Ahrefs’ product is quite strong. They don’t need to worry, as Tim always says.
This makes me wonder if Semrush is going to neglect product development.
But congrats to Search Engine Land for the payday!
Lucypiper said:
This makes me wonder if Semrush is going to neglect product development.
But congrats to Search Engine Land for the payday!
Saying they’re going to slack assumes they make product updates.
@ThreadTactician
lol, good point!
Lucypiper said:
This makes me wonder if Semrush is going to neglect product development.
But congrats to Search Engine Land for the payday!
From what I know, they aren’t. I get invited to beta tests and meetings with their product developers occasionally. They haven’t slowed down at all.
They’re always launching new features.
@Danielle
If they could make bulk keyword research for location-based keywords easier, that would make me so happy.
It’s annoying that we can only do one keyword when entering a location.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I find it hard to do local keyword research quickly in Semrush.
@Lucypiper
I can’t help you with that. I’m not really a big fan of local keyword research.
Danielle said:
@Lucypiper
I can’t help you with that. I’m not really a big fan of local keyword research.
Can you explain why?
I always use it with city and state modifiers to show potential clients the traffic they might be missing.
@Lucypiper
I’ve always thought that if someone searches for ‘plumbing services’, they also search for ‘plumbing services in XYZ’.
None of the tools show local search volumes consistently, so I never bothered.
If a client wants to see how much traffic they’re missing, you can usually get a good idea from Google Search Console unless they’re brand new or have no search visibility.
@Danielle
Yeah, that’s a fair point! And honestly, the county I’m in is so small that the traffic numbers are pretty low across the board. I guess I feel like I need to show as much traffic as possible, but I’m probably just wasting my time.
I’d say about half or more of my prospects either have no website or no search presence. Sometimes their GBP has some data, but usually their performance is so terrible that they don’t have any non-branded traffic 
Search Engine Land’s president today on LinkedIn: ‘Don’t worry, nothing will change!’
SEL president a year from now: ‘I’m leaving SEL (as per the undisclosed acquisition terms)’
I think this is great news for the industry. Search Engine Land is one of the two most reliable sites for search industry news, the other being Search Engine Roundtable. They also publish some good educational material, and now they might have access to even more data than before.
I don’t mind if they include a link for Semrush occasionally. That doesn’t affect the information they share.
@Danielle
What data? Haha. Do you think SEL didn’t have a Semrush subscription and now they’ll finally get a paid plan?
They’ll add a link now and then, they’ll also remove any links to other tools, and will put Semrush at the top of all their lists. Every piece of content they publish will have one goal: increase Semrush’s sales to satisfy their investors.
@Maya
Do you really think you can access all the data Semrush collects with just a subscription? Of course not. And I’m sure they have more advanced ways to sort and analyze huge amounts of data in the backend than what they show on the front end.
As for their content about tools, who cares? As long as they don’t lie about other tools, it’s no big deal to me. It’s like ClickUp publishing an article about the top project management tools and putting themselves first.
And very few of their articles are about SEO tools at all. I don’t get why people are focusing on that.
@Danielle
Yeah, can’t wait for an article on toxic backlinks with more secret data from Semrush. I’m sure having a junior developer run a database query instead of using the interface to generate the same report will be a big game changer for the content on SEL.
@Maya
Sure. Pull the most useless idea you can think of to make your point.
@Danielle
I have to agree that this acquisition might change the narrative. When a company I worked with bought a smaller analytics firm, it quietly started favoring our own products in reviews and rankings. You can’t really expect SEL to stay totally unbiased now that they’re under Semrush. While SEL might get access to more data, they might only publish content that fits with Semrush’s plans. This isn’t new; many publications like Salesforce’s Pulse, HubSpot’s blogs, or even forum tools like UsePulse often highlight their own brand while downplaying others. It’s a common strategy in the industry.
@Meghan
But it’s not like they are hiding the acquisition.
Sure, if they put out an article about the best SEO tools on the market, you’re going to see Semrush listed first, but as long as everyone knows they are owned by Semrush and they don’t lie about the competition, who cares?
And that accounts for like 0.1% of their content.
The majority of their content is SEO news. And then maybe 20% of their content are articles about tips and strategies. I don’t see how this acquisition changes that sort of content at all.
@Danielle
It’s funny how acquisitions always get the same reaction! Seen it before, though. Companies naturally end up prioritizing their own stuff. SEL might have more data now thanks to Semrush’s resources, but everyone knows they’re gonna put Semrush front and center. As long as SEL’s ownership by Semrush is clear, readers can at least take any biased content with a grain of salt. Funny thing, it’s not like this is breaking news in the industry. Lots of publications have similar strategies after being bought—it’s just how businesses work.
I don’t see the benefit of this. What does Semrush stand to gain beyond free advertising? Are they getting into publishing? Weird move in my opinion.