What this score is
Keyword difficulty (KD), also called SEO difficulty, is DataForSEO’s 0 to 100 estimate of how hard it is to reach Google’s top 10 for a keyword in one country. It is mainly a link score. For each of the top 10 organic results, DataForSEO rates the page and its domain by backlinks, counting the page for 90% and the domain for 10%. It takes the higher of the median and the average across the ten, then rescales that to 0 to 100. The API docs call the scale logarithmic.
Searches is the average monthly figure, CPC the average cost per click advertisers have historically paid for the keyword, and intent DataForSEO’s label for what the searcher wants: informational, navigational, commercial or transactional.
How it differs from Ahrefs and Semrush
All three look at the links of the top 10 results. They differ in what else goes in.
| Tool | What its KD is based on |
|---|---|
| DataForSEO (this tool) | A backlink-based rank for the page and the domain of each top 10 result: 90% page, 10% domain. |
| Ahrefs | The number of referring domains the top 10 pages have. On-page factors are left out. |
| Semrush | Among other factors: referring domains, the dofollow and nofollow mix, the Authority Score of the ranking domains and SERP-related qualities of the keyword. |
So the same keyword can score quite differently in each tool. Compare keywords within a tool, never across tools. The keyword difficulty glossary entry has the wider picture.
What a new domain should look for
A new domain has few links, so start with low-KD keywords, where a better page can beat barely linked results. Move up as you earn links. This banding is our rule of thumb, not a DataForSEO or Google scale:
| KD | Our label | What we’d do |
|---|---|---|
| 0–20 | Low | Good first targets. Open the results, then write the page. |
| 21–40 | Medium | Reachable with a page that answers the search better than the top results, plus a few links. |
| 41–60 | High | Win easier terms in the same topic first, then come back. |
| 61–100 | Very high | Not for a new domain yet. |
KD is only half the decision. Read it with searches and intent: a KD 5 keyword with 10 searches a month usually isn’t worth a page. Then open the SERP checker. Forums, thin pages and old posts in the top 10 mean the keyword is probably easier than its score; big brands with deep link profiles mean it is harder.
Find more candidates with the keyword generator, group the ones you will target with AI keyword clustering so each group gets one page, and track the positions you win with the keyword rank checker.
Limits
KD is mostly built from links, so it says nothing about whether your page is better, which is the part you control. Searches are approximate averages. DataForSEO has no data for some phrases; those rows show a dash, and we never estimate a number.