We will be using a package called by use ahref with R
Installation
# main version on CRAN:
install.packages("RAhrefs")
# development version:
# install.packages("devtools")
# devtools::install_github("Leszek-Sieminski/RAhrefs")
Authentication
library("RAhrefs")
api_key <- "012345"
RAhrefs::rah_auth(api_key)
# will return "API authorized" if success
Checking available reports
To check what Ahrefs data are available in R through API, you need to check provided help dataset:
library("RAhrefs")
View(ahrefs_reports) # view dataset in a new tab (RStudio)
print(head(ahrefs_reports, 5)) # see first 5 reports in the console
# > report_name function_name short_description url_address
# > 1 ahrefs_rank rah_ahrefs_rank Contains the URLs and the rankings. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/ahrefs-rank
# > 2 anchors rah_anchors Contains the anchor text and the num of backlinks, referring pages and referring domains that has it. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/anchors
# > 3 anchors_refdomains rah_anchors_refdomains Contains the num of anchors and backlinks with that anchor, per domain. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/anchors-refdomains
# > 4 backlinks rah_backlinks Contains the backlinks and details of the referring pages, such as anchor and page title. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/backlinks
# > 5 backlinks_new_lost rah_backlinks_new_lost Contains the new or lost backlinks and details of the referring pages. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/backlinks-new-lost
Checking available reports
To check what Ahrefs data are available in R through API, you need to check provided help dataset:
library("RAhrefs")
View(ahrefs_reports) # view dataset in a new tab (RStudio)
print(head(ahrefs_reports, 5)) # see first 5 reports in the console
# > report_name function_name short_description url_address
# > 1 ahrefs_rank rah_ahrefs_rank Contains the URLs and the rankings. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/ahrefs-rank
# > 2 anchors rah_anchors Contains the anchor text and the num of backlinks, referring pages and referring domains that has it. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/anchors
# > 3 anchors_refdomains rah_anchors_refdomains Contains the num of anchors and backlinks with that anchor, per domain. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/anchors-refdomains
# > 4 backlinks rah_backlinks Contains the backlinks and details of the referring pages, such as anchor and page title. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/backlinks
# > 5 backlinks_new_lost rah_backlinks_new_lost Contains the new or lost backlinks and details of the referring pages. https://ahrefs.com/api/documentation/backlinks-new-lost
Checking available metrics
To check what metrics can be choosen, you need to check provided help dataset:
library("RAhrefs")
View(ahrefs_metrics) # view dataset in a new tab (RStudio)
print(head(ahrefs_metrics, 5)) # see first 5 metrics in the console
# > metric type use_where? use_having? description
# > 1 url_from string TRUE TRUE URL of the page where the backlink is found.
# > 2 url_to string TRUE TRUE URL of the page the backlink is pointing to.
# > 3 ahrefs_rank int TRUE TRUE URL Rating of the referring page.
# > 4 domain_rating int FALSE TRUE Domain Rating of the referring domain.
# > 5 ahrefs_top int FALSE TRUE Ahrefs Rank of the target domain.
However, different functions can accept different metrics for experimental where & having conditions. To find out which ones are available for a particular function, check that function's documentation.
Creating conditions
Ahrefs API can use where, having and order_by parameters. However, behaviour of where and having may change in further updates.
# first, create all needed conditions in single form:
cond_1 <- RAhrefs::rah_condition(
column_name = "first_seen",
operator = "GREATER_THAN",
value = "2018-01-01",
is_date = TRUE)
cond_2 <- RAhrefs::rah_condition(
column_name = "backlinks",
operator = "GREATER_THAN",
value = "10")
# next, create a set of conditions from them:
final_condition_set <- RAhrefs::rah_condition_set(cond_1, cond_2)
# finally, use the set of conditions to download choosen results:
result <- RAhrefs::rah_anchors(
target = "ahrefs.com",
limit = 1000,
where = final_condition_set)