Note: This article is intended primarily for users on an Enterprise plan as Access control features are only available to them. In this article, we refer to projects, folders and other resources as objects.
Access control features help you to control what users can do within your workspace. Use Access levels, User roles, and Share settings to define user access.
Note that regardless of Access control features, any workspace user can use discovery tools such as Site Explorer or Keywords Explorer with their targets of choice.
Access levels
Access levels determine which workspace settings and objects individual users can access.
Guest: Can only view objects explicitly shared with them.
Member: Can view and edit objects explicitly shared with them, plus objects shared with the "All workspace members" group. They can also create new objects.
Admin: Can view and edit all objects in the workspace and manage workspace settings, subscriptions, and users.
Owner: has the same permissions as Admin. This level is automatically assigned to the person who initially registered for the account, and cannot be changed from within Ahrefs.
A user’s access level must be defined when inviting them to the workspace. This level can be changed at any time from Account settings > Members.
User roles
User roles define users’ permissions in regards to a particular object. For now, there are only two user roles. The Viewer role will be coming soon.
Editors: Can change object settings and shared access.
Object owners: Can also transfer ownership and delete the object.
Note: There is no separate Viewer role. All Guest users are automatically limited to viewing only, while Members can edit objects they have access to. Users with the Owner and Admin access levels are granted the same permissions as object owners, which allows them to change object owners and delete objects.
Share settings
Share settings allow you to manage access to a particular object. An object can be:
Private – only the Object owner has access to the object.
Shared with “All workspace members” group – all users with the Member access level have access to the object.
Shared with individual people – only certain people invited to your workspace will have the project on their dashboard and can access it.
To access Share settings, click on the Share button on the right side of a project card or on the right side of the header for folders.
Sharing objects with Guests
Note that in order to share a project or a folder with a user who has the Guest access level, they must be explicitly added to the “Shared with” list. This is true even if the object is shared with the “All workspace members” group, because Guests are not included in that group.
Admin view settings
Note that regardless of Share settings, users with the Owner and Admin access level can view and access all workspace objects, including private ones, from their Dashboard by changing their Admin view settings.
Folders and inherited access
You can use folders to organize your projects. Note that when you share a folder with someone in your workspace, all projects and sub-folders nested in that folder automatically inherit their share settings from its parent.
Search history
Search history is shared between all Members, Admins, and Owners in your workspace. Guests do not have access to search history. We have plans to introduce further Access control features for search history in the future.