Keyword difficulty checker

What does “authority” mean here?

Authority is an estimate, from 1 to 100, of how much other websites link to a site, with links from stronger sites counting for more. Links from other websites are the main way Google judges how much to trust a site, so a site with high authority is usually a serious competitor. It is DataForSEO’s own rank for the site, not Google’s, so it will not match other tools. It does not measure whether the linking sites cover the same subject as the site they link to. A site can be large and still have low authority, and a small site can have high authority, which is why we show authority and not size.

What do Very high, High, Medium and Low authority mean?

They are groups of that 1 to 100 number, so you can read the table at a glance:

• Very high authority (70 to 100): links from a very large number of sites, many of them strong. Examples are big platforms and well-known brands.
• High authority (40 to 69): well established, with many links, including from strong sites, built up over years. These are the sites we count as serious competitors, for example calculator.net (about 43) and timeanddate.com (about 60).
• Medium authority (15 to 39): a real site with a fair number of links, but within reach of a site that earns links steadily.
• Low authority (under 15): few links. This includes new sites.

So what can I do about a Very high or High authority site?

You are unlikely to match their number of links soon, so the pages to look at are the ones where something other than authority can help:

• Open their page and see what it covers and what it leaves out. A narrower or more specific page can serve people they only cover in passing.
• Look at the “Longer and alternative phrases” list for phrases where fewer high-authority sites rank. The difficulty shown there is measured for each phrase.
• Links from relevant sites build up over time. Buying links or swapping them in bulk can break Google’s rules.

And about a Medium authority site?

These are the closest to a site that is earning links steadily. Open the page and compare it with what you could write: how complete it is, how it is laid out, and whether it answers the questions people ask.

What if a Low authority site is ranking near the top?

Few sites link to it, so the page itself may be doing much of the work, for example because the title matches the search closely or it does one thing very well. Open it and look at what it offers and how it is built. It shows that page 1 is open to sites with few links.

What is the line under each page?

It describes what the page appears to give someone who searches this phrase, for example a tool you use on the page, a guide, a list of options or a discussion. It is written from the page’s title and the short text Google shows under it, not from the full page, so open the page to check. Seeing what the top pages offer is the quickest way to see what a page of yours would be up against, and what it could offer differently.

What does it mean when forum threads rank?

Forums and question sites such as Reddit and Quora sometimes rank because no dedicated page answers the question well. A complete, direct answer on a page of your own is one thing you could look at. It can also mean people prefer discussion for that search, so open the threads and see what people are asking.

What does “Page 1 difficulty” mean, and how is it worked out?

It describes how crowded and strong the competition on page 1 is today: Open field (under 40), Competitive (40 to 64) or Crowded (65 and over), with a score out of 100. It is built from four things: how strong the ranking sites are (the biggest part), how many of the top results come from sites well above the authority of the site you picked, Google’s own difficulty estimate for the phrase, and how many extra blocks (ads, answer boxes, videos) take attention from normal results. It describes the competition; it does not predict where your page would rank.

The score is for a site like yours: the stronger the site you pick, the lower the score, because the sites on page 1 sit closer to you. It also assumes your site’s links count on any topic. It does not know what your site is about, so a keyword far from your subject is harder than the score shows.

Why do you look at the results three times?

Google shows different pages for the same search from one moment to the next. We look at the results three times and show the middle score. When the three disagree a lot, we say so, and it is worth opening the pages yourself.

What are “longer” and “alternative” phrases, and why are they in that order?

When Google shows a search, it also lists related searches and questions people ask. We look up how many people search each one and how hard page 1 is for it.

• A longer version adds words to your phrase, for example “dpi calculator for printing”.
• Alternative wording says the same thing differently, for example “pixels per inch converter”.

They are listed with the easiest page 1 first and, within each level, the phrases with the most searches first. A phrase with plenty of searches and an open page 1 comes to the top; a rarely searched, competitive one comes last.

“Compared with your main phrase” counts how many of the same pages rank for both. If many do, one page can often cover both, and a second page could compete with the first. If different pages rank, the phrase would need its own page.

What does “Find out more” do?

It runs a full analysis of that phrase and shows it as its own result above. Each set of results allows three, and the number left is shown on the button. They do not use a credit.

How accurate is this?

Search numbers and scores are estimates and will not match other tools. Difficulty uses a first set of weights that has been tested on a small number of real searches, where it misjudged some. Use it to see the competition quickly, then open the listed pages yourself.

What can’t this tell me?

Why Google actually put a page where it is. We do not see a page’s own links, the age of a site, or how good its content is. We also do not know what your site is about, so we cannot tell how well a keyword fits it: a site with many links still has a harder time ranking for a subject it never covers. The notes describe what we could measure.