SEO tools

SEO tools collect and estimate data about search engines and websites that you cannot see from your own analytics: which queries exist and how often they are searched, who ranks for them, which sites link to whom, and what is technically wrong with a site.

The category covers four jobs, which the big suites bundle and smaller tools do one at a time:

• Keyword research. Estimated search volume, difficulty and related queries, so you can choose topics people actually search for.
• Backlink analysis. Which pages link to a site, from where and how that changes. This is the core of competitor research and of judging whether a page can realistically outrank the current top results.
• Rank tracking. Daily or weekly positions for a list of queries, by country and device.
• Site audits. Crawls that find broken links, redirect chains, missing tags, slow pages and indexing problems.

Third-party tools estimate; they do not see Google's data. The only first-party source is Google's free Search Console, which shows the queries that bring your site impressions and clicks and its indexing status (as of October 2026). Commercial suites such as Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz Pro add data about the rest of the web.

For affiliates these tools serve affiliate SEO and the organic search source. They are the organic counterpart of spy tools on the paid side.

Start from the job, not the brand. Most affiliate sites need keyword research and backlink data every week, and audits and rank tracking less often.

1. Start with what is free. Set up Google Search Console before paying for anything: it is free and is the only source of your real queries and clicks (Google, as of October 2026). Several vendors also have free tiers: Ahrefs lists an "Ahrefs Free" plan for your own site (Ahrefs pricing) and Semrush a free plan with "10 reports per day" (Semrush prices, both as of October 2026). Use them to learn what you need before committing.

2. Check the data where you work. Database size claims are hard to compare. What matters is coverage in your countries and language. Run the same handful of your own queries and competitor domains through each trial and compare against what Search Console shows for your site.

3. Match the plan to the limits that bind. Plans differ less by feature than by limits: projects, tracked keywords, report rows, users, history. Count how many sites and keywords you will track in six months and price that, not the entry plan.

4. Decide one suite or several tools. A suite saves switching and one invoice. Separate tools (a crawler, a rank tracker, a backlink index) can be cheaper and sometimes deeper. Small affiliate teams usually start with one suite plus Search Console.

5. Look at the trial terms. Semrush offers a seven day trial (Semrush prices, as of October 2026); others offer a free tier instead. Cancel dates matter on monthly billing.

6. Do not let a metric become the goal. Vendor authority scores and difficulty scores are each vendor's own model. Use them to compare, not as targets.

7. Re-check once you have data. When your site has enough Search Console history, compare each suite's volume estimates for queries you rank for against your real impressions in your main markets, and give the most weight to the suite that comes closest.

Index coverage in your markets. Keyword and backlink databases are uneven by country and language. Test the countries you publish for.

Freshness. How quickly new links and lost links show up, and how often rankings are refreshed.

Limits per plan. Projects, tracked keywords, rows per report, users and history depth. These decide the real price.

Search Console integration. Tools that import your Search Console data let you compare their estimates with Google's numbers.

Audit depth. Crawl limits per month, JavaScript rendering, scheduling and the ability to export issues.

Exports and API. If you build reports or feed data into your own systems, check whether an API is included or sold separately.

Competitor views. For affiliate sites the most used reports are a competitor's top pages, the queries they rank for and the links behind them. Check how quickly a tool answers those three questions for one domain.

Pricing model. Monthly or annual billing, extra charges for users or add-ons, and how much a discount for annual payment locks you in.

Prices below are what the vendors' pages showed in October 2026; they change often, so check before buying.

• Free: Google Search Console (Google). Ahrefs Free for your own site and a Semrush free plan limited to "10 reports per day".
• Entry: Ahrefs Starter at $29 a month (Ahrefs pricing).
• Main paid tiers: Ahrefs Lite $129, Standard $249 and Advanced $449 a month, Enterprise $1,499 a month with an annual commitment (Ahrefs pricing). Semrush SEO $117.33, Pro+ $248.17 and Advanced $455.67 a month, all quoted billed annually (Semrush pricing).
• Moz Pro: Standard $99, Medium $179 and Large $299 a month, or $79, $143 and $239 a month paid yearly, with a $49 entry plan for a single website (Moz pricing).

The pattern: a free first-party source, cheap entry plans with tight limits, and full suites in the low hundreds of dollars a month per seat.