How to Read Keyword Difficulty: Three Tools

Keyword difficulty scores are the closest thing SEO has to a price tag. Three tools every beginner should know — Chinaz, Ahrefs, and Semrush — each score difficulty differently. This guide walks through all three using the same example word, “timestamp”, so you can learn what each number actually means.

(Figures and case details in this article are as mentioned in the original source and have not been independently verified.)

1. Chinaz: the 91 that wasn’t about Baidu

Open Chinaz’s keyword evaluation tool (tool.chinaz.com/kwevaluate) and enter “timestamp”: the difficulty score comes out at 91 — brutally hard. Chinaz shows several columns, but most of them are noise. Baidu Index is relative heat, not daily searches; ignore the indexed-count, long-tail, and SEM columns entirely. The score comes from the real competition data: the top 50 results contained 11 Baidu-owned properties and only 2 homepage slots — but crucially, 36 of the ranking domains had a weight of 4 or higher. That’s the wall that makes 91. Practical advice: if you already own a high-weight domain, build on a subdomain; with a brand-new domain, wait until you’ve earned backlinks before touching a word like this.

2. Ahrefs: 81 and the 374 referring domains

Ahrefs scores “timestamp” at 81, and its estimate is blunt: you’d need about 374 referring domains to crack the top ten. Note that Ahrefs counts referring domains, not links — 500 footer links from a single site count as one. Its thresholds are worth memorizing: 0–10 means roughly 10 referring sites will do; 11–30 means about 11–36; anything under 60 is winnable with dozens of referring domains; above 65, skip it.

3. Ahrefs country switch: Japan at 12

Difficulty changes by country. Switch Ahrefs to Japan and “timestamp” drops to 12 — roughly 13 referring sites would put you on Google Japan’s first page. The catch: always read difficulty together with search volume. A low score with no searches behind it is a trophy nobody wants.

4. Semrush: global view and the French opening

Semrush’s keyword overview puts “timestamp” at 98 difficulty in the US, with 182.7K global monthly searches: the US and India at 14.8K each, France at 12.1K, Indonesia at 9.9K, Brazil and the Philippines at 8.1K each, per the original. But look country by country: France scores only 47 — a French version of the site is viable. Re-query the local word “horodatage” and it drops to 28, confirming thin competition. Indonesia at 40 is another candidate. Difficulty is local; opportunity hides in the country breakdown.

5. Use the tools daily and build data sensitivity

None of these numbers mean much in isolation. The habit that matters is opening the tools every day: query words, compare scores across tools, watch how difficulty and volume move together. Over weeks, the numbers stop being abstract — you develop data sensitivity, the instinct for which keywords are worth building for.

Series: Build Overseas Websites with GeFei

This article is based on GeFei’s shares, reorganized in our own words. Source: https://vault.knowhy.net/1-%E5%87%BA%E6%B5%B7%E5%A2%9E%E9%95%BF/%E5%93%A5%E9%A3%9E%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0/2023-08-01-%E6%9C%89%E4%BA%86%E8%BF%99%E5%87%A0%E4%B8%AA%E5%85%B3%E9%94%AE%E5%AD%97%E4%BC%98%E5%8C%96%E9%9A%BE%E5%BA%A6%E5%88%86%E6%9E%90%E5%B7%A5%E5%85%B7%E5%A6%88%E5%A6%88%E5%86%8D%E4%B9%9F%E4%B8%8D%E4%BC%9A%E5%88%A4%E6%96%ADseo%E9%9A%BE%E5%BA%A6%E4%BA%86

中文版

关键词难度分是 SEO 里最接近“标价”的东西。三个新手必知的工具——站长工具、Ahrefs、Semrush——各自的难度评分逻辑不同。本篇用同一个示例词“timestamp”带你走一遍，学会每个数字到底是什么意思。

（本文中的数据与案例细节均为原文提及，未经独立核实。）

1. 站长工具：91 分的真正含义

打开站长工具的关键词评估（tool.chinaz.com/kwevaluate），输入 timestamp：难度 91，难到离谱。页面上很多列其实是噪音：百度指数是相对热度，不是日搜索量；收录数、长尾词、SEM 那几列直接忽略。分数真正来自竞争数据：前 50 名里有 11 个百度系产品、只有 2 个首页位置——但关键是，36 个排名域名的权重都在 4 以上。这才是 91 这堵墙。实操建议：手里已有高权重域名，就用子域名去做；全新域名，先等外链养起来再碰这种词。

2. Ahrefs：81 分与 374 个引用域

Ahrefs 给 timestamp 打了 81 分，估算很直白：想进前十，大约需要 374 个引用域。注意 Ahrefs 算的是引用域（referring domains），不是外链数——同一个站点的 500 个页脚链接只算 1 个。它的阈值值得背下来：0–10 大约 10 个引用站就够；11–30 大约需要 11–36 个；60 以下用几十个引用域可拼；65 以上直接放弃。

3. Ahrefs 切换国家：日本只要 12 分

难度因国家而异。把 Ahrefs 切到日本，timestamp 难度掉到 12——大约 13 个引用站就能上 Google 日本首页。但要记住：难度一定要和搜索量一起看。没搜索量的低难度，是没人要的奖杯。

4. Semrush：全球视角与法语的机会

Semrush 的关键词概览里，timestamp 在美国难度 98，全球月搜索 18.27 万：美国和印度各 1.48 万，法国 1.21 万，印尼 9900，巴西和菲律宾各 8100（据原文）。但要分国家看：法国只有 47 分——做法语版网站可行。再查本地词 horodatage，掉到 28，证实竞争很薄。印尼 40 分是另一个候选。难度是本地的，机会藏在分国家的明细里。

5. 每天用工具，培养数据敏感度

这些数字单独看都没太大意义。真正重要的是习惯：每天打开工具查词，对比不同工具的分数，看难度和搜索量怎么一起变化。几周下来，数字就不再抽象——你会培养出数据敏感度，一眼判断一个词值不值得做。