Moz was originally founded in 2004 and is currently one of the most popular brands when it comes to SEO tools. It offers a complete suite of SEO tools that help website owners and SEO experts boost their traffic through different features, including keyword research, site audits, rank tracking, link building, page optimization insights, etc. 

It is widely popular among the SEO community for both its paid and free tools. In fact, its metrics are so respected and widely accepted that it has become a vital criterion for analyzing websites. In this review, we will take a close look at Moz Pro's extensive features and run various scans to find out its best and worst offerings. We will also cover its pricing plans, free and paid products, and monitor their usefulness in this detailed guide. So, let’s get started.

• You can sign up to Moz Pro here.

Moz Pro: Plans and pricing

Moz Pro offers various plans to suit different audiences and needs. The standard plan, starting at $99 per month, includes keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking for up to 300 keywords. 

For those businesses who want to boost their SEO game, the Medium plan is available for $179 per month and includes extra perks such as backlink analysis and improved reporting. 

On the higher end, the Large plan is the most comprehensive option, priced at $299 per month. It offers features like on-demand crawl and priority support, making it perfect for advanced SEO users at the enterprise level. 

At last, we have the Premium Plan, suitable for large SEO-focused agencies and in-house marketing teams. It will cost you $599 per month for the most advanced features of the software. 

Additionally, MozPro offers a 20% discount for annual billing, which gives more value to long-term users. And with a 30-day free trial, users can test the platform risk-free before committing to a subscription.

Moz Pro: Features

Keyword Research and Analysis

Moz offers a very in-depth keyword research and analysis feature. With a vast database of over 500 million keyword suggestions and comprehensive metrics like search volume, difficulty score, and SERP analysis, you can effortlessly identify promising keywords for your projects. The platform's Keyword Explorer tool is particularly impressive as it provides valuable insights to steer your SEO strategy. Furthermore, by monitoring keyword rankings over time, you can assess the effectiveness of your strategy and make the necessary changes.

Site Audits and Performance Monitoring

Moz's website checker carefully examines your site, pinpointing problems ranging from major errors to small flaws that can be improved. It looks at crawlability, HTTPS status, and page loading speed and gives you a list of problems ranked by their impact on your site's SEO. The performance tracker keeps an eye on your site's condition and alerts you if a new issue arises. This helps you stay proactive while monitoring your website’s progress.

Backlink Analysis and Link Building

Backlinks are the backbone of SEO, and MozPro's backlink analysis tools are probably among the best in the industry. We've used the platform to find really good opportunities for backlinks and check the strength of our current backlinks. 

You can even use Moz's backlink analysis tools to review your link profile, spot and disavow damaging links, and uncover new link-building chances. Similarly, Link Explorer provides details on the strength and quality of backlinks, helping you create a strong link profile.

Rank Tracking and Reporting

It goes without saying how crucial it is to monitor your website's search engine ranking. Moz Pro stands out in this aspect by providing accurate keyword ranking monitoring, tracking changes over time, and offering valuable insights into your website's visibility and performance. Additionally, Moz’s reporting functionality shines bright with its customization and in-depth metrics. With this, you can create reports focusing on specific keyword groups, time frames, or competitors. 

Moz Pro: Products

Moz Pro

Moz Pro improves keyword research, site audits, and rank tracking. It provides valuable information about backlink profiles and competitor strategies, along with tools for optimizing pages and creating custom reports. With its extensive keyword database, Moz Pro helps you with strategic planning and prioritizing efforts for maximum return on investment. Plus, its useability goes well with both beginners and professionals, thanks to its educational resources and excellent customer support. Overall, as an SEO tool, it boosts your website’s visibility and drives organic traffic with actionable insights and features. 

Moz Local

If you're looking for a tool to manage your local SEO and boost your business's online presence, then Moz Local might be what you need. With this tool, you can create and handle your business listings on Google, Facebook, and other platforms effortlessly. It has many useful features like Continuous Listings Sync, Automatic Duplicate Removal, and Profile Optimization. Moreover, Moz Local offers a Review Management System to track and respond to reviews from one convenient dashboard. It also provides detailed reports and insights to monitor your business's online performance. 

STAT

STAT by Moz helps you stay ahead of your competition. It gives you detailed information about search engine results and lets you track your rankings daily. With STAT, you can monitor an unlimited number of keywords and competitor sites worldwide. Plus, the customizable alerts help you keep up with the latest trends. Starting at $720 per month for 6,000 keywords, STAT might suit agencies dealing with big projects. With that in mind, you should also consider looking at its other features like tracking local and mobile search results, expert support, and an easy-to-use API. 

Moz API

Moz designed this tool specifically to help out the developers, SEO & PR agencies, enterprise marketing teams, app developers, and mergers & acquisitions professionals. It gives you access to Moz's huge index of over 44 trillion links. With this API, you can get all sorts of detailed link data, like a number of linking root domains, anchor texts of URLs, and even the number of followed, unfollowed, and external links. On top of that, the Moz API also delivers smart metrics related to Domain Authority (DA )and Page Authority (PA). These metrics help you figure out the value and ranking potential of a domain or brand. What we love about Moz’s API is that it’s really versatile. You can build SEO or inbound marketing tools, add link metrics to websites, or even gather internal intelligence for making important strategic decisions. 

Moz Data

Moz Data offers a wide range of tools, APIs, and custom solutions to enhance SEO and AI models. It includes a large link index and a growing database of keywords and search engine results (SERPs). Along with that, it provides access to over 45.5 trillion links, 8.7 trillion URLs, and over a billion domains. 

Additionally, Moz Data offers about 1.25 billion monthly keyword volumes and over 800 million keyword suggestions. Pair this with the insights you get into more than 25 billion historical SERPs and 440 million new SERPs each month, and you’re all set to maximise the output. Digital marketers, AI developers, digital PR experts, and  M&A specialists who analyze markets and competitors find such data important for optimizing content and SEO strategies.

Free SEO Products

Moz Pro has a great set of free SEO tools that can help improve different parts of your content strategy. You can use Domain Analysis to see important SEO metrics like Domain Authority and top pages. Plus, you can explore over 1.25 billion keywords with Keyword Explorer to find the right keywords that can bring more traffic to your website. Similarly, Link Explorer gives you access to over 40 trillion links for detailed backlink data. Along with that, the Competitive Research feature helps you understand your competition in organic search. 

Moz offers a range of free tools that can take your SEO game to a whole different level. These tools are top-notch when it comes to analyzing links, tracking rankings, scoring keyword difficulty, optimizing local searches, and much more. Let's take a quick look at the free SEO tools provided by Moz.

• Domain Analysis: Get valuable SEO insights such as Domain Authority (DA), top pages, and more for any domain.
• Keyword Explorer: Discover and prioritize the best keywords for your website using Moz's extensive keyword database.
• Link Explorer: Uncover content and link building opportunities, and compare your site to competitors for effective link building.
• MozBar: A Chrome extension that allows you to analyze search, social, and page metrics of any website you visit.
• My Online Presence: Evaluate how your business appears on local search engines and directories, and enhance it with Moz Local.
• Free Domain Analysis: Instantly access SEO metrics like top pages, ranking keywords, and competitive analysis for any website.
• MozCast: Keep track of Google algorithm changes and monitor day-to-day fluctuations.

Moz Pro: Interface and in-use

Moz Pro's dashboard layout may not be as intuitive as SemRush or Ahrefs, but it still lets you assess website performance and identify areas for improvement quickly. Its Menu offers a wide range of features and options, but it is organized and easy to navigate. When you log in, you will find a customizable dashboard that gives you an overview of your projects, key metrics, and direct access to various SEO tools. Meanwhile, when you set up a new project, Moz provides helpful tips for selecting search engines and keywords.

Moz's suite includes specialized tools for keyword research, link analysis, site audits, and rank tracking, each with a user-friendly interface for managing and analyzing data. Furthermore, it goes on to integrate educational resources into the tool interface, giving you immediate access to learning materials to enhance your SEO strategies.

Moz Pro: Support

Moz offers highly informative resources covering every area of the service. If you’re new to SEO marketing, start with the Beginner’s Guide to SEO. From there, it’s easy to learn more in the SEO Learning Center which has guides available organized around twelve topic areas, or by posting questions in the Moz community which connects you with 500K+ digital marketers.

If you need some more help, you can also contact the support team directly via the help portal through the website. Moz has teams in Seattle and Vancouver, but the hours of operation or the response time is not listed. Unfortunately, there’s currently no option for either direct phone, direct email, or live chat support.

Moz Pro: The competition

With many platforms focused on a certain area of SEO, Moz Pro brings to the table a deep range of functions for keyword and competitor research, SEO crawling, backlink profiles, and more. It’s really one of the most comprehensive services for any company interested in SEO marketing.

Alternatively, this depth does contribute to a steeper learning curve than some others. If you’re new to SEO and especially with relatively small-scale needs, a more targeted and affordable service could be the better option.

Moz Pro: Final verdict

Moz Pro is an excellent SEO tool for businesses looking to enhance their online presence. It offers a wide range of features similar to SpyFu, Majestic, KWFinder, etc. Although softwares like SpyFu may be more user-friendly, Moz Pro stands out with its renowned and valuable metrics, making it a preferred choice for marketers. Plus, its USP is offering many free tools that have created a long-standing reputation of Moz in the SEO industry.   

Majestic SEO offers a suite of SEO tools that focus on backlink analysis. It is widely used for its huge index of the web that lets you explore your websites’ and web pages’ backlink profiles. All these tools are vital for understanding how websites are interconnected through links and can be pivotal in developing SEO strategies.

If you're interested in learning more about Majestic SEO’s features, usability, and impact on SEO results, you've come to the right place. We'll explore its extensive range of functions, evaluate its user-friendly interface, and assess its effectiveness in boosting your website's search engine rankings. Let's get started with our in-depth review of the platform and see if it's the ideal choice for your website.

• You can sign up for Majestic SEO Tools here.

Majestic SEO: Plans and pricing

Majestic pricing tiers starts at the $49.99/month Lite package to a fully-featured API option that can stretch up to $399.99/month, depending on how many search resources you need access to, along with other features. 

Majestic’s Lite plan is offered for individuals or businesses who plan to do a low level of backlink checking. It also gives access to most of the key tools included with the other packages such as a Majestic’s Fresh Index (more on that later), a keyword checker, and lists of referring domains. The Lite package is limited as it comes with just a single user account, and limits you to 5,000 index item units and 1,000,000 analyzable backlinks. On a monthly basis, the Majestic Lite costs $49.99, but the available annual subscription lowers the price to an effective $41.67 per month.

Moving up a tier is the mid-range Pro plan that costs $99.99 per month on a monthly basis and $83.33 per month when paid annually. Although this package still only includes a single user account, it adds plenty additional including an Historic Index, Custom Reports and a Rank Tracker. Pro users also get upgraded resource access including 125,000 index item units, 300 report units and 20 million analyzable backlinks.

At the top of the plans, Majestic’s API plan gives developers access to the underlying code of the Majestic system for integration directly into their own platforms. Prices here start at $399.99 per month for 100 million analysis units, with the option to increase even higher to $1,599.99 per month for 1 billion analysis units, with the same option to pay annually for a discount. Resource limits also get similarly increased, with additional features of Custom Monthly Reports, and the ability to create OpenApps.

Majestic SEO: Features

Let's dive into the key features of Majestic SEO and see what makes it a go-to choice for improving your website's search rankings. 

Site explorer

By using this feature, you can see how well a website is doing with its backlinks. Basically, Site Explorer examines the links, giving detailed reports on the number and quality of backlinks, the variety of linking domains, and their original source. With this feature, understanding how links are set up on your website and your competitors' websites becomes super easy.

Site Explorer also shows how a website's backlink profile has changed over time. This is to help those users who want to track link-building progress and spot trends. Users can even find specific types of links, like educational or government links, which can be super helpful with niche marketing strategies.

Trust Flow and Citation Flow

Trust Flow and Citation Flow are different measurements that evaluate the trustworthiness and impact of web pages based on their inbound links. Trust Flow assesses a page's credibility by examining the caliber of links that direct to it.  It operates on the premise that links from reputable and authoritative sites contribute more positively to a site's trustworthiness than links from lesser-known or potentially dubious sources.

On the contrary, Citation Flow measures a URL's influence by counting the number of sites linked to it. This indicates the popularity of a page based on the number of inbound links, regardless of their quality. While a high Citation Flow can come from links from any site, including low-quality ones, such as third-party movie streaming sites, it can still be harmful if the linking sites have low Trust Flow.

These metrics can work together to boost a page's impact, but calculating them can be a tough task. That’s why accurate measurement and enhancement of Trust and Citation Flow become important for better SERP rankings. Majestic does that for you and calculates these metrics using unique algorithms.

In a nutshell, Citation Flow is determined by the number of links a page receives without considering the link’s quality. Meanwhile, the Trust Flow is influenced by the quality and trustworthiness of the links. In the end, it boils down to understanding and optimizing these metrics for improving a page's search engine ranking and online presence.

Link Context

We were amazed by how this tool examines the content and the context in which these links are placed. By understanding the types of content that link to a site and the context of these links, users can gain insights into how their site is perceived. This also lets users do a detailed evaluation of link quality, as links surrounded by relevant, high-quality content are generally more valuable. It further categorizes links based on their location on the page, such as main content, sidebars, footers, and more. 

Keyword Checker

What sets Majestic's Keyword Checker apart is its integration with the platform's extensive backlink database. This means that users can not only see how popular a keyword is but also how effective it is at attracting quality backlinks and driving web traffic. It gives users a clear picture of which keywords are performing well in real-world situations, helping them optimize their content. On top of that, it also presents different metrics like search volume, frequency of appearance in Majestic's database, and keyword competitiveness.

Plus, the tool also presents insights into how keyword trends have changed over time. This historical context is crucial for adapting to evolving search behaviors and staying competitive. By understanding this factor, you can ensure that your content doesn't lose its relevance and remains effective in reaching its target audience in the long run.

Majestic SEO: Interface and in-use

Majestic SEO's user interface stands out for its clarity and efficiency, making it accessible to users of all skill levels. The design focuses on simplifying the complex data of backlink analysis, ensuring that information is easy to find and understand. Navigation is intuitive, with clear labels and a logical layout that guides users seamlessly through its features.

Whether you're exploring detailed reports or tracking your site's Trust Flow and Citation Flow, the interface minimizes confusion and maximizes productivity. Its dashboard provides a quick overview of key metrics at a glance, while advanced features are just a few clicks away. This balance between depth and usability makes Majestic SEO a user-friendly tool for conducting thorough SEO and backlink analysis without the need for extensive technical knowledge.

While the interface of Majestic SEO is user-friendly and efficient, there's some room for improvement. On top of it, there are occasional inconsistencies in the reporting of link indexing dates, with older links sometimes appearing as newly indexed. Additionally, the backlink history charts offered by Majestic can at times, present confusing data. That said, It remains a dependable option, even with its limitations. It is particularly valuable for professionals looking for thorough backlink analysis. 

Majestic SEO: Support

Majestic makes it easy to get help with a variety of support options. You can find various services to help you navigate efficiently in the Tools section. If you have any questions about your account or billing, Majestic's support team will assist you. Additionally, the FAQs section is updated regularly to provide quick solutions to common issues. There is also a glossary to explain important SEO terms related to Majestic. And for those who prefer visual learning, the “How To” videos section offers helpful tutorials. Along with this, users and developers who use the API pack can access detailed guides in the API Reference Guide to better understand and utilize Majestic's tools. 

Majestic SEO: The competition

The size of Majestic’s link connection database sets it apart from alternative SEO tools such as Serpstat, which is similarly priced, making it likely that Majestic will produce more accurate results when analyzing your site. Majestic also easily beats out more basic SEO tools such as SEO Spider and Yoast SEO which aren’t capable of producing the kind of detailed insights that this product can.

Majestic SEO: Final verdict

Overall, Majestic SEO is a great tool for link analysis. It has a great set of features for SEO experts and website owners to improve their link's profile. Be it the Site Explorer, Backlink Checker, or even the Keyword Checker, it delivers pretty accurate data that is both valuable and super helpful. 

By using all these metrics, you can surely improve your site’s performance, and considering the value it provides, we feel the pricing plans are definitely super value for money.

• We've featured the best online marketing tools here.

SemRush was launched in 2008 by a group of IT and SEO specialists to make the digital competition fair and transparent. And, today it is one of the most popular and powerful platforms used by marketers to grow their website’s traffic and keep up with the SEO industry. It offers a wide range of features, including keyword research, competitive analysis, site audit, on-page SEO checker, and many more.   In fact, we’re also huge fans of Semrush, thanks to their detailed insights and comprehensive toolset. In this detailed review, we’ll cover Semrush’s core features, pricing plans, use cases, and much more. So, let’s get started with it right away. 

• Sign up for an exclusive 14-day free PRO trial here

SemRush: Plans and pricing

SemRush caters to a wide range of digital marketing needs through its structured plans, from beginners to large enterprises. Below are the details of their plans, features, and pricing. The Pro Plan is $129.95 per month and is ideal for newbies and small teams. With this plan, you can manage up to 5 projects, and track up to 500 keywords. You also get 10,000 results per report. Other features include comprehensive SEO, PPC, and research tools, including competitor analysis, keyword research, website audit, backlink analysis, and advertising tools.

Next up, is the Guru Plan which starts from $249.95 per month and is ideal for agencies and mid-sized businesses. Key features include all Pro features and some additional tools like Content Marketing Toolkit, historical data access, multi-location and device tracking, and Looker Studio integration. You can also manage up to 15 projects, track up to 1,500 keywords, and 30,000 results per report.

The third plan is best for large agencies and enterprises and the plan starts from $499.95 per month. The Business plan includes all the features of the Guru plan plus some exclusive benefits like share of voice metrics, extended limits, API access, PLA analytics, and free migration from third-party tools. With this plan, you can manage up to 40 projects, and track up to 5,000 keywords, and 50,000 results per report.

SemRush: Features

Keyword Research Tools

SemRush does in-depth keyword research and offers tons of details, including search volumes that often stretch into millions for high-traffic terms, user intent classifications (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional), and competitive density scores on a scale from 0 to 1.0. This is crucial to tweak your SEO strategy to match your audience's behavior precisely.

Plus, its competitive analysis doesn't just skim the surface but goes deep. By analyzing your competitors' organic search metrics, SemRush finds out not just the keywords they're ranking for but also delivers a visibility score that reflects their prominence on SERPs. This is instrumental in identifying not just any keywords but the right ones that can improve your SERP positioning.

The tool's keyword magic feature is also pretty impressive, as it offers over two million keyword ideas from a single seed keyword. This vast pool of suggestions opens up avenues for content strategy expansion and reveals less obvious yet potentially lucrative keyword opportunities.

We also love SemRush’s Gap analysis feature which takes a comparative approach and directly contrasts your keyword profile with up to five competitors. It's not merely about volume but it dives into keyword difficulty scores and SERP features occupied by competitors. This comparison explains strategic gaps in your SEO approach and offers a roadmap to prioritize efforts on keywords where you can realistically outperform your rivals.

Moreover, if you’re looking for “not provided” keywords, SemRush also integrates with Google Analytics and Google Search Console to bring such keywords to light and present a complete picture of your organic search landscape. This integration is super-friendly for bridging the gap between estimated search data and actual visitor behavior on your site.

Again, SemRush is designed to help you out with extensive tasks. For this, you get to manage and segment up to 2,000 keywords under the Keyword Manager. This feature is particularly useful for large-scale campaigns or agencies managing multiple clients.

Content Optimization Tools 

SemRush content optimization tools analyze and provide recommendations on keyword usage to make your content more SEO-friendly. They not only identify which keywords to use but also mention the number of times to use them. This is guided by insights acquired from your competitor's performance.

Plus, you can integrate Semrush into your Google Docs, WordPress, and even MS Word account. It offers extensive writing assistant tools that use AI to brief you on important metrics about your content, including its formatting, SEO optimization, tips to improve readability, and many more. They do this by evaluating your content for factors like sentence length, complexity, and overall structure and offering suggestions to enhance readability. This is crucial, as accessible content tends to perform better in terms of user engagement and search engine rankings. The best part? You get all this live along with your writing tools. This saves a lot of your time during editing and improves your content significantly. And, if you use a separate tool for plagiarism checking, SemRush will also solve that issue, as it has its own originality checker. The tool scans a vast database, flagging potential duplicates so you can maintain the uniqueness of your content, which is critical for ranking purposes.

PPC Keyword Research Tools 

SemRush's PPC Keyword Research Tools present highly searched terms to niche long-tail keywords, with volumes varying from a few searches per month to several thousand. This information helps you identify both high-traffic and low-competition opportunities.

Cost-per-click (CPC) analysis is another area where these tools deliver extensive data. CPC values can range from as low as $0.05 in less competitive niches to over $50 for highly competitive terms. This insight helps you make informed decisions on budget allocation and bidding strategies.

We’re also big fans of Semrush’s competitive analysis feature, which points out rivals’ strategies and reveals opportunities for optimization and outperforming competitors. This insight includes data on competitors' ad spend, the keywords they are bidding on, and their past ad performance. By gaining this information, you can identify gaps in their strategy and take an upper hand.

Lastly,  you also gain access to localized data with Semrush. This helps you improve the relevance of ads in specific demographics and regions to increase your engagement rates and the overall efficiency of PPC campaigns.

On-Page and Technical SEO

Semrush's Site Audit tool is designed to crawl websites in detail by simulating search engine crawling behaviors. While doing this, it pinpoints and prioritizes on-site issues, covering more than 130 checks for SEO health, including HTTPS security protocols, core web vitals, and issues like duplicate content. 

Among the On-Page and Technical SEO tools, the On-Page SEO Checker is our favorite, as it goes beyond keyword optimization. Utilizing Semrush's extensive dataset, it provides tailored recommendations by analyzing SERP positions, backlink profiles, and content quality. Plus, it predicts how much traffic you might get and compares your site with competitors.

Also, if you face difficulty deciding what to include in your article, the SEO Content Template tool can be of great use to you. It generates content creation blueprints by analyzing top-performing pages for selected keywords. Moreover, It advises on text length, backlink sources, and multimedia inclusion tailored to Google's SERP features preferences.

Link Building and Backlink Analysis 

Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool examines websites' backlink profiles by identifying link-building patterns and pointing out opportunities for growth. It does this by separating links by type, attributes, and quality. Besides this, it also tracks how backlink profiles change over time to understand patterns on how these links are won.

We all know how harmful backlinks can affect SEO health. Keeping that in mind, SemRush also offers a Backlink Audit feature that identifies potentially harmful backlinks. This process involves integrating with Google Search Console to evaluate link quality using over 45 different toxic markers. With this, you can easily manage and reject harmful links directly on the platform. 

Its link-building tools further help to simplify your outreach process. It suggests potential link-building opportunities based on competitor backlink profiles and keyword priorities. We also love how Semrush manages outreach campaigns and evaluates the authority and relevance of suggested sites. Also, the way it organizes prospects by campaign for the efficient execution of targeted link-building strategies greatly streamlines the process.

SemRush: Interface and in-use

SemRush’s interface is user-friendly and effective, so whether you're a beginner or an experienced digital marketer, you won't have issues navigating its extensive toolset. The dashboard is also neatly organized, so you have tools for SEO, PPC, and content marketing at your fingertips. What we love the most about this setup is the ease with which we can switch between tasks.

Though the platform's broad range of features might initially confuse a beginner, this variety showcases SemRush's strength as a vast digital marketing tool. Overall, SemRush offers a mix of complexity and user-friendliness and delivers a powerful resource for diverse digital marketing activities.

SemRush: Support

SemRush offers multiple support options to help you fully utilize its capabilities. If you're new to the platform or want to improve your understanding of its features, you can schedule a session with an expert. These experts walk you through the platform and demonstrate how to make the most of its extensive features.

For those considering an upgrade or needing a solution for their specific requirements, the sales team is always available to assist and guide you through the different options to find the perfect fit for your needs.

SemRush also caters to users who prefer to explore and learn independently. It offers many self-help resources, including user manuals, instructional videos, and FAQs. These materials are designed to help users navigate the platform and address any questions they may have.

SemRush: The competition

SEMRush is broadly aligned with competing SEO services in terms of both pricing and the feature set. For example, Moz Pro, one of its top competitors, has roughly comparable subscriptions (although a lower entry tier) at the price points of $99, $179, $249, and $599 per month, with each upgrade adding higher limits and new features.

Also, keep in mind that some platforms have more affordable plans than either SEMRush or Moz Pro. For those who don’t need everything included in the Pro subscription, or if $120 per month is over your budget, then consider a service with a lower barrier to entry.

SemRush: Final verdict

If you’re looking for an SEO tool to enhance your website’s SEO, PPC, and content strategies, SemRush is probably among the top options. While we did face a learning curve to use its comprehensive features, its interface is remarkably user-friendly. We appreciate the supportive resources and expert guidance SemRush provided, as it helps maximize the investment.

The plans offered by SemRush are also designed to accommodate the needs of all businesses, whether a small team or an enterprise. Despite the plans being costly, the substantial value SemRush adds to online marketing efforts justifies the price, making it an excellent investment if you're looking to boost your website.

• You can signup to SEMRush here.

Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool designed to help website owners and digital marketers improve their online visibility, track their SEO progress, and conduct detailed competitive analysis. At its core, Ahrefs offers keyword research, rank tracking, backlink tracking, content research, and site audit capabilities. 

In fact, by providing detailed insights into search engine rankings, website performance, and content optimization opportunities, Ahrefs even helps you devise and execute effective SEO strategies. 

But what about its user experience? How do you use its extensive features? What about the Ahref pricing model? In this detailed review and guide, we'll break it down step-by-step and explain its core features and how you can make the most of it. We'll also talk about its customer support, and if it’s worth it for you or not. So, let’s get started.

• You can sign up to Ahrefs here.

Ahrefs: Plans and pricing

Ahrefs has four different plans targeting their users’ different needs and bandwidth. Here are all the plans, along with their features and pricing:

1. Lite Plan

The Lite Plan, priced at $108/mo, is ideal for solo marketers, freelancers, and small businesses who are just starting with SEO. It comes with access to all core Ahrefs tools, like Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Content Explorer. Users can easily manage up to 5 unverified ownership projects for regular site monitoring and track up to 750 keywords with Rank Tracker. 

However, on the downside, it has limited access to site audit features, allowing up to 100,000 crawl credits per month, and supports exporting up to 500,000 rows/ mo only.

2. Standard Plan

The Standard Plan costs $208/mo and caters to SEO professionals and small to medium-sized businesses who need more in-depth analysis and data. This plan includes all features from the Lite plan and lets you manage up to 20 unverified ownership projects and track up to 2,000 keywords with its Rank Tracker feature. 

Plus, the plan provides access to more comprehensive data sets in Site Explorer, including full site structure and broken backlinks, and allows exporting up to 1.5 million rows per month. You also get 500,000 crawl credits every month. 

3. Advanced Plan

The Advanced Plan, priced at $374/mo, is designed for SEO agencies and larger businesses who want extensive data and reporting features. It includes all features from the Standard plan plus more advanced tools. Users can manage up to 50 unverified ownership projects and track up to 5,000 keywords with Rank Tracker. You get up to 1.5 million crawl credits per month for site audits and increased data access, including historical data and in-depth analysis options. The export limit extends up to 4 million rows per month.

4. Enterprise Plan

The Enterprise Plan, available for $999/mo, is great for large enterprises and organizations with bulk SEO needs requiring custom data, reporting, and support solutions. It offers a customized solution to fit the team’s needs, including up to 100 unverified ownership projects management and tracking around 10,000 keywords with its Rank Tracker. 

This plan offers up to 5 million monthly crawl credits for the most detailed site audits and maximum data access and export capabilities, with up to 10 million monthly rows. With the Enterprise plan, you even get access management, audit log, API access, SSO, and directory listing for enhanced security and team collaboration.

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Ahrefs: Features

 Site Explorer

The Site Explorer is a powerful tool for analyzing a website's SEO performance. It presents insights into organic search traffic, backlink profiles, and paid search activities. Apart from its core purpose, Site Explorer presents several advanced features that help in the analysis and strategic planning of SEO experts.

For example, if you want to analyze your competitors' best-performing web pages, you can do it under “Top Pages.” This tool goes through a specific website and lists down the top-performing pages that are getting the most traffic. Through this, you can create several strategies for targeting the right keywords and ranking along your competitor's popular articles.

Our next favorite feature is the "Outgoing Links" report which presents a list of where a site is sending its traffic through external links. This can help in identifying potential partnership opportunities for your website or even ensuring that outbound links are to reputable and relevant sites, which is super important for maintaining a site’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).

Apart from that, Site Explorer's "Content Gap" tool lets you compare your site's keyword profile against those of your competitors. It simply identifies keywords for which your competitors rank but your site does not. This is such a useful tool that even the talented SEO experts at TechRadar use it.

The fun doesn’t end here. You also get an "Internal Backlinks" report, which analyzes the internal link structure of a website and helps in optimizing site architecture for better crawl ability and distributing link equity effectively across pages. Lastly, it also provides a "Broken Links" report, identifying both broken inbound and outbound links. Fixing these links can improve user experience and site health. 

 Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer not only excels in providing detailed keyword metrics and suggestions but also offers several other features that enhance keyword research and strategy development. For instance, it includes a "Keyword Difficulty" score, which helps users quickly assess how challenging it might be to rank for a specific keyword based on the strength of the current top-ranking pages. This score is calculated using a variety of factors, including the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the top-ranking pages, making it a reliable indicator of the effort required to compete.

It further helps you understand the reader behavior with the "Clicks" data, which estimates the total number of clicks that the search results for a keyword receive. This metric is super useful as it goes beyond mere search volume to give an idea of actual traffic potential, considering factors like SERP features that might affect the click-through rate for organic listings.

Additionally, Keywords Explorer offers a "Return Rate" metric, which measures how often people search for a keyword again. This insight is valuable for identifying keywords that could bring recurring traffic to your site.

We also tested its SERP analysis features that show the presence of features like featured snippets, site links, and image packs in the search results for a keyword, providing pointers on how to optimize content to achieve these high-visibility positions. And to top it all, Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer even integrates with other tools available on the platform. This helps you transition from keyword research to site audit or content exploration, making it a great solution for anyone looking to enhance their SEO and content marketing efforts with data-driven insights.

Site Audit

Probably this feature is like that doctor who tells you what’s wrong with your website in terms of SEO. Site Audit scans your entire site to find out everything from technical SEO problems to content-related issues. Plus, it doesn't just highlight what's wrong, but it also delivers actionable tips to easily fix those issues.

To test it, we gave it a sample site and it got back to us with various helpful insights such as broken links, missing alt tags, slow-loading pages, and much more. It even categorized issues into errors, warnings, and notices based on their potential impact on our SEO, making it easier to prioritize fixes. What we loved even more is the visual representation of data, through charts and graphs, which gives a clear perspective of the current condition of the website.

The competitor analysis feature is another key component, offering the ability to track competitors' backlink growth and keyword rankings. This competitive intelligence can inform strategic decisions and help users stay ahead in their niche.

Additionally, if you want to track your competitor's backlinks and keyword ranking, you can use the Competitor Analysis feature. It gives a detailed insight into your peer's SEO strategies and helps you in staying ahead in your niche.

Rank Tracker

If you want to monitor your website's ranking for targeted keywords on the SERP, you can use the Rank Tracker feature present in Ahrefs. It's particularly useful for tracking the effectiveness of your SEO strategies and understanding how changes in your website or external factors influence your rankings.

First off, Rank Tracker can help you track your website’s ranking positions across different search engines and locations, presenting insights into how well your pages perform in various regions. This is crucial for businesses targeting a global audience or aiming to improve their local SEO. It further provides updates on ranking positions, showing whether your site’s rankings for specific keywords have improved, declined, or remained stable over time.

It further helps you level up your SEO game by offering visibility and traffic forecasts based on your ranking positions. These projections can help you estimate the potential traffic you might gain from improving your rankings for certain keywords, making it easier to prioritize SEO tasks. Not just that, you can see which keywords trigger special search results like featured snippets, local packs, or knowledge panels. 

 Content Explorer

Content Explorer focuses on analyzing the performance of your website’s content across different topics and niches. It guides users on content creation, outreach, and strategy decisions by explaining what content resonates with your readers and earning backlinks for your site. As you open the tool, you need to enter the website to analyze its content. Once searched, it provides many insights about the content, including the referring domains, page traffic and its value, URL Rating, organic keywords, and social shares. 

What makes it even easier to understand is the graphical representation of the metrics along with the timeline to help you further understand the behavior of your website’s specific content. While we ran a scan for one of our sites, it gave us the entire data along with useful metrics. We even sorted the list in various formats like relevance, domain rating, Twitter shares, and date, which made the list even more helpful. 

After doing the proper analysis, we even tried exporting the list for other team members, and Ahrefs did it seamlessly in a .CSV format, where we also had the option to choose the number of rows we wanted. Plus, if you run a website with multiple languages, you can further analyze the content based on different languages, giving a good summary of the website’s content map.

• We've featured the best rank checking tools.

Ahrefs: Interface and in-use

Like a lot of software these days, Ahrefs is used through a web browser, and we like the robust online interface, however it has no dedicated desktop program or smartphone app. The web app puts a ton of information into each page, with explanations for important features available via convenient info-bubbles. You can rely on The Dashboard to give you an overview of your projects, with each of the five core components having its own landing page. Finally, most elements provide more info via clickable links making them interactive for greater insights into the many graphs, charts, and metrics. 

Ahrefs: Support

If there’s one thing that Ahrefs does best besides SEO, it might be its customer support. It offers robust support through 24/7 access via email and live chat, ensuring users can find help whenever needed. 

Although I keep going back to their support team quite frequently, I asked them about their latest link intersecting feature recently, and within minutes, a team member assisted me with it. 

Moreover, the platform's Help Center is packed with detailed articles, guides, and FAQs for self-service assistance, while a collection of tutorial videos and webinars provides visual learning options for users at all levels. 

Ahrefs also has an active online community for peer support and hosts sessions for direct feedback to the development team. This comprehensive support ecosystem helps you navigate the platform's features, resolve issues promptly, and maximize your SEO efforts.

Ahrefs: The competition

Ahrefs provides similar functionality to other major SEO tools like SEMrush and Moz, and they all offer similar price points for basic plans. Historically Ahrefs has been the more expensive option, recent pricing updates have made it more in line with its competitors.

Carefully consider which features and data limits work best for your budget, because different products prioritize different features at different price points. SEMrush’s basic plan, for example,  offers 10 times the page crawls as Ahrefs’, but no API access or historical data, unlike the latter. 

• We've featured the best keyword research tools.

Ahrefs: Final verdict

If your primary focus is building a robust backlink strategy, conducting detailed site audits, and diving deep into competitive analysis, Ahrefs is a clear winner. Its extensive backlink database and detailed site audit reports offer invaluable insights for improving your website's SEO performance. Ahrefs' strength in finding your competitors' strategies through its Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer tools can give you a competitive edge in your SEO game.

For businesses and professionals prioritizing link building and detailed analytics on backlinks, along with a strong toolset for keyword research and site audits, Ahrefs provides an equally comprehensive solution. Its user interface is designed to accommodate both seasoned SEO experts and those new to SEO, which makes it a versatile choice for many.

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Ahrefs is a powerful SEO tool designed to help website owners and digital marketers improve their online visibility, track their SEO progress, and conduct detailed competitive analysis. At its core, Ahrefs offers keyword research, rank tracking, backlink tracking, content research, and site audit capabilities. 

In fact, by providing detailed insights into search engine rankings, website performance, and content optimization opportunities, Ahrefs even helps you devise and execute effective SEO strategies. 

But what about its user experience? How do you use its extensive features? What about the Ahref pricing model? In this detailed review and guide, we'll break it down step-by-step and explain its core features and how you can make the most of it. We'll also talk about its customer support, and if it’s worth it for you or not. So, let’s get started.

• You can sign up to Ahrefs here.

Ahrefs: Plans and pricing

Ahrefs has four different plans targeting their users’ different needs and bandwidth. Here are all the plans, along with their features and pricing:

1. Lite Plan

The Lite Plan, priced at $108/mo, is ideal for solo marketers, freelancers, and small businesses who are just starting with SEO. It comes with access to all core Ahrefs tools, like Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Content Explorer. Users can easily manage up to 5 unverified ownership projects for regular site monitoring and track up to 750 keywords with Rank Tracker. 

However, on the downside, it has limited access to site audit features, allowing up to 100,000 crawl credits per month, and supports exporting up to 500,000 rows/ mo only.

2. Standard Plan

The Standard Plan costs $208/mo and caters to SEO professionals and small to medium-sized businesses who need more in-depth analysis and data. This plan includes all features from the Lite plan and lets you manage up to 20 unverified ownership projects and track up to 2,000 keywords with its Rank Tracker feature. 

Plus, the plan provides access to more comprehensive data sets in Site Explorer, including full site structure and broken backlinks, and allows exporting up to 1.5 million rows per month. You also get 500,000 crawl credits every month. 

3. Advanced Plan

The Advanced Plan, priced at $374/mo, is designed for SEO agencies and larger businesses who want extensive data and reporting features. It includes all features from the Standard plan plus more advanced tools. Users can manage up to 50 unverified ownership projects and track up to 5,000 keywords with Rank Tracker. You get up to 1.5 million crawl credits per month for site audits and increased data access, including historical data and in-depth analysis options. The export limit extends up to 4 million rows per month.

4. Enterprise Plan

The Enterprise Plan, available for $999/mo, is great for large enterprises and organizations with bulk SEO needs requiring custom data, reporting, and support solutions. It offers a customized solution to fit the team’s needs, including up to 100 unverified ownership projects management and tracking around 10,000 keywords with its Rank Tracker. 

This plan offers up to 5 million monthly crawl credits for the most detailed site audits and maximum data access and export capabilities, with up to 10 million monthly rows. With the Enterprise plan, you even get access management, audit log, API access, SSO, and directory listing for enhanced security and team collaboration.

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Ahrefs: Features

 Site Explorer

The Site Explorer is a powerful tool for analyzing a website's SEO performance. It presents insights into organic search traffic, backlink profiles, and paid search activities. Apart from its core purpose, Site Explorer presents several advanced features that help in the analysis and strategic planning of SEO experts.

For example, if you want to analyze your competitors' best-performing web pages, you can do it under “Top Pages.” This tool goes through a specific website and lists down the top-performing pages that are getting the most traffic. Through this, you can create several strategies for targeting the right keywords and ranking along your competitor's popular articles.

Our next favorite feature is the "Outgoing Links" report which presents a list of where a site is sending its traffic through external links. This can help in identifying potential partnership opportunities for your website or even ensuring that outbound links are to reputable and relevant sites, which is super important for maintaining a site’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).

Apart from that, Site Explorer's "Content Gap" tool lets you compare your site's keyword profile against those of your competitors. It simply identifies keywords for which your competitors rank but your site does not. This is such a useful tool that even the talented SEO experts at TechRadar use it.

The fun doesn’t end here. You also get an "Internal Backlinks" report, which analyzes the internal link structure of a website and helps in optimizing site architecture for better crawl ability and distributing link equity effectively across pages. Lastly, it also provides a "Broken Links" report, identifying both broken inbound and outbound links. Fixing these links can improve user experience and site health. 

 Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer not only excels in providing detailed keyword metrics and suggestions but also offers several other features that enhance keyword research and strategy development. For instance, it includes a "Keyword Difficulty" score, which helps users quickly assess how challenging it might be to rank for a specific keyword based on the strength of the current top-ranking pages. This score is calculated using a variety of factors, including the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the top-ranking pages, making it a reliable indicator of the effort required to compete.

It further helps you understand the reader behavior with the "Clicks" data, which estimates the total number of clicks that the search results for a keyword receive. This metric is super useful as it goes beyond mere search volume to give an idea of actual traffic potential, considering factors like SERP features that might affect the click-through rate for organic listings.

Additionally, Keywords Explorer offers a "Return Rate" metric, which measures how often people search for a keyword again. This insight is valuable for identifying keywords that could bring recurring traffic to your site.

We also tested its SERP analysis features that show the presence of features like featured snippets, site links, and image packs in the search results for a keyword, providing pointers on how to optimize content to achieve these high-visibility positions. And to top it all, Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer even integrates with other tools available on the platform. This helps you transition from keyword research to site audit or content exploration, making it a great solution for anyone looking to enhance their SEO and content marketing efforts with data-driven insights.

Site Audit

Probably this feature is like that doctor who tells you what’s wrong with your website in terms of SEO. Site Audit scans your entire site to find out everything from technical SEO problems to content-related issues. Plus, it doesn't just highlight what's wrong, but it also delivers actionable tips to easily fix those issues.

To test it, we gave it a sample site and it got back to us with various helpful insights such as broken links, missing alt tags, slow-loading pages, and much more. It even categorized issues into errors, warnings, and notices based on their potential impact on our SEO, making it easier to prioritize fixes. What we loved even more is the visual representation of data, through charts and graphs, which gives a clear perspective of the current condition of the website.

The competitor analysis feature is another key component, offering the ability to track competitors' backlink growth and keyword rankings. This competitive intelligence can inform strategic decisions and help users stay ahead in their niche.

Additionally, if you want to track your competitor's backlinks and keyword ranking, you can use the Competitor Analysis feature. It gives a detailed insight into your peer's SEO strategies and helps you in staying ahead in your niche.

Rank Tracker

If you want to monitor your website's ranking for targeted keywords on the SERP, you can use the Rank Tracker feature present in Ahrefs. It's particularly useful for tracking the effectiveness of your SEO strategies and understanding how changes in your website or external factors influence your rankings.

First off, Rank Tracker can help you track your website’s ranking positions across different search engines and locations, presenting insights into how well your pages perform in various regions. This is crucial for businesses targeting a global audience or aiming to improve their local SEO. It further provides updates on ranking positions, showing whether your site’s rankings for specific keywords have improved, declined, or remained stable over time.

It further helps you level up your SEO game by offering visibility and traffic forecasts based on your ranking positions. These projections can help you estimate the potential traffic you might gain from improving your rankings for certain keywords, making it easier to prioritize SEO tasks. Not just that, you can see which keywords trigger special search results like featured snippets, local packs, or knowledge panels. 

 Content Explorer

Content Explorer focuses on analyzing the performance of your website’s content across different topics and niches. It guides users on content creation, outreach, and strategy decisions by explaining what content resonates with your readers and earning backlinks for your site. As you open the tool, you need to enter the website to analyze its content. Once searched, it provides many insights about the content, including the referring domains, page traffic and its value, URL Rating, organic keywords, and social shares. 

What makes it even easier to understand is the graphical representation of the metrics along with the timeline to help you further understand the behavior of your website’s specific content. While we ran a scan for one of our sites, it gave us the entire data along with useful metrics. We even sorted the list in various formats like relevance, domain rating, Twitter shares, and date, which made the list even more helpful. 

After doing the proper analysis, we even tried exporting the list for other team members, and Ahrefs did it seamlessly in a .CSV format, where we also had the option to choose the number of rows we wanted. Plus, if you run a website with multiple languages, you can further analyze the content based on different languages, giving a good summary of the website’s content map.

• We've featured the best rank checking tools.

Ahrefs: Interface and in-use

Like a lot of software these days, Ahrefs is used through a web browser, and we like the robust online interface, however it has no dedicated desktop program or smartphone app. The web app puts a ton of information into each page, with explanations for important features available via convenient info-bubbles. You can rely on The Dashboard to give you an overview of your projects, with each of the five core components having its own landing page. Finally, most elements provide more info via clickable links making them interactive for greater insights into the many graphs, charts, and metrics. 

Ahrefs: Support

If there’s one thing that Ahrefs does best besides SEO, it might be its customer support. It offers robust support through 24/7 access via email and live chat, ensuring users can find help whenever needed. 

Although I keep going back to their support team quite frequently, I asked them about their latest link intersecting feature recently, and within minutes, a team member assisted me with it. 

Moreover, the platform's Help Center is packed with detailed articles, guides, and FAQs for self-service assistance, while a collection of tutorial videos and webinars provides visual learning options for users at all levels. 

Ahrefs also has an active online community for peer support and hosts sessions for direct feedback to the development team. This comprehensive support ecosystem helps you navigate the platform's features, resolve issues promptly, and maximize your SEO efforts.

Ahrefs: The competition

Ahrefs provides similar functionality to other major SEO tools like SEMrush and Moz, and they all offer similar price points for basic plans. Historically Ahrefs has been the more expensive option, recent pricing updates have made it more in line with its competitors.

Carefully consider which features and data limits work best for your budget, because different products prioritize different features at different price points. SEMrush’s basic plan, for example,  offers 10 times the page crawls as Ahrefs’, but no API access or historical data, unlike the latter. 

• We've featured the best keyword research tools.

Ahrefs: Final verdict

If your primary focus is building a robust backlink strategy, conducting detailed site audits, and diving deep into competitive analysis, Ahrefs is a clear winner. Its extensive backlink database and detailed site audit reports offer invaluable insights for improving your website's SEO performance. Ahrefs' strength in finding your competitors' strategies through its Site Explorer and Keywords Explorer tools can give you a competitive edge in your SEO game.

For businesses and professionals prioritizing link building and detailed analytics on backlinks, along with a strong toolset for keyword research and site audits, Ahrefs provides an equally comprehensive solution. Its user interface is designed to accommodate both seasoned SEO experts and those new to SEO, which makes it a versatile choice for many.

• Find the best online marketing tools here.
• We've featured the best content marketing tools here.

Jetoctopusis a cloud-based SEO analysis platform that offers a robust web crawler and log analyzer. The tool emphasizes comprehensive website audits, technical SEO diagnostics, and in-depth website behavior analysis through log files. Ideally, it is a great tool for experienced SEO experts and website owners. In this review, we will cover JetOctopus's core features, interface, usability, and how it stacks against other players in the market. 

JetOctopus: Plans and pricing

Jetoctopus’s base package lets you crawl up to 500K pages or 250K JavaScript crawl pages, along with 2 million log lines, which only count visits from search bots like Googlebot and Bing. This package includes one Google Search Console property, one Google Analytics property, and an onboarding call. There are no project, user, or simultaneous crawl limits, and features such as alerts, Ahrefs integration, and the Datasets option are available. The pricing for this plan is $237 per month when billed annually, offering a saving of $1,058 per year. Additional options for more logs, Google Search Console properties, and Google Analytics properties are available for extra charges.  

JetOctopus: Features

Crawler

Jetoctopus’s Crawler is a complex and extensive tool that we found to be extremely detailed in its operation. It’s designed to simulate search engine crawling with a high degree of accuracy and present a granular analysis of a website's structure and content from an SEO perspective.

In technical detail, the Crawler does more than just a surface sweep. It goes deep into the HTML and server responses of each page it visits and further checks for a multitude of factors that could affect a page's ability to rank well in search engines. This includes status code errors, redirects, and the intricacies of a website's response headers. The Crawler also evaluates the depth of pages from the home page, indicating how many clicks it takes for a user to reach a particular page, which is crucial for understanding the user journey. Plus, its interface breaks down various metrics in detailed categories such as 'Indexation', 'Technical', 'HTML', 'Content', 'Links', and 'Sitemap'.

The Crawler’s ability to handle JavaScript-heavy sites was particularly noteworthy. Many crawlers struggle with this, but during our use, Jetoctopus managed to execute and render JavaScript like modern browsers, which meant it could accurately assess the SEO health of sites that rely heavily on client-side scripting.

We also tapped into the Crawler's scheduling feature, which allowed us to set up regular crawls. This automated approach ensured we were consistently monitoring our site’s health without having to initiate each crawl manually. 

Log Analyzer

JetOctopus's Log Analyzer is a game-changer for understanding how search engines interact with our websites. The real-time processing of log files is crucial and gives us a constantly updated feed of Googlebot, Bing, Yandex, and other search engine behavior. JetOctopus accurately identifies over 40 different search engines, crawlers, and bots. This level of detail can isolate valuable search traffic and spot anything draining server resources unnecessarily. The tool's biggest strength lies in how it reveals crawl budget utilization. 

We see where search engines focus their attention, where they waste time on outdated content and any areas they might be missing entirely. JetOctopus doesn't just stop at HTTP status codes; you can even analyze crawl data by file type (images, JavaScript, CSS), content size, and response times. This deeper technical insight has made us rethink our optimization strategy, shifting our focus to maximizing crawl efficiency for the pages that matter most.

Google Search Console

Jetoctopus Web Crawler and Log Analyzer integrate seamlessly with Google Search Console (GSC), which we found to be a vital feature for anyone serious about SEO. Our experience with the GSC feature gave us actionable insights into how our website was performing in Google's search results.

The integration pulls in valuable data from GSC and offers a detailed view of your site's search traffic, performance metrics, and the health of your website in terms of Google's indexing. It simplifies the process of analyzing your website's presence in search results by combining crawl data with the search performance data from GSC.

During our trials, we could correlate issues detected by the crawler with the actual impact they had on our search visibility. For example, if Jetoctopus's crawler identified crawl errors or pages blocked by robots.txt, we could immediately assess the effect on our website's performance within Google search results, all from within the same platform.

The feature also helped us track our website's search query performance, showing which queries brought users to our site and which ones could be optimized further. We could see the average position of our pages in the search results, their click-through rates (CTR), and the number of impressions they garnered.

Moreover, the GSC feature in Jetoctopus allowed us to submit sitemaps and check their status, as well as view any manual actions or security issues that Google had flagged. This integration was a time-saver, as it meant that we didn’t need to switch between multiple tools to get a full picture of our SEO performance and health.

Google Analytics (GA4)

Integrating Google Analytics 4 (GA4) with Jetoctopus is a game-changer as it gives a deep dive into both technical SEO and user behavior on our website. This mix means you get to see not just how your site is doing in search engines but also how people are actually using it. Plus, you get insights into things like which pages keep people interested and what actions they're taking, right next to data about site health and visibility in search results.

When we tried out this combined approach, it made a big difference. We could see exactly where users were dropping off and match that up with technical issues we spotted through Jetoctopus. This meant we could tackle problems that were not just about SEO but about making the site better for users too. The dashboards and reports are customizable, which is great because you can focus on the metrics that matter most to you, whether getting more clicks or making sure people stick around longer.

Upon reviewing the GA4 section in Jetoctopus, we noted the inclusion of several key metrics that are critical for monitoring and analyzing web traffic and user behavior. You get a comprehensive dashboard that provides an overview of user engagement, including metrics such as Active Users, which show the number of visitors interacting with your site. It’s a quick way to gauge traffic and engagement trends.

You can also track sessions which gives a tally of individual browsing instances on your site, which is essential for understanding the scale of user interactions. Additionally, Engaged Sessions are available to evaluate the quality of these visits, determining whether users are meaningfully interacting with the content rather than just passing by.

You can also study the Average Bounce Rate of a site that tells the percentage of sessions where users leave without taking any action, a vital metric for assessing content relevance and user retention strategies. And then there’s the Average Session Duration, which measures the typical length of a session across your site, offering insights into user engagement and content effectiveness.

Alerts

The "Alerts" feature in Jetoctopus is a proactive tool designed to keep you ahead of potential issues on your site. As we used it, we found that it acted like a vigilant watchman, notifying us of critical changes and issues that could impact our site's performance and user experience.

This feature automatically scans for and alerts you to various issues, such as spikes in error status codes, unusual bot crawling patterns, or pages that suddenly stop being indexed. It's particularly useful for quickly catching and addressing problems before they escalate, potentially saving you from a dip in search rankings or a poor user experience.

For instance, if there's a sudden increase in 404 errors, the Alerts tool will notify you, so you can promptly investigate and fix broken links or missing pages. Likewise, if crawl rates drop unexpectedly, indicating that search engine bots are no longer visiting your pages as frequently, you'll be the first to know.

During our tests, we could see how the Alerts system could be customized to our specific needs, allowing us to set thresholds for when we'd receive notifications. This customization meant that we weren't bombarded with trivial alerts but were informed about significant issues that required our attention.

JetOctopus: Interface and in-use

Jetoctopus might not be the ideal tool for beginners. The platform’s interface seems to assume you're comfortable with SEO terminology and concepts. Think of it less like a shiny consumer app and more like a powerful piece of technical analysis software.

The upside is that the interface is surprisingly clean for how much it can do. Navigation is mostly logical – crawls, log analysis, GSC integration, etc., have dedicated sections. Setting up a new crawl is where you'll see the most options. You can fine-tune everything from crawl speed and depth to mobile vs. desktop user agents, and even schedule recurring crawls.

Dashboards are JetOctopus's strength. They strike a good balance between data density and visual clarity. You'll get charts, treemaps, and customizable tables, which all help in identifying patterns or zeroing in on problem areas.

However, there is a learning curve, particularly when you start digging into the more advanced features. Don't expect hand-holding pop-ups or simplified explanations. The included documentation is solid, but you'll still do some head-scratching in the beginning as an SEO newbie.

Where JetOctopus could improve is in its initial setup. While connecting things like Google Search Console is a breeze, it'd be nice to have a guided walkthrough for first-time users to highlight the most important bits.

Overall, the interface gets the job done. We wouldn't call it beautiful, but it's functional. If you're used to the complexity of tools like Screaming Frog, you'll feel right at home. If you're coming from more beginner-focused SEO suites, expect an adjustment period.

JetOctopus: Support

Support for JetOctupus is a strong point. Asking for help is as close as a human-user chat box on the website, both at the front end and back end. We found the responses were prompt, and also sent to email so you had a copy of the information. Email notices are also provided when crawls are completed, and there are a number of tutorial videos very visibly placed around the tools and website for easy reference as required. All in all, it gave the total impression of a well-supported product. 

JetOctopus: The competition

JetOctopus is an example of the very wide range of SEO analytics tools currently on the market. It competes somewhere between existing established tools such as Ahrefs and the SEO Spider by Screamingfrog.

Screamingfrog also offers a crawler to allow for an SEO audit for on-page issues such as meta-data, broken links, and other technical concerns – however, it’s arguably not as detailed or comprehensive as Jetoctopus. However, it is cheaper, with a free plan offering up to 500 URLs to crawl, and the paid version offering unlimited for $209 a year.

Alternatively, Ahrefs is one of the most comprehensive SEO tool platforms out there, with the inclusion of a crawler as part of its Site Audit feature. There’s plenty of overlap in the reporting information between Ahrefs and JetOctopus, but with pricing starting from $99 a month for Ahrefs it makes it a comprehensive and affordable option, with a very wide range of other additional SEO tools bundled in.

 JetOctopus positions itself against the likes of Botify, Oncrawl, and Deepcrawl. 

JetOctopus: Final verdict

JetOctopus has a clean interface and is a (mostly) easy-to-use SEO tool, focused on covering analytics from a range of different angles. With more comprehensive SEO platforms such as Ahrefs offering a more robust set of tools, and the cheaper Screamingfrog offering some similar functionality, JetOctopus offers only a little more than either when it comes to on-page SEO analytics. The more important question is how useful that will be for most folks.

Consider us a little skeptical of JetOctopus when beginning this review, as it looked an initial glance a little pricey for yet another analytics tool that doesn’t offer all of the wider features of the big names we’re used to. However, after a week’s testing, and pushing its functionality, it’s clear that it is a useful standalone platform in itself, and definitely worth considering.

One limitation is the number of URLs that can be crawled or analyzed via logs, with JetOctopus being overkill for very small websites, and becoming expensive for larger ecommerce websites. There is the offer of a free trial to test out the functionality for yourself.

Overall, we’re less than convinced that SEO agencies will find JetOctopus useful when they are already subscribed to big platforms such as Ahrefs or SEMrush. However, for web designers and web developers, along with small business owners, we can see it providing a value proposition for these groups that don’t need a full range of SEO tools, but just something to cover essential on-page issues and analytics for ensuring the websites they manage are delivering on the performance required.

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