyword.
What is the Drawback associated with Traffic shown in Ahrefs and SEMrush?
Although Ahrefs and SEMrush shows traffic on the basis of ranking and keywords record. But their metrics are far away from real user data record.
It is a fact that SEMrush and Ahrefs rely on proxies to count the traffic of a website. There is no algorithm for actual user data interaction in both tools. On the other hand, Google Analytics is true data collector which shows the traffic number by tracking real user activity record. Due to proxies’ approach Ahrefs and SEMrush are failed to access to internal traffic of website and cannot provide precise insights information.
Ahrefs and SEMrush uses third party click streams and its own crawlers rather than Google Analytics. That is why their information is estimation based and often provides incomplete or inaccurate information of traffic distribution. Both Tools uses sample of internet traffic and their traffic shown is not actual representation of traffic which it receives through google console. For an old website this inaccuracy increases over the period and can lead to misleading results.
- Misleading Keyword Focus and Ignoring Branded Keyword
This is the most concerning issue with both SEMrush and Ahrefs that their keywords are often misleading and are called glitch keywords. There are many websites on google whose major traffic comes from social media, referrals, and direct visitors but Ahrefs and SEMrush will only show the traffic on the basis of keywords rankings and positioning. So, these tools give undue credit and importance to some keywords which are not that much important in reality.
Furthermore, the keywords shown in SEMrush are often misleading which means they do not have actually any existence, record and meaning in real world but SEMrush picks up such misleading keywords and give a major part of traffic to these keywords which is really misleading to SEO professionals. On the other hand Ahrefs and SEMrush regularly ignores branded keywords, branded keywords are those keywords which often drive major amount of traffic but these tools do not report them. This is why the traffic and volume shown in these tools is often inaccurate.
Regional and Linguistic Limitations.
Another major drawback associated with Ahrefs and SEMrush is that both tools primarily focus on English-Speaking countries. You can find traffic of website which is coming from the countries like UK, USA, CANADA and similar regions. There is no data available for traffic coming from non-English countries. This phenomenon is responsible for inaccurate estimation of traffic for all websites. The user fails to get global feedback of his audience and remains limited to few countries.
- No Feedback of User Behavior
Having information of user behavior is very important for every SEO Professional. Another drawback associated with Ahrefs and SEMrush is the no insightful information of user behavior and experience. User Behavior is a complex thing, it is a combination of different parameters including bounce rate, time spent on different pages, reviews and recommendations. Unfortunately, Ahrefs and SEMrush do not provide insightful information and there is no update for user’s intent and feedback. This is why it is considered that Ahrefs and SEMrush do not provide real-time information and data of traffic for a website.
Underreporting of New Niche Websites
It is very unnoticed drawback of Ahrefs and SEMrush that they rank websites and keyword for some few categories. As there are only four major categories of intents in keywords namely informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. Any keyword or website having niche out of these niches will not be notified and covered through these tools. That is why these two tools do not report data about new websites that falls in new niches.
