Connect Ahrefs (AWT) to SiteOps

Ahrefs measures your site's authority on the web: how strong your domain looks to search engines, and who links to you. Its two headline numbers are domain rating — a score from 0 to 100 — and referring domains, the count of different websites that link to yours. Both grow slowly, and both matter for how well you rank.

Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is their free plan for sites you own. You do not need the paid subscription for any of this guide — verifying your own site unlocks its backlink data at no cost. That is enough for SiteOps.

Connecting it to SiteOps puts authority next to the numbers it eventually moves. SiteOps takes a snapshot of your ratings and link counts every week and stores it, so over the months you get a trend: is the link profile growing, flat, or shrinking — and did that Google position change follow a jump in referring domains, or something else. The setup takes ten to fifteen minutes, mostly for verification.

One key, one weekly snapshot

Set it up, step by step

0 of 9 done

1. Site Explorer
1. Account settings
2. API keys
The AWT key's journey — it only reads your own verified site
Paste the key exactly as copied — a stray space at either end is the most common reason a valid key is rejected.
1. Settings
2. Backlinks
3. Ahrefs

Let an agent do it

If the one-click Google verification is not an option, an agent with access to your DNS or your site's files can place the proof for you.

Prompt for your agent

Verify my site in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools — the manual way.

1. I added <my domain> as a project in Ahrefs and it offers verification methods. Use whichever you can reach:
   - DNS: add a TXT record on the bare domain (host @) with the exact value Ahrefs shows: <the ahrefs-site-verification value from the verification screen>.
   - File: upload the verification file Ahrefs offers to the site root so it loads at https://<my domain>/<file name Ahrefs shows>.
2. Confirm the record resolves (dig TXT <my domain> +short should include the value) or the file is publicly reachable. DNS can take up to a day — re-check rather than re-adding.
3. Tell me when it is live, so I can press Verify in Ahrefs and then generate the API key under Account settings, API keys.

Creating the Ahrefs account, pressing Verify, generating the API key and pasting it into SiteOps are console clicks only you can do.

If something does not work

The backlinks card stays empty: Three usual causes, in order. First, the first crawl: right after verification Ahrefs has no data yet — check Site Explorer inside Ahrefs, and if domain rating is blank there, SiteOps has nothing to read either; wait a day. Second, the weekly rhythm: SiteOps takes snapshots weekly, so a fresh connection may show numbers only after the next snapshot runs. Third, verification: the key only unlocks data for sites verified in your Ahrefs account — confirm your project in Ahrefs shows as verified, not pending.
Which key do I paste?: The API key from Ahrefs' account settings, under API keys. Not your password, and not anything from the Site Audit or crawl settings. If the API keys section offers a choice of key types or scopes, a read-only key is all SiteOps needs. If you cannot find the section at all, make sure you are in account or workspace settings, not in a project's settings.
The one-click Google verification is not offered or fails: The Google account signed in to Ahrefs must be the same one that owns the property in Search Console. If you signed up to Ahrefs with an email address instead, the Google option may not appear — use the DNS record or HTML file method, they end in exactly the same place. If Google shows the permission screen but your site is not in the list, the account you picked is not a user on that Search Console property.
My domain rating went down and I changed nothing: Domain rating is relative, not absolute — it depends on the whole web's link graph, so it can drift a point or two when other sites gain or lose links, or when Ahrefs recalculates. A small dip with a steady referring domains count is noise. Watch referring domains for the real signal: an actual drop there means links were removed or the pages carrying them disappeared.
The numbers do not match what another tool shows: Every backlink tool runs its own crawler and its own index, so Ahrefs, Bing and others will never agree exactly — differences of tens of percent are normal. Compare a tool with itself over time, not one tool against another. In SiteOps, the trend of the Ahrefs snapshots is the honest signal.

Before you start

A free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account. Sign up at ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools — no card, no trial, no billing anywhere in this guide.
A way to prove the site is yours. The fastest path is Google Search Console: if your site is already verified there and you sign in to Ahrefs with the same Google account, verification is one click. Otherwise you will need access to your domain's DNS settings, or the ability to upload a small file to your site.
Patience for the first crawl. After you verify, Ahrefs needs to gather your site's data before the numbers exist — usually within a day, sometimes faster for sites it already knows.
Ahrefs only shares this data for sites you have verified. You cannot use the free plan to pull numbers for a competitor's domain — that is the paid product.

Quick links

What SiteOps reads

Domain rating, URL rating, and the counts of referring domains and backlinks for your verified site — captured as a weekly snapshot and stored, so the trend builds up over time.
Nothing else, and nothing live: the free plan has no continuous feed, so SiteOps checks once a week rather than streaming.
SiteOps never writes anything to Ahrefs — no settings changes, no crawls triggered, no disavows. The key is used read-only.
You stay in control of access: delete the key in Ahrefs' API keys section at any time and SiteOps simply stops receiving new snapshots. The history it already stored stays on your dashboard.

Connect Ahrefs (AWT) to SiteOps

Set it up, step by step

Let an agent do it

If something does not work

Set up once, see everything every morning