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Keyword Difficulty Estimator

A 0-100 score for any keyword built from the top-10 SERP. Every signal is shown — no black-box numbers.

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This is an estimator, not Moz/Ahrefs DR. We use three public SERP signals only — no proprietary backlink data. Expect ±15 points of the paid tools for most queries. Treat the score as directional and use the breakdown to sanity-check it.

Enter a keyword above to estimate how hard it is to rank for.

FAQ

Keyword Difficulty Estimator questions, answered

How is the score calculated?

Three signals from the top-10 SERP: mega-site presence (max 50 points — sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Reddit, Amazon, GOV.UK that are nearly impossible to outrank), title-keyword match rate (max 30 points — a heavily optimised SERP is harder to break into) and URL depth (max 20 points — homepages dominating means brand-heavy, deep article URLs means content-driven and easier).

Why does this differ from Moz or Ahrefs Keyword Difficulty?

Moz and Ahrefs use Domain Rating / Page Authority, which they compute from their proprietary backlink indexes. We do not have access to those datasets, so we use public SERP signals instead. Expect our score to land within ±15 points of the paid tools for most queries — directional, not gospel.

What does "Very Easy" actually mean?

A SERP with no mega-sites in the top 10, a low title-keyword match rate (suggesting the competition has not optimised), and high URL depth (deep article pages, not brand homepages). A 6-12 month old domain with a well-targeted page can realistically break in.

Can I bulk-check keywords?

Not in this tool — each check uses one query against the Serper.dev Google SERP API. Stack the queries by checking 10-20 keywords manually within your daily 20-query budget. Bulk checking would burn the 2,500 free Serper credits very quickly.

Where do the "suggested easier keywords" come from?

Google Suggest autocomplete — the same source as the People Also Ask Finder. We surface 5 longer-tail variants on the assumption that they are typically easier than the seed term. We do not compute a difficulty score for each because that would burn 5 extra Serper queries per check.

Why might the score under- or over-estimate difficulty?

Three known blind spots: we do not see backlink data (a 10-year-old domain with massive authority but a shallow page will rank harder than our score suggests); we do not detect SERP intent shifts (informational vs commercial); and our mega-site list is finite (industry-specific giants we have not catalogued will under-count). Use the breakdown to sanity-check the score against your domain knowledge.