A website owner is sounding the alarm over what they describe as misleading practices by SEO software provider Ahrefs, claiming the platform grossly underreports organic traffic while pressuring users to purchase upgrades under the guise of “site audit errors.”
According to the website owner, Ahrefs reported their site’s organic traffic at just 531 monthly visitors, while Google Analytics — widely considered the industry standard for measuring real user traffic — recorded 7,301 organic visitors for the same period. The gap represents a staggering difference, with Ahrefs showing only 7.27% of the actual figure.
“This isn’t a small margin of error — it’s a complete misrepresentation of reality,” the site owner said. “When potential clients or advertisers look at Ahrefs data, it can cost me real income.”
Ahrefs, like other SEO tools, relies on proprietary algorithms and third-party data to estimate website traffic. The company promotes its service as a reliable solution for search engine analysis, but the fine print in its terms of service states traffic data is only an estimate — often leading to wide variances when compared to Google Analytics or server logs.
The website owner also raised concerns over another common issue: repeated emails from Ahrefs stating “Site Audit crawl failed.” While this is presented as a technical issue, the owner believes the messages are part of a sales tactic to pressure users into purchasing paid subscriptions, which are required to allow deeper site crawling and indexing.
“It’s marketed as if it’s a problem on the user’s end, when in fact it’s a hard paywall disguised as a site audit limitation,” the owner added.
Further complicating matters, Ahrefs allows users to connect their Google Analytics account to the platform — giving the company direct access to precise traffic figures. Despite this, Ahrefs continues to display its own algorithmic estimates, which the owner believes misleads potential clients and damages business credibility.
“My opinion is that this entire system is a scam,” the owner stated. “They have access to accurate data via Google Analytics, but they knowingly choose to display wildly inaccurate estimates instead, which misrepresents the health and reach of websites unless you pay for additional services.”
While the platform’s terms of service are designed to protect against legal liability for inaccurate data, the owner suggests that Ahrefs' marketing promises and technical design amount to deceptive business practices.
Ahrefs has not responded publicly to the criticism, though the company has previously stated in support documents that their traffic numbers are intended for relative comparison, not exact measurement.
