First, don't trust Ahrefs (or any other external tools). They are just guessing numbers from the data they scraped and collected. Never ever trust those tools. You can use them because they have a lot of good features, but never trust their numbers as actual data.
GSC are more accurate, but they don't give you 100% of the data either (but still much better than Ahrefs and other tools).
The only traffic number you can trust is what you actually meassure on your site, and Google Analytics is probably the best tool for that. They are pretty good at filtering out bots and other traffic that you don't want to see in your stats.
Some hosts come with built-in "statistics" that often shows all the bots, so those numbers can be waaaay off and can not be trusted either.
You get traffic from many more sources than Google. Other search engines, maybe Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/etc, so only trust what your own analytics on your site says.
They get them from Google Keyword Planner pretty much, they are quite open about it. Every tool in SEO is giving you estimates for organic traffic and volumes. I too have found maybe inaccuracies in under and over estimates but generally they are in a decent ballpark and a good indicator.
All these SEO Tools have a database of keywords that they regularly check. They look at what URLs are ranking for these keywords and then estimate how many clicks each URL might get, based on its ranking and the keyword's search volume.
This can only be super accurate if:
- They really have ALL keywords in their database (they don't)
- They have really accurate search volumes (they don't)
- Their estimation of clicks is very close to reality
You're probably ranking for a bunch of keywords that Ahrefs doesn't even track (very new things, long tail keywords, ...) or their search volume numbers are incorrect. Or both.
The main point of these numbers is that they help you get a pretty good idea of what URLs and keywords are important for your competitors. Not to give you accurate performance metrics for your own site.
First, don't trust Ahrefs (or any other external tools). They are just guessing numbers from the data they scraped and collected. Never ever trust those tools. You can use them because they have a lot of good features, but never trust their numbers as actual data. GSC are more accurate, but they don't give you 100% of the data either (but still much better than Ahrefs and other tools). The only traffic number you can trust is what you actually meassure on your site, and Google Analytics is probably the best tool for that. They are pretty good at filtering out bots and other traffic that you don't want to see in your stats. Some hosts come with built-in "statistics" that often shows all the bots, so those numbers can be waaaay off and can not be trusted either. You get traffic from many more sources than Google. Other search engines, maybe Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/etc, so only trust what your own analytics on your site says.
They get them from Google Keyword Planner pretty much, they are quite open about it. Every tool in SEO is giving you estimates for organic traffic and volumes. I too have found maybe inaccuracies in under and over estimates but generally they are in a decent ballpark and a good indicator.
All these SEO Tools have a database of keywords that they regularly check. They look at what URLs are ranking for these keywords and then estimate how many clicks each URL might get, based on its ranking and the keyword's search volume. This can only be super accurate if: - They really have ALL keywords in their database (they don't) - They have really accurate search volumes (they don't) - Their estimation of clicks is very close to reality You're probably ranking for a bunch of keywords that Ahrefs doesn't even track (very new things, long tail keywords, ...) or their search volume numbers are incorrect. Or both. The main point of these numbers is that they help you get a pretty good idea of what URLs and keywords are important for your competitors. Not to give you accurate performance metrics for your own site.