Ahrefs

Based in Singapore, Ahrefs provides an all-in-one suite of search engine optimization (SEO) tools and learning resources. Its platform includes tools for auditing websites, competitor analysis, keyword and content exploration, and tracking company rankings. The firm also provides SEO learning material and access to a private Facebook community to provide support and ideas, specialized for SEO marketers. In September 2020, the firm launched “Webmaster Tools,” a free set of SEO tools for website managers to monitor and diagnose websites. In April 2022, the firm launched usage-based pricing, where new customers would be charged based on their consumption of the SEO toolsets provided on its platform. The firm claims that this increases the flexibility of its platform and makes it more compatible with businesses of all sizes. As of June 2022, Ahrefs annual revenue was ~USD 100 million. 

Ahrefs competitive edge is the large volume of data that is gathered by its web crawling tools. It claims to have the world’s largest index of live backlink indices, which are used to calculate its proprietary metrics for determining a website’s rankings and are updated every 15 minutes (its competitors’ are typically updated once a month or less frequently). The firm claims that its webcrawler processes up to 8 billion pages a day, which is more than 3x that of Google’s web crawler tool. 

In June 2022, Ahrefs reported that it had invested USD 60 million of its to develop a search engine known as “Yep” which would be an alternative to Google and would follow a profit-sharing model where 90% of all profits would be paid to all creators. 

Key customers and partnerships

As of June 2022, the firm had over 50,000 users including global brands such as  Facebook, eBay, Netflix, Uber, and Adobe.