---
title: "What is keyword difficulty?"  
description: "What is keyword difficulty?"  
author: "Anonymous User"  
published: 2020-11-30  
updated: 2025-02-06  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/156131/what-is-keyword-difficulty  
category: "negative seo"  
tags: ["seo"]  
reading_time: 2 minutes  

---

# What is keyword difficulty?

What is [keyword difficulty](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/85944/how-to-measure-keyword-difficulty)?

## Replies

### Reply by Khushi Singh

**Search engine results pages (SERPs)** demonstrate the challenging level of obtaining rankings for particular [keyword](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/33572/sql-inner-join-keyword) terms which is known as **keyword difficulty.** The ranking position for a particular keyword becomes harder to obtain because of competition and the necessary effort required to maintain a top spot. The complexity of a keyword escalates search engine competitiveness making it harder to achieve ranking positions for that term.

## Factors That Determine Keyword Difficulty

- Keywords with big search volume become more challenging because numerous businesses try to get rankings for those search terms.
- Other websites that focus on the same keyword present a challenge that affects its difficulty levels. When numerous websites with high domain authority target a specific keyword the search difficulty rating becomes higher.
- Websites possessing superior domain authority receive from their age and trust and linked pages can successfully achieve rankings for challenging keywords. Websites starting up or with limited authority cannot successfully compete for expressions that multiple established sites already optimize.
- Relevant high-quality content receives top priority from the Google search ranking systems. The difficulty rises to rank for a keyword when the current content possesses thoroughness and research alongside value attributes.
- Pages with reliable connections from respected websites will automatically increase their chances of ranking for particular keywords. The high backlink quality of existing page content makes it challenging to achieve higher rankings with the targeted keywords.

## How Keyword Difficulty Is Measured

SEMrush together with Ahrefs and Moz employ their tools to determine keyword difficulty scores by analyzing these factors. The tools utilize a numeric scale starting from zero which rises to a hundred but values close to one hundred signal high competition while zero points to minimal opposition.


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Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/forum/156131/what-is-keyword-difficulty

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