Ahrefs vs SEMrush vs Moz vs Majestic: MPGH Comparison

Why Ecommerce Brands Need Backlink Analysis Tools in 2026

I’ve watched hundreds of Shopify and Amazon sellers burn $500/month on SEO tool subscriptions, then wonder why their organic traffic flatlines. The truth? These platforms show you the data, but they won’t build the content systems that actually rank in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. You’re paying for maps without an engine to drive the car.

We built AEO Engine because backlink metrics alone are dead weight in 2026. Domain Rating, Authority Score, Domain Authority, and Trust Flow tell you what competitors have, not how to turn that intelligence into citations in AI-generated answers. The real game is Agentic SEO: using AI agents to operationalize tool data into always-on content that feeds the algorithms deciding 60% of searches before users even click.

The Shift to AI Overviews and Zero-Click Searches

Google’s AI Overviews now dominate commercial queries. Perplexity and ChatGPT answer product questions without sending traffic to your site. You need citation monitoring, entity optimization, and community seeding across Reddit, Quora, and TikTok–platforms where LLMs scrape training data. Traditional tools give you the raw material; Agentic SEO turns it into revenue.

Why Most Brands Waste Money on SEO Subscriptions

I’ve seen seven-figure brands waste six months debating which subscription to buy instead of building the content that wins citations. Every tool has blind spots, and none connect backlink opportunities to actual sales attribution.

How to Automate These Tools with AI Agents

At AEO Engine, we plug major SEO platform APIs into our AI agents to automate competitor gap analysis, broken link prospecting, and entity mapping. Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint uses their data as inputs for content briefs that target AI Overview triggers, not just traditional SERPs. We’ve averaged 920% lifts in AI-driven traffic because we systematize what agencies do manually. While they sell hours, we give you an engine that runs while you sleep.

Backlink and Authority Metrics Breakdown: DR vs AS vs DA vs TF

Every ecommerce brand asks: which metric actually predicts rankings? I’ve tested all four major scoring systems across 200+ client domains. Domain Rating spikes fast with PBN links. Authority Score correlates better with long-term Google trust. Domain Authority helps beginners assess competitive situations. Trust Flow exposes link network quality that other tools miss. You need all four perspectives to make smart outreach decisions.

Ahrefs DR: Fastest but Easiest to Manipulate

Ahrefs crawls 8 billion pages daily, giving you the freshest backlink data. DR from 0 to 100 updates within days of new links going live. Black-hat SEOs game it with cheap PBN networks, inflating DR without real authority. I’ve seen Shopify stores buy DR 40 domains that tank in six months. Use DR for speed in competitive research, but cross-reference with traffic estimates before trusting a prospect’s value.

SEMrush AS: Most Reliable for Long-Term Gains

Authority Score blends backlink quality with organic search traffic and user behavior signals. It’s the hardest metric to fake because it requires actual visitor engagement. SEMrush’s 25 billion keyword database feeds this scoring, making AS the best predictor of sustainable rankings. For DTC brands building multi-year moats, AS targets above 50 correlate with consistent AI Overview citations in our client data. The trade-off? Slower updates mean you’ll spot competitor moves a week late.

Moz DA: Beginner-Friendly Foundation

Domain Authority pioneered the 0-100 scoring concept and remains the easiest metric to explain to non-SEO stakeholders. Moz’s smaller index means fewer obscure sites appear, reducing noise for new users. DA updates monthly, which smooths out short-term volatility but delays actionable insights. It works well for agencies pitching ecommerce clients who need simple competitive benchmarks. Don’t rely on it alone when Ahrefs shows a link opportunity Moz hasn’t indexed. For more insights, check out our Moz vs Yoast SEO comparison.

Majestic TF: Deep Link Network Insights

Trust Flow analyzes the topology of linking domains, scoring based on proximity to seed sites that Majestic manually vetted as authoritative. This catches link schemes other tools miss because TF drops when your backlink neighborhood looks suspicious. I use Majestic to audit Amazon FBA brands buying aged domains: a high DR with low TF signals a previous penalty or a spam network. The interface confuses beginners, but the data quality justifies the learning curve for serious link builders.

Keyword Research, Site Audits, and Competitor Analysis Face-Off

Backlinks are half the game. The other half is knowing which keywords to target and which technical issues block your crawl budget. I’ve run parallel audits on the same eight-figure Shopify stores with all four major tools, and each surfaced different gaps. SEMrush found 18% more commercial keywords. Ahrefs caught redirect chains SEMrush missed. Moz’s beginner-friendly reports earned client buy-in faster. Majestic’s bulk backlink export saved six hours of manual analysis.

Keyword Databases and Accuracy: SEMrush’s Edge in Volume

SEMrush indexes 25.3 billion keywords across 142 databases, surpassing Ahrefs’ 11.4 billion and Moz’s 1.25 billion. For ecommerce brands expanding internationally, SEMrush delivers local search-volume data that Ahrefs approximates and Moz lacks entirely. Majestic doesn’t offer keyword research. I’ve found long-tail product queries in SEMrush that competitors ignore because other tools don’t surface them. If your catalog has 10,000+ SKUs, SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool is non-negotiable.

Site Audit Tools: Depth for Ecommerce Scale

Ahrefs Site Audit crawls 500 pages per project on the base plan, while SEMrush allows 20,000 pages at the same price tier. For Shopify Plus brands with massive inventories, that’s the difference between partial visibility and full technical coverage. Moz’s crawler is gentler on servers but misses JavaScript rendering issues that block indexing for faceted navigation. Majestic offers no site audit feature. We pipe SEMrush audit data into our AI agents to auto-generate fix prioritization based on revenue impact, not just error count.

Competitor Spying: Actionable Insights for Amazon Sellers

SEMrush’s Traffic Analytics estimates competitor revenue and top landing pages using clickstream data. Ahrefs shows the pages earning backlinks but estimates traffic less accurately. Moz’s Link Intersect finds domains linking to competitors but not you–perfect for outreach lists. Majestic’s Clique Hunter maps link networks to expose PBN schemes. Amazon sellers use Ahrefs to reverse-engineer which blog posts drive affiliate links, then we replicate the content strategy with Agentic SEO agents that publish 10x faster than manual teams.

Pricing, Ease of Use, and Best Picks for Agencies vs Beginners

I’ve onboarded 50+ ecommerce teams in the past year. The first question is always about cost. The second is whether their junior marketers can use the tool without a three-month ramp. Moz starts at $99/month but caps keyword tracking at 150. Ahrefs demands $129/month minimum with a learning curve that stalls beginners for weeks. SEMrush sits at $139.95/month and scales to $450 for agency features. Majestic offers $49.99/month but only covers backlinks, forcing you to stack subscriptions. None of them connect spend to revenue attribution, which is why we built AEO Engine’s productized model.

Cost Structures: From Moz’s Affordable Entry to Ahrefs Premium

Moz wins on price for bootstrapped Shopify stores testing SEO before hiring agencies. You get basic rank tracking and DA checks without breaking $100/month. Ahrefs charges 30% more but delivers daily backlink updates and deeper competitor analysis. SEMrush bundles keyword research, site audits, and social listening at $139.95, making it the best value for teams running multiple campaigns. Majestic’s $49.99 tier looks cheap until you realize it’s backlink-only, pushing total costs past $200 when you add keyword tools. The hidden tax? Manual labor. Agencies charge $3,000-10,000 monthly to interpret this data. Our AI agents do it for a fraction of that.

Learning Curves: Moz Wins for Starters, SEMrush for Scale

Moz’s interface guides beginners with plain-language explanations and limited feature bloat. I’ve trained non-technical founders on Moz in under two hours. Ahrefs overwhelms new users with 15 menu options and assumes you know the difference between referring domains and backlinks. SEMrush lands in the middle with onboarding wizards and templates, making it scalable for growing teams. Majestic’s 1990s UI design frustrates anyone under 40. The real bottleneck isn’t the tool–it’s the strategy. Knowing which reports matter for your business model is where Agentic SEO systems eliminate guesswork.

Ahrefs vs SEMrush for Agencies: Integration and Reporting

SEMrush’s white-label reporting and CRM integrations make it the agency standard for client dashboards. Ahrefs offers cleaner data exports but weaker presentation tools, forcing teams to build custom reports in Google Sheets. Both charge $449+ monthly for multi-user access. Majestic and Moz lag in collaboration features. The problem all four share? They’re built for manual workflows. You export CSVs, analyze in spreadsheets, write briefs, then wait weeks for content production. We automate that entire chain with AI agents that turn backlink gaps into published articles in 72 hours.

Power These Tools with AEO Engine’s Agentic SEO

The tools don’t matter if you lack the system to execute on their insights. I built AEO Engine after watching seven-figure brands drown in backlink reports while their organic traffic flatlined. Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint plugs tool APIs into AI agents that run competitor audits, generate content briefs, monitor AI citations, and seed community platforms without human bottlenecks. While agencies sell you hours, we give you an engine that compounds results 24/7.

Our 100-Day Traffic Sprint: AI Agents Plus Tool Data

We feed Ahrefs backlink data, SEMrush keyword gaps, Moz competitor profiles, and Majestic network analysis into our proprietary AI workflow. Day 1-30: entity optimization and citation monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Day 31-60: community seeding on Reddit, Quora, and TikTok, where LLMs scrape training data. Day 61-100: always-on content systems publishing product-led articles that convert AI traffic to revenue. Clients see measurable lift in AI-driven search visibility within 90 days, not the six-month lag traditional SEO demands.

Ecommerce Wins: Shopify and Amazon Case Studies

Get Started: Book Your Free Strategy Call Today

Stop paying for tools you don’t have time to use. Book a free strategy call at aeoengine.ai, and we’ll audit your current SEO stack, show you exactly where your tool data is going to waste, and map a 100-day roadmap to turn backlink intelligence into AI citations that drive revenue. Systems plus data plus speed equals the new model. Let’s build your engine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Moz or Semrush?

From my testing, SEMrush’s Authority Score is more reliable for long-term gains because it factors in actual traffic and user behavior. Moz’s Domain Authority is simpler for beginners and stakeholders, but its monthly updates mean you’re often behind.

Which one is better, Semrush or Ahrefs?

From my testing across hundreds of domains, neither is ‘better’ alone; they serve different purposes. Ahrefs provides the freshest backlink data with daily crawls, useful for quick competitive research. SEMrush’s Authority Score, however, is a more reliable predictor of sustainable rankings because it’s harder to fake and considers traffic.

What are Moz and Ahrefs?

Moz and Ahrefs are foundational SEO tools that provide backlink data and authority metrics. Moz pioneered the Domain Authority score, making it easy for beginners to assess competitors. Ahrefs offers Domain Rating, known for its fast daily crawls and extensive backlink index.

What is the most accurate SEO tool?

There isn’t one ‘most accurate’ SEO tool; that’s a myth the industry sells. I’ve found that Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Majestic each offer unique perspectives on authority and links. For true accuracy in 2026, you need to combine their data and operationalize it with Agentic SEO, not just look at one metric.

Is Semrush a Russian company?

SEMrush was founded by Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov, who are Russian. However, the company is headquartered in Boston, USA, and operates globally.