Toolbar
Overview
Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is a free extension for Chrome and an add-on for Firefox, used daily by over 200.000 SEOs and marketers worldwide.
You can get it in the Chrome Web Store and the Firefox Add-ons Directory.
![How to use toolbar-1](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-01.png)
Confirm the necessary browser permission in the browser, and you're ready to use the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar.
Opening the reports and tools
While browsing web pages, click on the extension icon to open the main window containing on-page SEO reports, tools, and settings.
![How to use toolbar-2](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-02.png)
You can also use a keyboard shortcut to call this window:
- Cmd+Ctrl+S (MacOS)
- Alt+S (Windows)
Another shortcut toggles the metrics bar on the pages:
- Cmd+Ctrl+A (MacOS)
- Alt+A (Windows)
![How to use toolbar: Shortcuts for the metrics bar](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-03.png)
Connecting your Ahrefs account
Ahrefs SEO Toolbar provides numerous free features, but if you have an active subscription, you can connect your Ahrefs account to get SEO metrics for the pages, websites, and keywords right into your browser.
Feel free to skip this section if you don’t have a subscription with Ahrefs.
To link your Ahrefs account, click the Sign in button either in the:
- Main window
- Metrics bar
- or SERP
![How to use toolbar: Sign in](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-04.png)
Then, authorize the connection.
The Toolbar will retrieve SEO metrics through your connected account. Displaying metrics consumes 1 row/URL from your account's Export rows per month allowance.
Page tools and reports
The following tools and reports are accessible from the main extension window:
Content
The Content tab displays the page's title, description, published and modified dates, word count, and H1-H7 subheaders.
![How to use toolbar: Overview-5](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-05.png)
Unlike many similar tools, our extension can distinguish between the titles in raw HTML and JS-rendered code. It also displays multiple titles if they exist on a page (for any reason), as it happens to be the case for this page explaining Angular components.
This is useful, since JavaScript can modify the meta tags on a page. Multiple titles can confuse search engines and almost always indicate some technical issue on a website.
Additionally, this report shows the length of meta tag contents, allowing you to optimize your titles and descriptions for better performance in SERPs. In our case, the meta description could be significantly shortened.
![How to use toolbar: Overview-6](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-06.png)
You can also take a peek at a page’s subheaders in case you’re looking for potential subtopics to cover. Just click on the “Copy headings” button and use them as a content brief.
![How to use toolbar: Overview-7](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-07.png)
Indexability
- Canonical URL
- Robots directives (like noindex and nofollow), detected both in HTML code and in HTTP headers (X-Robots-Tag)
- Quick links to the robots.txt and sitemap files
- Hreflang links
![How to use toolbar: Indexability report](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-08.png)
The example above shows the missing canonical URL and the “noindex” directive. The latter instructs search engine crawlers not to index the page in case. So you might want to remove it if you didn’t add it on purpose.
Structured data
The Structure data tab displays the structured data available on a web page in JSON-LD format.
![How to use toolbar: Structured data report](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-09.png)
In just a few clicks, you can send the page to Google’s Rich Results tester or use the Schema markup validator to see what Google results can be generated for your page.
Social
The Social tab shows the page’s Open Graph (OG) meta tags and Twitter cards. It will hint if one or more social tags are missing or empty.
![How to use toolbar: Social report](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-10.png)
Images
The Images tab lists all images found on a web page with their alt texts and titles. Use the quick filter buttons to find images with missing titles and alt texts.
![How to use toolbar: Images report](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-11.png)
Here, it looks like a few images on our blog are missing alt descriptions; an issue we should address.
HTTP headers
- Identify and track redirects and redirect chains
- Get quick access to the content of the page's HTTP response, eliminating the need to use the built-in browser’s developer tools
![How to use toolbar: HTTP headers redirect trace](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-12.png)
For example, the screenshot above shows a redirect chain from our blog's HTTP + WWW version. According to the best technical SEO practices, this should be replaced with a single redirect.
The HTTP response headers may include canonical links and the X-Robots-Tag, which can contain crawler restrictions like “noindex” or “nofollow.”
![How to use toolbar: HTTP headers link](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-13.png)
Here, you can see a canonical link declared in HTTP headers.
Outgoing links
- Dofollow
- Nofollow
- UGC
- Sponsored
- Internal
- External
![How to use toolbar: Outgoing links filters.png](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-14.png)
Clicking the “Check status” button will check the page for broken links and redirects.
![How to use toolbar: Outgoing links - checking the satus.png](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-15.png)
Don’t close the extension window while the check is in progress. Otherwise, it will reset.
Once the check is complete, the “Status” filter becomes available for broken and redirect links.
![How to use toolbar: Outgoing links - filter by satus](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-16.png)
This feature will prove invaluable for identifying broken links on your own pages and redirects that may inadvertently lead visitors to destinations unrelated to your website’s topic.
For example, if we’re looking to pinpoint broken links on our API v2 documentation page, all we need to do is to click on the “Highlight” button.
![How to use toolbar: Outgoing links - link highlighter](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-17.png)
This will show us the exact location of each broken link on the page.
![How to use toolbar: Overview-18](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-18.png)
Page and website metrics
Once your Ahrefs account is connected, the Toolbar can show the most important SEO metrics for pages and websites. Here’s where you can find them:
Search results
With the “Results metrics” enabled in the Search tools tab, the Ahrefs extension will show SEO metrics for every organic search result directly on the SERP.
![How to use toolbar: SEO metrics on SERPs](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-19.png)
Additionally, you can choose to show keyword metrics just under the search box.
![How to use toolbar: Search tools settings](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-20.png)
Metrics tab
SEO metrics are always available in the Metrics tab inside the main window.
![How to use toolbar: Metrics tab](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-21.png)
Metrics bar
You can choose to keep the floating bar with page and website metrics on or off while browsing.
![How to use toolbar: Metrics bar Dark Theme](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-22.png)
The metrics bar can be customized in terms of color theme (light/dark) and position (top/bottom).
![How to use toolbar: Metrics bar](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-23.png)
SERP Tools
Ahrefs SEO Toolbar enhances the search engine results with the following tools and features:
Keyword ideas
The extension can pull keyword ideas from the current Google SERP and show them in one place.
The Keyword ideas tab is a slightly advanced version of SERP's “Related searches” section.
![How to use toolbar: Keywords ideas](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-24.png)
The People also ask tab lets you pull more relevant questions from the “People also ask” section of the SERP. Click on the “Load more” button to pull more questions.
![How to use toolbar: Keywords ideas - People aslo ask](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-25.png)
Local search results simulator
Ahrefs SEO Toolbar allows you to search on Google as if you were in a different country—without having to use a VPN.
This is useful because results can vary significantly across different countries and locations.
Just configure the desired location, along with Google's domain, language, and device, in the Search tools tab of the main window.
![How to use toolbar: Keywords ideas - Setting up the local search](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-26.png)
Then run a search in Google, and click on the orange icon to apply the saved local settings.
![How to use toolbar: Keywords ideas - Using local search](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-27.png)
For example, while we’re ranking in position 1 for “SEO checklist” in the US, our position is lower in Spain.
![How to use toolbar: Keywords ideas - Local search example](https://static.ahrefs.com/images/academy/how-to-use-ahrefs/toolbar/overview-28.png)