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Site Explorer
Tutorials, FAQs and best practices with our Site Explorer tool
+7
102 articles in this collection
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs],
Anna,
Helen
and 7 others
Terminology
What do the modes for analysis *.domain/*, domain/*, Prefix and URL mean?
Find out what the modes mean on Ahrefs and how to effectively use them when adding a URL or domain.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
What are broken backlinks?
Find out what the broken backlinks are and how you can fix them
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What is Ahrefs Rank (AR)?
Find out what Ahrefs Rank is and how it is calculated.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What are broken links?
Find out what broken links are and how to fix them.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What is Domain Rating (DR)?
Find out what Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) is and how it is calculated.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What is URL Rating (UR)?
Find out what URL Rating (UR) is and how it is calculated
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What are organic keywords?
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What are Live, Recent and Historical links?
Find out what are Live, Recent and Historical links and the difference between them.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
What’s the Difference Between Referring Domains and Backlinks?
Backlinks and referring domains are similar, but not exactly the same.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
What is the URL rating distribution graph?
Find out what the URL rating distribution is in Site Explorer.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What data is the Organic Traffic chart pulling?
Find out more about the Organic Traffic chart in the Organic Search section of Site Explorer Overview
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
What is Traffic value in Site Explorer?
Learn more about the organic and paid traffic value metrics in Site Explorer
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
What data is the Organic positions heatmap chart pulling?
Find out more about the Organic positions heatmap in the Organic Search section of Site Explorer Overview.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
What is Organic Traffic in Ahrefs and how do we calculate it?
Find out what the Organic Traffic metric is and how accurate it is.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What does CTLDs Distribution stand for?
Learn more about the CTLDs Distribution map in the Overview section of Site Explorer
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What are SERP features?
Find out what SERP features are, and discover all the SERP features that can be seen for keywords of your target site analysed at Ahrefs.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What are Linked Domains?
Find out what Linked Domains are in Site Explorer and Batch Analysis.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
What does "Page is not currently in our index" mean?
Find out what Page is not currently in our index" means.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
What does "There are no results in our index for the specified domain/URL" mean in Site Explorer?
Find out what There are no results in our index for the specified domain/URL" means.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What do the different social metrics stand for in the Top Content report in Site Explorer?
Find out what the individual numbers mean for Twitter and Pinterest in Site Explorer (as well as Content Explorer)
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What are "Dropped" links?
Ahrefs reports a backlink as dropped, but I can still see it on the page. Why?
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
Why do I see backlinks in the New Backlinks report labelled as "Delayed"?
Find out what "Delayed" backlinks mean
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
What is Disavow functionality at Ahrefs used for?
Discover how helpful Ahrefs Disavow Links integration can be.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
What are canonical URLs?
Find out what canonical URLs are and how to find them in Ahrefs.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
What are Redirect Chains?
Find out what redirect chains are.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
Crawling
How do I control your Bot's crawling behaviour?
Find out how you can control AhrefsBot's behaviour on your website.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
How long does it take for my site to be removed from Ahrefs?
Find out what happens after you have blocked AhrefsBot in robots.txt
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
How long does it take for Ahrefs to find my new backlink?
I have gained a backlink some time ago, but Ahrefs hasn’t indexed it yet. When will I be able to see a new backlink in my backlink profile?
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why doesn't Ahrefs crawl or index my website fully?
What do "We don't currently have any pages for that target in our index" / No Data / No Results / "Page is not currently in our index" mean?
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
How do I enable Ahrefs' bot to crawl my website and index its pages?
Find out why the pages of your website are not crawled or indexed.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
Can I submit links for Ahrefs to crawl or ping your service to get links indexed faster?
Find out why it isn't possible to manually submit a URL or XML sitemap for an on-demand indexing of your site.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Does Ahrefs clean its database from spammy subdomains from time to time?
Find out if Ahrefs cleans its database of links.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How do I see all the pages that have been crawled by Ahrefs?
Find out where to find the list of pages that have been added to Ahrefs' index.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Tutorials
What makes a high-quality backlink?
Find out how to make a high-quality backlink.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Introducing the new position history graph in Organic Keywords 2.0
A quick walkthrough of the new features in the upgraded position history graph.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
Monthly search volume vs Average search volume
Please, read on to find out what the difference is and what data is used by default in Ahrefs reports
Written by
Yulia Pass
Updated over a week ago
How do I see historical SERPs?
Find out how and where to see SERPs dating back in time.
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
How can I check broken outbound links of my website?
Learn how to check broken outbound links of the website.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
How the "Group similar links" filter in the Backlinks report works
Find out how "group similar links" filter within the Backlinks report in Site Explorer works.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why do I see different amount of new/lost backlinks on the same day with corresponding reports of Site Explorer?
If you happened to get different number of new/lost backlinks reported for the same day using different filtering options, here's why.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Is there an accurate way to detect spammy backlinks?
Find out if there is an accurate way to detect spammy backlinks.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
How the "Platform" filter in Site Explorer works
Find out how to use the "Platform" filter and what each Platform mean in Site Explorer's 'Backlinks' and 'Best by Links' reports
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
How the "Link type" filter in Site Explorer works
Find out how to use the "Link Type" filter and what each Link Type mean in Site Explorer's 'Backlinks' report
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How the "SERP features" filter work
Find out how Ahrefs' "SERP features" filter work in Site Explorer and Rank Tracker.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How to see inbound and outbound links for your site
See links pointing to your site and links from your site pointing to other sites
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
Understanding "link lost" reasons
Find out the reasons behind links that are reported "lost" on your "lost links" report (and how to get them back)
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How to check if your domain is ranking in any SERP features
Find out how to see if your site is ranking in any SERP features.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
How to see a site's backlinks history beyond the predefined 60 days
Find out how to see your backlinks history in the New/Lost/Broken report.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
How to monitor recent ranking changes in Site Explorer
Monitor recent ranking changes in Movements Report
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
How to upload a disavowed links file in Ahrefs Site Explorer
Find out how to upload disavowed links onto Site Explorer.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
How to check pages for HTTP status codes in Site Explorer
Where to look for pages' http response codes in Site Explorer
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
How to find the backlinks identified by Ahrefs on the target page
Find out how you can check whether backlinks found by Ahrefs is on a website.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How to create a Site Explorer report in PDF format
Find out how to create reports from Ahrefs Site Explorer.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
FAQs & Troubleshooting
Why did my Ahrefs Rank drop if I haven’t lost any links?
Find out why there was a drop in your Ahrefs Rank.
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
My website is gaining organic keywords, but losing search traffic. How come?
Read on to find any possible reasons for losing traffic keeping the same or higher amount of organic keywords
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Why has there been a drop in my Domain Rating (DR) recently? Did your crawl algorithm change?
Find out the reasons behind a drop in your website's Domain Rating (DR).
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
Why Ahrefs is showing title and data from another website for my site?
Find out what to do if you see a wrong title for your website in Site Explorer
Written by
George Dolgikh
Updated over a week ago
My competitor doesn't have links from high-DR sites, so why are his DR and Ahrefs Rank higher than mine?
Find out why your competitor has a higher DR than you.
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
Is there a way to see the change in my website’s Domain Rating?
Find out how to check the change in your DR
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
Why is a page's UR higher than the DR?
Find out why you can have a page that has a high UR but low DR
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Does a low DR mean that the website is spammy?
Find out if you can determine if a site is spammy from its DR.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
How do SEO spiders crawl the web?
Learn how SEO spiders crawl the web.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why is the UR (URL Rating) for a URL with and without slash ("/") different?
Find out why the UR differs for URLs with slash and without slash.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Why does my domain show a number for UR and DR despite having 0 backlinks or referring domains?
Find out why we show a numerical value for DR/UR even though the domain has 0 referring domains or backlinks.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why do I see different results for www.domain.com and domain.com?
Find out why results differ for URLs with www and non-www.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
How does Ahrefs estimate CTR when calculating search traffic?
Find out about the model we use to estimate CTR in the calculation of search traffic.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why do I see a decrease in my Referring pages graph despite an increase in my Referring Domains graph?
Find out why there may be a drop in referring pages even though the number of referring domains have increased.
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
Is Organic Traffic a monthly figure (based on past 30 days)?
Find out whether Organic Traffic is a monthly figure (based on past 30 days) or an average monthly figure (based on the last 12 months)?
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why can't I see the organic keywords sites like YouTube/Amazon/Reddit are ranking for?
Find out why you are unable to check what organic keywords Amazon, YouTube and other large sites are ranking for.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Does Ahrefs have a spam score, or something similar?
Find out if Ahrefs has a spam score, and how you can check your backlinks for spam
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why is my backlink marked as "broken redirect" if it works?
Find out the reason why your link can be lost as "broken redirect" while being fully functional.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Can I see the ranking history of a given keyword?
Find out how you can see the ranking history of the keywords important to you
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
Why do links from LinkedIn, Slideshare, Quora and PDF files not appear in Ahrefs' backlinks report?
Find out why Ahrefs does not index links from LinkedIn, Slideshare, Quora and PDF files.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why am I getting slightly different results in Ahrefs vs the exported file for large sites?
Find out why results may differ for Ahrefs and the exported file.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
Why is the number of referring domains on my dashboard different from the Site Explorer Overview?
Find out why the number of referring domains differs from your dashboard and your referring domains report
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why is a page not in the "Top Content" report in Site Explorer?
Find out why some pages are missing from the “Top Content” report in Site Explorer.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Why don't the ranking positions in Site Explorer match those I see in Google?
Find out why there is a discrepancy between what you see in Google SERPs and Site Explorer.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why is my disavow file not displaying correctly?
Fixing common issues with uploading disavow files
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
Why does a website have more referring IPs than referring domains?
Find out why a website can have more referring IPs than domains.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
Why is a 'Captcha' title tag shown in my Site Explorer?
Find out why a Captcha message is shown instead of your title tag.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
My keywords are ranking but it shows as 'Lost' in the Movements report
See the reasons why you may see keywords reported as Lost in Site Explorer's Keyword Movements report, but ranking in Google
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
For some keywords, I see the Positions in Organic Keywords have not been updated for a long time. Can they be updated more often?
Find out why some keywords are not updated as frequently.
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
Why does Ahrefs report a backlink as “Lost” if I still see it on a page?
Find out why a link is "lost" even though it's still on the page.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why is there a 'spike' in Referring Domains in 2013?
Find out why there is a spike in RDs in 2013.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
How come the sum of all anchors percentage in Anchors is >100%
Read on to learn how anchors percentage is calculated.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
When exporting a file, why is the "Full export" option greyed out?
Find out how many backlinks/domains you can export
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Why don't the organic traffic numbers reported by Ahrefs match those I see in Google Analytics?
Find out why there is a discrepancy between what you see in Ahrefs and Google Analytics.
Written by
Anna
Updated over a week ago
Why does organic traffic exist on the graph for my website when it is not in existence before Dec 2016?
Find out the reason why the organic traffic graph reflects traffic before Dec 2016, even if your website was not in existence yet.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why are there jagged lines in the Referring Pages graph?
Find out why some graphs of Referring Pages on the Overview of Site Explorer exhibit jagged lines.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why do the numbers under the "Platform" filter not add up?
Find out the reason why the numbers under the "Platforms" categories in Backlinks report of Site Explorer do not add up.
Written by
Helen
Updated over a week ago
I can't seem to locate the "Hide disavowed links" button. How do I enable it?
Find out the plan required for using the disavow function and how to enable it on Ahrefs.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Do I still need to do something with Google Webmaster Tools even after I disavow spam domains in Ahrefs?
Find out what actions you need to take after disavowing spam domains in Ahrefs.
Written by
Tim Soulo [Ahrefs]
Updated over a week ago
Why is there a discrepancy between the number of disavowed links shown on the Dashboard and the Disavow Links page?
Find out what the number of disavowed links shown on Dashboard mean
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Why are some anchors missing in my report?
You are doing a manual check and see that a certain anchor is missing from Ahrefs report? Find out what may be causing this
Written by
Rebekah
Updated over a week ago
Why are some keywords not shown on your paid keywords (PPC) report?
Find out why certain paid keywords are not shown on our paid keywords (PPC) report.
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
What is the relationship between paid keywords and paid traffic value?
Find out the difference between paid keywords and paid traffic value
Written by
Si Quan Ong
Updated over a week ago
Why do I see an [Empty Title] in the Best by links growth report?
Understand the possible reasons for [Empty Title] in the Best by links report in Site Explorer
Written by
Dania
Updated over a week ago
Best Practices
Is there a way to compare a few websites to see what referring domains my competitors have that I am missing?
Find out how to use Link Intersect to compare a few websites to see Referring Domains.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
How can I check organic search traffic of sites I don't own?
Find out how to check the organic search traffic of sites you don't own.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Do search engines use domain authority/domain rating as a ranking factor?
If search engines use Domain Rating as an important ranking factor, why doesn’t Ahrefs include it to the ranking difficulty score?
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago
Noreferrer / noopener / nofollow attributes
Find out what noreferrer, noopener, nofollow attributes are and if they affect your SEO performance
Written by
Erik
Updated over a week ago
How do I find out what keywords a website is ranking for?
Learn how to find out what keywords a website is ranking for in Google top 100.
Written by
May
Updated over a week ago