Ahrefs recently made an update on the volume of keywords they track and no one was pleased with that.

Ahrefs has always been notorious for underestimating traffic and now they made it one step worse!

So I figured it’s time for a comparison and I asked the 797 site owners in our database if they could submit a screenshot from Google Search Console (GSC) so we have some real comparison material.

I could write a long story about this but why not let the numbers speak for itself.

Columns explained:

Columns B, D, and F show the monthly traffic per tool.

Column H shows the average, now because SerpStat is a much smaller player than the rest we counted them for half so the average is based on the formula: ((Ahrefs*2) + (Semrush*2) + (SerpStat*1))/5.

Columns C, E, G, and I show the ratios compared to column J where we find the true traffic according to Google Search Console.

In other words we divide column J by column B, D, F or H so if the number shows 1.3 like in cell C2 then it means that the true traffic is 1.3 times higher then what Ahrefs shows (in this case).

At the bottom of the sheet we added up the scores and divided it by the number of rows to get averages.

The results

Ahrefs: they perform worst of all because GSC traffic estimates are on average 4.03 times higher.

Semrush: second best as GSC traffic estimates are only 2.53 times higher.

SerpStat: surprisingly comes out of the winner, they have the tendency to over-estimate a lot and that’s helping them here as GSC is only 1.305 times higher.

Average: I suppose we can adjust our average and allow SerpStat to weigh in full because they come out as the clear winner.

Link to the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fEiEsxnQX_YvVU-S5O5GmF–UhM_SC1ZVjQ6XbQBdSU/edit?usp=sharing