Keyword Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is the column most people sort by first and trust the most. It looks like a probability. It is not one. Each tool turns a handful of measurable facts about the pages already ranking into a score from 0 to 100, and each tool picks different facts. The number is useful, provided you know what went into it.

As of October 2026, Ahrefs bases its KD on how many referring domains (separate websites linking in) the top 10 organic results have, and its help center says the score does not take on-page factors into account. Semrush's KD% blends the median referring domains to the ranking URLs, the median ratio of followed to nofollowed links, the median Authority Score of the ranking domains and qualities of the results page itself, then labels bands from Very easy (0 to 14) to Very hard (85 to 100). Every vendor builds its own recipe.

That is why two tools can call the same search a 12 and a 47 and both be calculating correctly. They are answering slightly different questions. It is also why comparing scores across tools tells you nothing, and why switching tools halfway through a project makes your whole list look easier or harder overnight while nothing in the actual results has moved.

The bigger issue is what a standard score cannot see. General KD is the same number for every website; it does not know whether your site launched last month or has covered the subject for a decade. Semrush now offers a separate Personal Keyword Difficulty that factors in your domain and its relevance to the topic, which tells you how large that blind spot is. The scores also cannot read. A page with three hundred linking sites and an answer that misses the question is weaker than its links suggest, and no score notices.

So we use difficulty the way Ahrefs itself recommends, as a first filter. It clears out terms where every ranking page is backed by years of links, and it helps order a long list. Then a person reads the shortlist: who ranks, how good those pages are, which format wins, and how close the subject sits to what your site already covers. That reading is where low-competition keywords actually turn up, and where the search intent behind a term gets settled.

Difficulty also moves with your site. A term out of reach today can become realistic once you have built a section of related pages, connected them through internal linking and earned some standing on the subject. Planning that order is part of keyword research and the keyword map, and it runs inside DataCram's monthly SEO programs, which start at $625 a month, per our SEO pricing.