Introduction
Ahrefs Web Analytics is a free, simple, and privacy-friendly solution for monitoring your website's usage. We do not use cookies, collect any personal data, or store any personally identifiable information. If you choose to install our tracker on your website, please be aware that you remain responsible for complying with your own obligations under the applicable Privacy regulations and the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To get started, you need an Ahrefs account and to add our script to your website.
With a free account, you can add as many sites as you want and track up to 1 million page views per month per site. For websites with higher volumes, you’ll have the option to upgrade.
If you have feedback or feature requests, submit them here or contact our support team via live chat or [email protected].
Script installation
To start collecting data from your website, you need to install our script.
For faster page load, we recommend the direct installation of the script into the <head> section of your website. We provide the snippet during the process of adding a new project to your dashboard. For projects already added, you can find the snippet in the project settings.
If you prefer managing scripts with Google Tag Manager (GTM), you can use this method instead. The system will automatically detect GTM on your website and provide a corresponding script. Paste the snippet into the Custom HTML section of GTM, and click the “Recheck installation” button to verify the setup.
What data we collect
Ahrefs Web Analytics shows you aggregated traffic trends for your website without relying on cookies or persistent identifiers. We do not collect or store any personal or identifiable data.
We do not track individuals across their devices, websites, or apps. Each data point is limited to a single device, a single website, and a single day. As a result, it’s impossible to identify if the same person visits your site from multiple devices or visits other websites.
Here’s the full list of what we collect and store about your website visitors.
Page URL
We track the URL of each page view on your website to display which pages have been visited and how many times each page has been viewed.
Referrer
Referrers show the sources driving traffic to your website. Most browsers send the URL of the previous page as the referrer, which we process and store similarly to other URLs (see above).
User agent
We collect and store user agents data to derive information about the operating systems, devices, and browsers people use when visiting your website. We also use user agent data to calculate the number of unique visitors to your website (see below).
Location (country and city)
We identify the visitor’s location using their IP address. We do not track anything more granular than the city level. The raw IP addresses are discarded and never stored in our database or logs.
Language
We collect and store language-related data, specifically the Accept-Language HTTP header and browser language preferences. This data is used to report corresponding statistics.
How we count unique visitors
When visitors access your website, their IP address is included in every HTTP request. We combine the IP address with user agent data and process it using a secure hash function with a random salt that is regenerated every 24 hours:
hash(daily_salt + ip_address + user_agent)
This creates a random string that allows us to calculate unique visitor numbers for each day without storing the original IP address.
The raw IP addresses are never stored in our database or logs. The old salts are deleted every 24 hours, preventing any possibility of tracking a single user outside of the specific day.
Metrics
Here’s an example of the report you'll see in Ahrefs Web Analytics, displaying key metrics and trends.
Visitors: The number of unique people who visited your website.
Visits: A visit is a set of actions a user takes on your site within a single browsing session. It starts when a visitor lands on your page and continues until there is no activity for 30 minutes.
Views: The total number of times a page was loaded by your visitors.
Views per visit: The average number of page views per visit, including repeated views of the same page.
Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors where users leave after viewing only one page. For example, if 100 people visit your site and 50 leave after one page, the bounce rate is 50%.
Time on page: The average time users spend on a page. It’s calculated by measuring the time between viewing one page and moving to another. For example, if someone spends 2 minutes on the homepage before opening another page, the time on the homepage is 2 minutes. Time on the last page of a visit isn’t counted since no other page has been clicked.
How we will use the data collected
No competitor access
Your data will not be accessible by your competitors. Under no circumstances will your competitors or any other unauthorized third parties gain access to your data.
Data studies
From time to time, we may publish studies and reports based on anonymized and aggregated data.
Service improvement
The aggregated data we collect will also be used to improve our services, such as enhancing traffic prediction and traffic estimation models.