SourceAhrefs
PublishedDecember 1, 2023
TypeTool vendor study
SampleAbout 14 billion pages in Ahrefs' Content Explorer
The short version: Most published pages earn nothing from search. Before writing, check that people search for the topic and that you can compete for it.
What they studied
Ahrefs estimated the Google search traffic of every page in its content index and looked at how traffic relates to backlinks.
Key findings
- 96.55% of pages got no traffic from Google, and 1.94% got between one and ten visits a month.
- Of about 20 million pages with no referring domains, only 2,997 got more than 1,000 search visits a month.
- Pages with more referring domains tended to get more traffic and rank for more keywords.
Key learnings
- Most published pages earn nothing from search. Before writing, check that people search for the topic and that you can compete for it.
- Plan how each important page will earn links, or choose topics with little competition.
Things to keep in mind
- Traffic figures are Ahrefs' estimates, not measured visits, and its keyword database misses some long-tail searches.
- The link and traffic relationship is a correlation; Ahrefs says so itself.
- Ahrefs sells link and keyword tools.
Read it alongside
- 11.8 million Google results: what correlated with ranking (Backlinko, 2016)
- The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (Stanford University, WWW7 conference, 1998)
Source
Tool vendor study by Tim Soulo, published by Ahrefs, December 1, 2023.
We read the source and checked every figure on this page against it on October 13, 2026. Summaries and learnings are ours. Spotted an error? Tell us.
More research like this in SEO Insights Central.
More research
Links and authorityThe Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
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Links and authority11.8 million Google results: what correlated with ranking
The top result had about 3.8 times more backlinks than results in positions 2 to 10, and about 3 times more referring domains. Our summary of what it found, what to do about it, and what to keep in mind.