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SEMRUSH
OVERVIEW

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................................................................................................................3
Organic Research ..............................................................................................................................................4
Advertising Research ...........................................................................................................................................5
PLA Research .......................................................................................................................................................6
Domainvs.Domain...............................................................................................................................................7
Charts ....................................................................................................................................................................8
Keyword Research ...............................................................................................................................................9
Keyword Difficulty................................................................................................................................................10
Display Advertising (AdSense)..........................................................................................................................11
VideoAdvertising.................................................................................................................................................12
Backlinks.............................................................................................................................................................13
Projects...............................................................................................................................................................14
Benefits...............................................................................................................................................................17
Databases and Languages................................................................................................................................18
Complete list of databases and languages......................................................................................................19

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INTRODUCTION
SEMrush is the market leader in online marketing software. Our goal is to provide our customers with
indispensable data to gather a deep understanding of competition and market trends, determine a
long-term content strategy for organic and paid research, and conduct an overall website analysis.
We build our reports and tools on estimations by comparing domains and their keywords on a
national, regional or local level. Our estimations are based on the first 20 Google (and Bing U.S.)
search results because this is what drives over 99% of search engine traffic to websites.
SEMrush includes the following tools and reports: Organic Research, Advertising Research, PLA
Research, Domain vs. Domain, Keyword Research, Keyword Difficulty, DisplayAdvertising
(AdSense), Backlinks, and Projects including the Site Audit, Position Tracking and Social
Media tools. To start using SEMrush you will need to enter a domain or URL in the main search bar.
You can switch from one section to another in the left menu to get different data to display.

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ORGANIC RESEARCH
The Organic Positions Report offers analytics data on keywords that bring users to a website
via Google’s top 20 organic results. For every keyword, you can find useful information such as its
position in Google’s (and Bing U.S.’s) search results, Volume, CPC, URL of a landing page and how
it’s displayed in the search results, Competition and Trend, etc.
The Organic Keywords Graph represents the number of keywords for which a domain has ranked
in the Google (and Bing U.S.) top 20 each month on a historical basis. You can see data for every day
of the current month, one month, six months, one year, two years, or all time. Keywords are grouped
based on the domain’s ranking for that keyword (1-5, 6-10, 11+) so you can easily analyze for which
keywords your site ranks the highest.
The Competitive Positioning Map provides you an instant understanding of your direct competitors.
Based on domains’ natural traffic and the number of organic keywords, this visual shows web rivals’
and your weaknesses and strengths on the web.
The Organic Competitors Report provides a list of your domain’s competitors and number of
common keywords. The competition level metric helps you exclude from your analysis those domains
that are not your real competitors on the market. SEMrush analyzes the total number of keywords of
each domain and the number of the domains’ common keywords. If the domains have a high number
of common keywords, they could be considered competitors.
In the Position Changes Report, you will find:
• New keywords (a URL entered the Google top 20 with this keyword);
• Lost keywords (a URL is no longer in the first 20 Google results with this keyword);
• Improved keywords (a URL’s ranking went up while already in the Google top 20); and
• Declined keywords (a URL remained in the Google top 20, but its ranking went down).
The Pages Report offers a detailed list of all pages associated with a researched domain
that rank in Google’s top 20 organic search results.

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ADVERTISING RESEARCH
The Advertising Research section has the same data as Organic Research, but in regards to
AdWords or Bing Ads in the U.S.: Ads Keywords Report, Ads Keywords Graph, Competitors in
AdsReport and Position Changes Report, etc.
Moreover, the Ads Copies Report provides the unique ads of your competitors. You can see thetext
they used for their AdWords (or Bing Ads in the U.S.), their call to action, and promoted landing
pages. Every unique copy is followed by the number of keywords that trigger the ad in paid search
results. All ads for a given domain are sorted by the number of keywords bid on in descending order.
The Ads History Report for a domain shows how long an ad has been used by competitors (in the
last 12 months) and its position in paid results. Therefore, you can understand which competitors’
AdWords are successful or not, and use this to your benefit. When you generate the report, other
than the Volume, CPC, and Traffic% columns, you’ll notice the column: Coverage. This metric
represents the percentage of ads displayed for a particular keyword during a specified period. If a
keyword was used for 12 months, coverage will be equal to 100%.
Besides, the “Block” column in Position, Position changes, and URL reports will show you
whether your ad texts appeared at the top, on the side, or on the bottom of the search engine results
page. By clicking the icon in the column, you’ll see the snapshots of the SERP.

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PLA RESEARCH
SEMrush Product Listing Ads (PLA) Data show which websites are using product listing ads,
which keywords their PLAs are popping up on, and how their ads look.
The PLA Positions report provides you with a list of keywords that trigger a domain’ PLAs to appear
in paid search results. You will also see ads that popped up for a particular keyword with their current
and previous rankings, and the promoted URL. Moreover, you can view a product title and price, as
well as a snapshot of the SERP where the ad appeared.
The PLA Competitors report shows you a domain’s PLA competitors, including competition level,
common PLA keywords, PLA keywords per domain, AdWords keywords per domain, AdWords traffic
and its price.
The PLA Copies report lists a domain’s unique product listing ads, including their price, title, and
picture. The number in the lower-left corner of each ad shows how many keywords trigger a PLA
pop-up in paid search results Click on the bottom line of an ad in the report, and you will see a list of
search queries each product listing ad appear for.

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DOMAIN VS. DOMAIN
This is a tool that allows you to conduct a deep analysis of the organic, paid, and PLA keywords of
your competitors.
By default, the tool will be open in Simple Mode, which allows you to view keywords of up to 3
competitors’ sites and select the keyword type (organic, paid, or PLA). The report displays each
domain’s position for a particular keyword. It also provides detailed statistics for each keyword
including Volume, CPC, Competition Difficulty, Trend and the number of results in Google.
Advanced Mode will give you more options for spying on your competition’s keywords:
• Compare up to 5 sites
• Display different types of search terms − organic, AdWords, or PLA
• View more keywords’ intersections − all domains’ search phrases, each website’s unique search
terms, and those that are unique to the website entered in the first input field.
You can also switch from the Table View to the Chart View. You will see partially visualized data. By
clicking on the areas in the chart that overlap (or any other portions), you can focus on what’s most
interesting to your search.

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CHARTS
With this tool you can identify your competitors’ and your own strengths and weaknesses instantly.
The SEMrush Charts allow you:
• To compare domains with key visibility indicators;
• To conduct competitive analysis in only a few clicks.
If you need to perform a quick assessment of your internet competition, the Chart Tool will illustrate
your online competitors’ web presence, using visualizations. Data on key visibility numbers are
presented in line, bar, or pie graphs.
With visuals, you can see the most important metrics of up to five competitive domains side by side:
• See how many users visit your competitors’ websites via Google’s or Bing top 20 organic results.
• Gauge the traffic driven to your web rivals’ domains through paid search.
• Get an estimate of how much competitors are spending on Google AdWords or Bing Ads.
• Discover which keywords are helping your online adversary rank in the top search results (new
and improved keywords).
• Evaluate keywords that no longer bring competitors to the Google or Bing top, or that bring them
lower in the SERP (lost and declined keywords).
As for conducting competitive evaluation, it is easy and fast.
• Enter up to five domains per use;
• Choose the metrics you’d like to compare;
• Define regional databases;
• Create up to three plots per attempt.
You will get data-visualizations reflecting your results, and an instant understanding of what is going
on with your competition.

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KEYWORD RESEARCH
The Keyword Research feature helps you discover profitable keywords or spot seasonal or trendy
ones to generate traffic from organic, paid, and shopping search results.
You can enter a keyword in the search bar and find extended information on its value for research in
the Keyword Overview Report: CPC, Volume, Competition of advertisers, number of results, Trend,
top 5 phrase match and related keywords, top 20 organic search results, top AdWords and product
listing ads, as well as the Ads History widget.
The Full Search Report is based on a full-text search within a particular database and offers a list of
alternate search queries, including particular keywords or keyword expressions.
For the Related Keywords Report, SEMrush analyzes domains that are ranked in the Google top
20 for a particular keyword and provides all of the keywords they have in common. Therefore, you get
an extended list of synonyms and variations relevant to the queried term. Every keyword in the Full
Search and Related Keywords Reports includes Volume, CPC and SERP sources. By using these
reports, you can get keyword ideas and enlarge your keyword pool. You can also discover long tail
keywords that have a lower CPC, allowing you to save on your AdWords campaigns.
The Ads History Report for a keyword provides data on paid traffic, advertising budget and
keywords that bring users to a website via paid search results. These metrics show data from the
previous month. By default, domains for a given keyword are sorted by search engine positions in
ascending order. Each of them is provided with the number of ads noticed by SEMrush per month. If
a keyword wasn’t used for an ad for a certain month, or if SEMrush didn’t collect data, you will see the
text N/A.

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KEYWORD DIFFICULTY
The Keyword Difficulty tool is designed to estimate how difficult it would be to seize your competitors’
positions in organic search within the Google or Bing top 20 with a particular keyword. It also allows
you to discover “affordable” keywords to overrun your competition.
To calculate keyword difficulty, we take the list of domains that are ranking in Google or Bing top
20 organic search results for a particular keyword. Based on each website’s SEMrush Rank, we
calculate their domain strength, and define the average number range, from 1 to 100%. The higher
the percentage, the more effort you’ll need to outrank your competition for targeted keywords.
For every requested keyword, you will also see its Difficulty, Volume, Results, Trend, and SERP
source. By default, all keywords are sorted in descending order by difficulty.
By clicking the number within the Difficulty column, you’ll also see which domains you’ll have to
compete with and their domain strength.

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DISPLAY ADVERTISING (ADSENSE)
The SEMrush Top 30 Report shows the best performing advertisers’ and publishers’ websites.
The AdSense Overview Report shows competitors’ and your website’s publishers and advertisers,
text ads and media banners, and promoted landing pages. You will also find the date when SEMrush
first and last saw the ads.
The AdSense Trend Graph shows the ratio of publishers to advertisers for a domain and the number
of their display ads.
As statistics can change depending on the device, you can also view results for PC, Apple
Smartphone, Apple Tablet, Android Smartphone and Android Tablet.

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VIDEO ADVERTISING
With the SEMrush Video Advertising reports you can research competitors’ advertising on YouTube
and view their video ads, landing pages, videos and channels where SEMrush discovered video ads.
The Advertiser Overview Report displays detailed information for the given advertiser. The
report also shows its landing pages, video ads, as well as the YouTube channels and videos where
SEMrush discovered the advertiser’s video ads.
The Advertisers Report shows you all advertisers placing video ads on YouTube and the total
number of video ads SEMrush discovered from each advertiser.
The Channels Report displays a list of all YouTube channels where SEMrush discovered video ads.
The Video Ads Report displays a list of all video ads discovered by SEMrush on YouTube. Clicking
any of the video ads will redirect you to the Video Ad Overview report.
The Videos Report shows a list of all YouTube videos where SEMrush discovered video ads.
Clicking any of the videos will redirect you to the Video Overview report.

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BACKLINKS
The Backlinks section includes five reports: Overview, Backlinks, and Referring domains, Referring
IPs, and Backlinks Comparison.
The Backlinks Overview Report presents data via multiple widgets. Visual data gives you an instant
understanding of the number of incoming links, referring domains and IPs, the ratio of follow links to
nofollow ones, backlinks’ type distribution, TLD authority, and domains’ geographical location.
The Referring Domains Report lists all websites that referred to a website. Thanks to its data,
you know how many links are coming to the queried website from each domain, the country where
the domain is located, and its IP address. The report’s widgets summarize information on referring
domains, and TLD in an easy-to-understand way.
The main Backlinks Report provides a complete list of backlinks and offers useful information on
them: the URL and title of a linking webpage page, anchor text (if used), URL of the target webpage,
number of external and internal links of a linking webpage, a backlink’s type, and the date when the
backlink was seen by SEMrush (the first and last times).
The Anchors Report lists clickable texts of a domain’s backlinks and empty anchors, links with a raw
URL. The Indexed Pages Report shows you which of a website’s pages crawled by SEMrush have
the most backlinks.
The Backlinks Comparison Report allows you to see the difference in backlinks’ weight of up to five
domains. It will show you how differ domains’ number of backlinks, referring domains, IP addresses,
TLD, as well as changes by their backlinks’ types. By clicking the metrics that trigger your interest,
you will go to an appropriate report. All reports allow you to view data for a domain, root domain, or
URL.

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PROJECTS
A project is a global campaign launched for a specific domain so it can analyze its performance from
different perspectives. We have combined the SEMrush Position Tracking and Site Audit tools
into Projects. This provides our users the opportunity to get all the necessary metrics regarding
domain’s competitors, position changes, keywords, performance issues, etc. from one place.
Also there is a quick filtering module at the top of the Projects Dashboard. It allows you to sort your
projects onscreen by such parameters as “Last Site Audit Crawl”, “Name”, “Last Position Tracking
Update”, “Date Created”, etc.
The Site Audit Tool is a website health checker that detects issues related to crawlability,
accessibility, content, semantics, links and coding.
To set up a campaign you need to enter a domain name, the number of webpages to be crawled
(up to 200,000), schedule the day if the audit will be run weekly, and then start it. Once the audit is
finished, you will see the website’s issues divided into three groups depending on their severity:
• Errors (i.e., duplicate content, internal or external broken links, 4xx or 5xx error pages);
• Warnings (i.e., missing meta description, meta words or H1 headings); and
• Notices (i.e., long URL, external or internal links using rel=”nofollow”, robots.txt not found).

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The Overview Report will show you the top issues, the most frequently found problems on your
website, as well as a summary of errors, warnings, and notices detected on a website during the last
audit and its change from the previous audit.
The Issues Report displays issues with descriptions and recommendations on how to fix them, as
well as the URLs of all webpages affected by an issue.
The Page Report shows issues for a specified landing page. The History Report allows to track
changes in the number of issues found on your website over time.
The Compare Crawls Report shows the difference between two audits. By using selectors, you can
choose audits you’d like to compare.
Mini-trends on Overview, Issues, and Page reports demonstrate how your website’s health has
improved over the last 7 audits. Issues and Page reports contain a “Discovered” column. It shows
the “first time seen” date for every issue found. If an issue was detected during the latest audit, it will
be marked as “new.” Therefore, you can instantly tell whether an error, warning, or notice already
existed or if it has just popped up.
The Position Tracking Tool allows you to create campaigns for the daily tracking of positions
for organic keywords the Google Top 100 and paid keywords in paid search results. To set up a
campaign, you will need to enter a root domain, subdomain or URL, precise geolocation, insert
keywords you want to track, competitive domains whose web visibility you’d like compare to yours,
and select from which devices—desktops, tablets, or mobile devices—statistics will be collected. You
can insert keywords (up to 5,000 keywords) into a campaign manually; by using SEMrush Organic
Research or Advertising Research features which can suggest anywhere from 20 to 200 keywords;
by uploading a .csv or .txt file; and by exporting them from Google services. Optionally, you can
choose competitors and link the campaign to your Google Analytics or Google Webmaster Tools
account.
The Competitors Discovery Report lists all your local competitors and shows the number of
keywords they and your primary domain have in common.
Keyword grouping with Tags allows you to manage keywords easier. You can group them by
specific words or a brand name. Each keyword can have up to five tags.

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The Social Media Tool will let you track social audience, activity and engagement of you and your
competitors in Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
The first tab is the Overview. Here you can see overall information for all specified social media
accounts for each group.
Audience is the total number of users subscribed to the social media services (page likes for
Facebook, followers for Twitter and Google+).
Activity is the number that indicates how many times you posted new content on your page for a
selected time period (tweets for Twitter and posts for Facebook and Google+). It also allows you
to conduct detailed research of all social media activity generated by your company and selected
competitors.
Engagement is the total number of user interactions with your social media page (likes, shares and
comments for Facebook; favorites, retweets and mentions for Twitter; +1s, reshares and comments
for Google+).
Engagement Rate measures how well your audience interacted with your social media page for a
selected period of time. Basically, it tracts user activity and compares it to the total audience number.
In the Competitors Comparison section you can quickly compare your social media stats against
your competitors. The section consists of two charts: the chart on the left displays your and your
competitors’ current data values, whereas the chart on the right shows how these values have
changed during the specified period of time. You can choose to sort data either by ‘value’ or by
‘change’. The right chart may be unavailable when you first start your new campaign, as SEMrush
needs time to collect historical data.
The Engagement section gives you a more detailed report on user engagement for a specified social
media group, and is structured in a similar way as the Overview tab.
You can also compare your social media activity with that of your competitors in the Trend section,
which displays information in the form of a convenient graph.

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BENEFITS
SEMrush helps you conduct a deep competitive landscape analysis, discover the right keywords for
organic research and successful PPC campaigns, identify new opportunities for display ads, and get
a sense of a website’s optimization progress.
SEMrush reports and tools are aimed at SEO and SEM professionals, marketing specialists, business
owners and webmasters. They encompass a wide range of functionalities needed for effective
website optimization. Also, almost all elements in pie charts, graphs and reports are interactive, so
you can easily drill down the information you need.
SEMrush data is exportable in CVS, XLS or PDF. You can create customized PDF reports where
you can compile different data for specified periods of time. With charts and filters, it’s easy to see a
summary of large blocks of data. Depending on a SEMrush subscription, you can generate branded
PDF Reports and schedule their delivery to your inbox daily, weekly (on a particular day of the week),
and monthly (any day of the month). For the Domain Overview report and the Position Tracking tool
(Overview and Rankings reports) the new quick PDF export service is available. The new export
system generates a PDF report in real time.
Starting with the Guru Plan, you can view a website’s performance in the past. Historical data are
available for 11 databases dating back to January 2012, and for 15 new regional databases containing
data gathered from December 2013 forward.
To use SEMrush for third party tools, it is possible to integrate them with our service via API.
Corporate accounts are a handy option for easier license management and payments. This can be a
handy option for digital agencies and in-house SEO and SEM teams.

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DATABASES AND LANGUAGES
SEMrush now has 29 regional databases for the United States (Google, Bing and database for
Mobile), the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Israel,
Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland,
Singapore, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan and India.
To keep these databases fresh, SEMrush uses a Live Update algorithm. For example, we have about
40 million keywords in the U.S. Database for Google. They are divided into three groups depending
on their volume:
• Top 1 (1 million of the most popular keywords);
• Top 2 (14 million less popular keywords); and
• Top 3 (25 million, or the rest of the keywords).
Every day, 3 million keywords for the U.S. Database are updated: 1 million from the Top 1; 1 million
from the Top 2; and 1 million from the Top 3. Therefore, we update the Top 1 keywords every day, Top
2 keywords every two weeks and the rest every 25 days. The number of updated words can differ
from one database to another, but the algorithm stays the same.

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COMPLETE LIST OF DATABASES AND LANGUAGES:
Europe
Belgium – Dutch, French, German
Denmark – Danish
Finland – Finnish
France – French
Germany – German
Ireland – English
Israel – Hebrew, Russian
Italy – Italian
Netherlands – Dutch, German, French
Norway – Norwegian
Poland – Polish
Russia – Russian
Spain – Spanish
Sweden - Swedish
Switzerland – German, French, Italian
Turkey – Turkish
United Kingdom – English
North America
Canada – English, French
USA – English (Google and Bing)
Mexico – Spanish
South America
Argentina – Spanish
Brazil – Portuguese
Asia
Hong Kong (China) – English, Chinese
(Simplified)
Singapore – English, Chinese (Simplified)
Japan – Japanese, English
India – English
Australia and Oceania
Australia – English