How to add a project in your Dashboard

If you are accessing Ahrefs for the first time, this is what you will see after logging in:

Or, if you already have projects created, you have to go to the Dashboard, click on "+ Create".

There are two ways to add projects to your dashboard. Import from GSC, or Add manually:

Method 1: Importing from GSC

By connecting your Google Account, you would be able to easily add any websites that are already verified in Google Search Console. In addition, you'd be able to view GSC performance of all projects at once from your Dashboard, and in Rank Tracker.

Once you've logged in with your Google account, be sure to select all permissions.

Click to select all the websites that you wish to add as verified projects to your Dashboard. You can also set up Site Audit settings for each project on this page:

Once done, click "Import", and all selected projects will be added to your dashboard.

Method 2: Add Manually

Step 1: Setting Project Scope

After you have your domain or URL specified, select the protocol and mode that is suited to your needs. This step is important as selecting an unsuitable protocol or mode can cause you to get very different results.

Find out what the different modes mean.

The Project name would already be pre-filled for you from the URL's title tag, but feel free to amend it as you see fit.

Then click "Continue".

Step 2: Verifying Ownership

You can add an unlimited number of verified projects to your dashboard. Unverified projects are limited based on your subscription plan:

To skip verifying your project's ownership, click "Continue".

Step 3: Site Audit: Schedule, URL Sources and Crawl Settings

Schedule

You may run scheduled crawls with predefined frequency:

URL Sources:

Set the seed URLs that Site Audit will start crawling from:

Crawl Settings:

And set more advanced site audit settings. Read more for setting optimal crawl speed in Site Audit

Step 4: Rank Tracking - Adding keywords to track

Input the keywords and select the location(s) with which you wish to track positions in Google for your project.

Once you're done, click "Continue".

Step 5: Add the Competitors you wish to track for the project [For Rank Tracker tool]

Add in the competitors that you wish to track against your own website for the previous set of keywords that you have entered. You can either pick from the list of pre-populated competitor ideas or input a new one manually. Then click "Finish".

These competitors, together with the keywords in step 4, will be added to the Rank Tracker tool for the purpose of tracking how well these websites rank in the organic search results when compared with your target URL/Domain.

And there you have it - your Dashboard project was created :)