What is keyword difficulty?

Keyword difficulty is a 0-100 score that estimates how hard it is for a new page to rank in Google's top 10 for a specific term. A score of 5 means almost anyone can rank. A score of 80 means the top 10 is dominated by high-authority sites and outranking them is expensive.

The score comes from the pages already ranking. Tools weigh how many websites link to those pages, how strong those links are, and how authoritative the ranking domains are overall. A SERP full of Wikipedia and Forbes scores much higher than one full of small blogs.

Different SEO tools produce different scores for the same keyword because they weight backlinks and authority differently. A keyword at 30 in Ahrefs might be 45 in Semrush. Use the score to compare keywords within one tool, not as a universal truth.