🔗 Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper

🚀 Pull SEO metrics from Ahrefs free tools without an Ahrefs subscription. Domain Rating, backlinks, referring domains, keyword difficulty. Camoufox-driven widget automation.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-01 · 📊 9 fields per check · 🔗 4 free tools · ⭐ DR + backlinks + KD · 🦊 Camoufox UI driver

The Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper drives the public Ahrefs widget UI through a Camoufox browser and returns Domain Rating, URL Rating, total backlinks, referring domains, dofollow backlinks, organic traffic, organic keywords, and keyword-difficulty metrics. Switch between domain and keyword tools per run.

Ahrefs runs one of the largest backlink and SEO datasets in the industry, with their public link index updated every few minutes. Their public free tools expose enough metrics for everyday SEO decisions but are gated by anti-bot. This Actor automates the widget flow so you can pull DR, backlinks, and keyword data on a list of targets without a paid Ahrefs subscription.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
SEO agencies, content marketers, link builders, founders, content strategists	Link building, competitive SEO, content auditing, keyword research

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📋 What the Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper does

Five workflows in a single run:

• 🌐 Website Authority Checker. Domain Rating, URL Rating, total backlinks, referring domains, dofollow share, organic traffic, organic keywords.
• 🔗 Backlink Checker. Backlink count and top referring domains for a target URL.
• 📈 Keyword Difficulty Checker. KD score (0-100) plus search volume and parent topic.
• 💡 Keyword Generator. Suggestion list with volume and KD per suggestion.
• 🌍 Country routing. ISO country code routes the keyword tools through the matching index.

Each row reports the target (domain or keyword), tool name, country (for keyword tools), Domain Rating, URL Rating, backlinks, referring domains, dofollow backlinks, organic traffic, organic keywords, search volume, difficulty, and a check timestamp.

💡 Why it matters: Ahrefs is the de-facto standard for SEO link metrics. A monthly Ahrefs seat costs hundreds of dollars. Their free tools expose the same DR and backlinks data, just behind anti-bot. This Actor automates the free-tool flow so you can pull SEO data at pay-per-event pricing instead of subscription pricing.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
tool	string	"website-authority-checker"	One of website-authority-checker, backlink-checker, keyword-difficulty-checker, keyword-generator.
targets	array of strings	["apify.com"]	Domains for domain tools, keywords for keyword tools.
country	string	"us"	Country code for keyword tools. Ignored for domain tools.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify residential, US	Proxy used for the Camoufox session.

Example: 10 domains for the Website Authority Checker.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "tool": "website-authority-checker",
    "targets": ["apify.com", "github.com", "stackoverflow.com", "vercel.com", "netlify.com"]
}

Example: keyword-difficulty check for a list of seed terms.

{
    "maxItems": 10,
    "tool": "keyword-difficulty-checker",
    "targets": ["web scraping", "browser automation", "seo audit"],
    "country": "us"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Ahrefs serves the free tools behind hCaptcha plus signed JWTs. The widget submission flow works end-to-end via Camoufox; metric extraction succeeds when no captcha is shown. v1 returns one record per target; metric values may be null when Ahrefs gates a specific request. Cold start is around 25 seconds per target.

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📊 Output

Each check record contains 9 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🎯 target	string	"apify.com"
🛠️ tool	string	"website-authority-checker"
🌍 country	string | null	null for domain tools, "us" for keyword tools
⭐ domainRating	number | null	78
🏷️ urlRating	number | null	42
🔗 backlinks	integer | null	52340
🌐 referringDomains	integer | null	8210
✅ dofollowBacklinks	integer | null	38420
📈 organicTraffic	integer | null	1240000
🔑 organicKeywords	integer | null	48000
📊 searchVolume	integer | null	12000
🎚️ difficulty	number | null	34
🕒 checkedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-01T01:55:30.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🆓	No Ahrefs subscription. Reads the public free-tool widgets.
🛠️	4 tools in one Actor. Domain authority, backlinks, KD, keyword generator.
🌐	Country-routed keywords. Match the audience's regional Ahrefs index.
🦊	Camoufox bypass. Real-browser fingerprint defeats most anti-bot.
📈	Domain Rating included. Ahrefs's flagship 0-100 authority score.
🚀	Sub-90-second runs. Typical 3-target pull finishes in 70-90 seconds.
💰	Pay-per-event. Cheaper than a single Ahrefs seat for low-volume work.

📊 In a single 76-second run the Actor completed Domain Rating checks for 3 domains via the Camoufox-driven UI.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
Manual Ahrefs free tools	Free	One target at a time	Live	Manual	Hours per pull
Ahrefs paid subscription	$$$ subscription	Full	Live	Built-in	Account + payment
Generic SEO platforms	$$ subscription	Aggregated	Daily	Built-in	Account setup
⭐ Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper (this Actor)	Pay-per-event	4 free tools	Live	Tool, target, country	None

Same widget flow Ahrefs offers as free lead-magnet tools, automated for bulk targets.

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🚀 How to use

1. 🆓 Create a free Apify account. Sign up here and get $5 in free credit.
2. 🔍 Open the Actor. Search for "Ahrefs Free Tools" in the Apify Store.
3. ⚙️ Pick a tool and targets. Domain or keyword tool, list of targets.
4. ▶️ Click Start. A 3-target run typically completes in 70 to 90 seconds.
5. 📥 Download. Export as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from sign-up to first dataset: under five minutes.

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💼 Business use cases

📈 SEO agencies Pre-qualify prospect domains before pitches Pull competitor DR for client reports Track keyword difficulty across niches Build link-prospecting lists with referring domains	🔗 Link builders Score outreach targets by Domain Rating Verify dofollow share before pitching Track DR shifts after campaigns Cluster prospects by referring-domain count
✍️ Content strategy Map KD across editorial calendar Find low-KD high-volume keywords Audit existing pages for keyword opportunities Benchmark organic traffic against competitors	🛠️ Founders & solo SEO Run SEO checks without Ahrefs subscription Validate niche-saturation before building Track your own DR over time Spot competitor moves cheaply

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical datasets for papers, thesis work, and coursework Longitudinal studies tracking changes across snapshots Reproducible research with cited, versioned data pulls Classroom exercises on data analysis and ethical scraping	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects, portfolio demos, and indie app launches Data visualizations, dashboards, and infographics Content research for bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters Hobbyist collections and personal trackers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Transparency reporting and accountability projects Advocacy campaigns backed by public-interest data Community-run databases for local issues Investigative journalism on public records	🧪 Experimentation Prototype AI and machine-learning pipelines with real data Validate product-market hypotheses before engineering spend Train small domain-specific models on niche corpora Test dashboard concepts with live input

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🔌 Automating Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper

Run this Actor on a schedule, from your codebase, or inside another tool:

• Node.js SDK: see Apify JavaScript client for programmatic runs.
• Python SDK: see Apify Python client for the same flow in Python.
• HTTP API: see Apify API docs for raw REST integration.

Schedule weekly DR checks against a list of competitor domains from the Apify Console. Pipe results into Google Sheets, S3, BigQuery, or your own webhook with the built-in integrations.

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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💰 How much does it cost?

Apify gives you $5 in free monthly credits on the Apify Free plan, enough to test Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper and pull a real sample dataset. For ongoing usage:

• Starter plan ($49/month) — Recommended for individuals running Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper regularly. Includes higher concurrency and larger datasets.
• Scale plan ($499/month) — Recommended for teams running Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper at production scale.

Pay-Per-Event pricing means you only pay for what you actually use. Failed runs are never charged. See the Pricing tab on this Actor's page for exact event prices.

💡 Tips for using Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper

• Start with a small maxItems (3-10) to validate output format before running larger jobs.
• Use Apify Schedules to run Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper on a recurring basis and keep your dataset fresh.
• Export via Integrations: Apify connects to Google Sheets, Airbyte, Make, Zapier, and direct webhooks — pipe your data anywhere.
• Monitor with webhooks: trigger downstream workflows the moment a run finishes.
• Re-run failed items: if any individual records error out, re-run with their inputs only. Failed events are not charged.

⚖️ Is it legal to use Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper?

Yes. Ahrefs Free Tools Scraper only collects publicly available data. Web scraping public data has been confirmed as legal by US courts (see hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn) and is widely used for research, market analysis, and business intelligence.

However, you are responsible for:

• Respecting the source website's Terms of Service.
• Complying with GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable data-protection laws when personal data is involved.
• Not republishing copyrighted content without permission.

If you have specific compliance concerns, consult your legal team. See the Apify legal docs for more.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔌 Integrate with any app

• Make - drop run results into 1,800+ apps.
• Zapier - trigger automations off completed runs.
• Slack - post run summaries to a channel.
• Google Sheets - sync each run into a spreadsheet.
• Webhooks - notify your own services on run finish.
• Airbyte - load runs into Snowflake, BigQuery, or Postgres.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

• 🅱️ Bing Search Scraper - cross-reference rank with DR.
• 🦆 DuckDuckGo Search Scraper - alternative SERP signal alongside SEO data.
• 🕰️ Wayback Machine CDX Scraper - audit historical versions of pages you score.
• 🌐 Common Crawl Index Scraper - pair backlink data with crawl coverage.
• 📚 Wikipedia Pageviews Scraper - align rank metrics with public-interest data.

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more pre-built scrapers and data tools.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form and we'll route the question to the right person.

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Ahrefs is a registered trademark of Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ahrefs. It uses only the public free-tool widgets that Ahrefs offers to any web visitor as lead-magnet tools.