Can you import Ahrefs domains into Semrush?

When you're running backlink audits or outreach campaigns across both Ahrefs and Semrush, you quickly realise each tool has its own blind spots. Importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush lets you combine the best of both platforms into one clean, auditable list, giving you a more complete view of your link profile, faster identification of toxic links, and a single source of truth for your disavow file or outreach pipeline. This guide walks you through the exact workflow to export referring domains from Ahrefs, prepare them for Semrush, and use Ahrefs domains in Semrush backlink audit tools without losing context or wasting time.

For marketers already running both Ahrefs and Semrush, exporting your Ahrefs backlink data and feeding it into Semrush delivers something most tools alone cannot: a cleaner, more complete view of your link profile for faster decisions. Instead of juggling tabs between two dashboards, you turn Semrush into a single workspace where every referring domain, toxic link, and outreach target lives in one place, which is essential when you want importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush to become a reliable part of your monthly workflow.

Why importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush is worth your time

Merging Ahrefs data into Semrush gives you a cleaner, more complete backlink picture and eliminates the need to toggle between tools during audits or reporting. For marketers juggling multiple clients or sites, this workflow delivers one source of truth, faster decision-making, and less risk of missing toxic links or high-value prospects. It is especially valuable if you're already paying for both platforms and want to maximise your investment without doubling your workload.

If you're a founder, CMO, or marketing lead managing growth across SEO, paid, and CRO, this consolidated approach saves hours every month. You can audit domains once, disavow once, and hand clean lists to your outreach or automation tools so your team can focus on experiments that move revenue, not reconciling two backlink dashboards.

Who this Ahrefs to Semrush workflow is for

This method suits growth-focused SEO leads, CMOs, and in-house marketers who already subscribe to both platforms and need to scale link analysis without doubling headcount. You are comfortable with spreadsheets, already understand domain rating and toxic link scoring, and want to centralise reporting for clients or internal stakeholders so the Semrush backlink audit tool becomes your single source of truth.

If your team runs link campaigns for multiple sites or you inherit backlink data from agencies who use Ahrefs, importing Ahrefs to Semrush keeps everything auditable and reproducible. The workflow is designed for strategic operators who care about repeatable systems rather than ad hoc one-off audits.

What you will be able to do after this guide

Once you follow these steps, you can pull a comprehensive referring domain list from Ahrefs, clean it in seconds, and upload it to a Semrush project where it merges with Semrush's own index. From there you run a single backlink audit, generate one disavow file, and push high-quality prospects into Pitchbox or Responsta for automated outreach, giving you one dashboard, one workflow, and far fewer chances of missing critical links.

Prepare your Ahrefs domains before importing into Semrush

Exporting referring domains from Ahrefs and scrubbing the file before you import it into Semrush turns raw link data into clean, actionable insight. Skipping this step invites garbage data, inflates toxic scores, and creates false positives that slow your team down, so investing a few minutes to prepare Ahrefs backlinks for Semrush pays off quickly.

Exporting referring domains from Ahrefs

Open the Ahrefs Site Explorer, paste your domain, and navigate to the Backlinks section. Filter for dofollow links and live referring domains only, excluding redirects, nofollow, and UGC attributes so you focus on the links that pass authority. Set your export mode to one link per domain to avoid inflating the list with multiple rows for the same root domain, then click export, choose CSV, and download the file so you can export referring domains from Ahrefs in a format Semrush can digest.

Cleaning and segmenting your Ahrefs domain list

Open the CSV and strip out columns you do not need, keeping only referring domain, domain rating, anchor text, and link type to create a clean Ahrefs domain list. Scan for obvious spam by sorting by domain rating, then filter out domains below DR 10 if you suspect junk directories or comment spam, and separate your list into three tabs: toxic, prospects for outreach, and partners or press that you want to track separately.

Step-by-step: importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush

Importing Ahrefs domains into the Semrush backlink audit tool is a manual process with a clear sequence: set up a project, open the backlink audit module, and upload your cleaned CSV. The interface guides you through mapping columns, so as long as your file has a column named referring domain or URL, Semrush will match it and merge your Ahrefs backlinks into Semrush without losing context.

Set up your project and backlink audit in Semrush

Log into Semrush, navigate to Projects, and create a new project for the domain you are auditing, entering your root domain and choosing your target country and language. Once the project loads, click Backlink Audit in the left menu and let Semrush run its initial crawl of your backlink profile to establish a baseline that includes link count, toxic score, and a breakdown by anchor type and referring IP.

Import Ahrefs domains into the Semrush backlink audit tool

Inside the Backlink Audit dashboard, look for the Import backlinks option in the settings menu and upload your cleaned Ahrefs CSV. Map the columns so referring domain goes to Source, target URL maps to Destination, and anchor text and link type fill their respective fields, then click Import so Semrush can process the file, match known domains, and add any new ones Ahrefs found but Semrush did not.

Turn imported Ahrefs domains into smarter audits and outreach

Once your Ahrefs domains live inside Semrush, you can push them through the full audit workflow, generate a disavow file with one click, and export clean prospect lists for outreach. Instead of manually merging two CSVs and reconciling toxic scores by hand, you let the Semrush backlink audit tool do the heavy lifting while you decide which links to kill and which domains to pitch.

Run a Semrush backlink audit on your Ahrefs domains

With the merged data loaded, Semrush recalculates your site's toxic score using both its own algorithm and the additional domains from Ahrefs, then you sort the backlink list by toxic score descending to surface the worst offenders. Mark toxic links for disavow directly in the interface, export the disavow file, and submit it to Google Search Console so you reduce risk without over-pruning. The entire process takes minutes, and because you started with Ahrefs data, you catch link risks that single-tool audits often overlook, which is explored in more depth in our Ahrefs vs Semrush backlink data comparison.

Automate outreach with Pitchbox, Responsta and your CRM

Export the high-quality, non-toxic domains from your Semrush audit as a clean CSV, filtering for DR 30 or above and editorial links only, then upload that list to Pitchbox or Responsta so you can enrich each domain with contact data and slot them into automated email sequences. Tag prospects by vertical, language, or topical relevance so your outreach feels targeted, and sync campaign responses back to your CRM to track conversions from pitch to link placement, turning static backlink data into a repeatable Responsta and Pitchbox-powered link-building workflow.

Ahrefs vs Semrush: how to use both without doubling your workload

The question is not which tool is better, it is how to deploy each where it excels without burning hours reconciling duplicate data. Ahrefs owns backlink discovery and competitor link intersect, while Semrush owns audit workflows, keyword volume databases, and integrated outreach, so importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush lets each tool play to its strengths while one dashboard acts as your command centre.

Ahrefs vs Semrush: strengths, gaps and when to use each

Use Ahrefs when you need the freshest backlink index, deep competitor link intersect reports, and granular anchor text analysis for long-tail keywords, because it tends to index more live links and update faster. Use Semrush when you need an all-in-one project dashboard that combines rank tracking, site audits, backlink audits, and outreach management in one interface, plus stronger keyword difficulty scores tuned for local European markets and a cleaner UX for non-specialist teams. Import Ahrefs data when Semrush alone misses niche or recently crawled links, or when an agency hands you an Ahrefs export and you want to centralise everything in Semrush for reporting, and if you are weighing alternative stacks you can also review our guides on Semrush vs SISTRIX pricing and Ahrefs vs SISTRIX.

Common pitfalls when moving work from Ahrefs to Semrush

The biggest mistake is importing a dirty CSV and trusting Semrush to auto-clean it, because redirected domains, parked pages, or duplicate roots with and without www will skew the toxic score and waste time on false positives. Another trap is forgetting to map anchor text and link type columns during import, which stops Semrush from calculating anchor over-optimisation or identifying exact-match spam and halves the value of merging the datasets. Finally, teams often import once and never refresh, so avoid that by scheduling a monthly re-export from Ahrefs, re-importing to Semrush, and comparing new vs lost links to spot negative SEO or fresh wins.

Need help stitching Ahrefs and Semrush into one growth system?

Importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush gives you one clean backlink list, faster audits, and a scalable workflow that turns link data into outreach campaigns without switching tools every five minutes. You reduce blind spots, catch toxic links earlier, and make disavow files you can trust, so for most lean SEO teams this process should run on autopilot: export, clean, import, audit, export prospects, and push to outreach in under an hour each month.

If setting up and maintaining this workflow sounds like one more thing on an already packed roadmap, 6th Man can build it for you as your on-demand marketing team. We plug into your stack, set up the Ahrefs to Semrush import once, document it, and train your team so it scales without us, bringing senior-level SEO expertise, flat pricing, and no fluff. Explore our 6th Man SEO extension for faster on-page audits, or get in touch to turn importing Ahrefs domains into Semrush into a reliable, data-driven growth system.