Hiding SEO Data from Ahrefs & others

I noticed recently that more and more affiliates seem to be limiting access to SEO tools.
You run Ahrefs or Similarweb, and there’s nothing — or almost nothing — showing.
Is there some value in doing this ?

So I asked chatgpt and he gave me some of the reasons why it could be beneficial :

Protect your backlink strategy
If your competitors can see your backlinks, they can easily replicate them or attack your link profile (negative SEO).

Hide profitable keywords and pages
Casino niches are ultra-competitive. If others see what’s ranking and what brings traffic, they’ll copy it fast. Hiding this keeps your hard work safer.

Shield niche or PBN networks
If you use satellite sites or PBNs, hiding them helps avoid footprint detection and keeps Google (and your competitors) in the dark.

Avoid abuse complaints (ABUS) and legal headaches
Some casino offers or markets operate in gray zones. Hiding your SEO data can reduce exposure to legal threats or platform complaints.

Prevent content scraping
When your best content is easy to detect through tools like Similarweb (top pages, top keywords), scrapers can steal it fast. Blocking these tools protects your originality.


Not saying everyone should do it — but I can see why more people are.
Especially as spying tools get better and the competition gets tougher.

Curious if anyone else here is thinking the same way or already doing this?

Their bots are extremely aggressive. However, I let Ahrefs and deny Semrush (it's over aggressive).

However, I can't hide my backlinks :)) The site which provides the backlink needs to hide it, not me.

I got some Eurosport backlinks which I only saw on Google, which means they already blocked SEO tools from crawling their data.

OpenAI bots ignore robots.txt and everything and scrape the API, for example.

Tiktok also ignores the rules and crawls everything, but I don't know for sure, haven't looked in a while.

Fighting legit bots that you maybe don't want, that might be a lost battle.

Fighting scrapers is surely a lost battle.

Everybody steals, nobody cares - let me be clear, you can use scrapped data and know that's it's scrapped, and you can use data that appears to be genuine, but it is also scrapped. It all comes to a point where nobody knows what is coming from where. So trying to hide anything on the web, at this stage, seems pointless.

We block AHREFS and most bots from our sites .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iso2009

Their bots are extremely aggressive. However, I let Ahrefs and deny Semrush (it's over aggressive).

However, I can't hide my backlinks :)) The site which provides the backlink needs to hide it, not me.

I got some Eurosport backlinks which I only saw on Google, which means they already blocked SEO tools from crawling their data.

OpenAI bots ignore robots.txt and everything and scrape the API, for example.

Tiktok also ignores the rules and crawls everything, but I don't know for sure, haven't looked in a while.

Fighting legit bots that you maybe don't want, that might be a lost battle.

Fighting scrapers is surely a lost battle.

Everybody steals, nobody cares - let me be clear, you can use scrapped data and know that's it's scrapped, and you can use data that appears to be genuine, but it is also scrapped. It all comes to a point where nobody knows what is coming from where. So trying to hide anything on the web, at this stage, seems pointless.

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Good points.

I totally agree that fighting scrapers is pretty much a lost cause. once something is public, it will get scraped at some point.


I was more thinking about this not as total protection, but more as an extra layer of security.
Sure, if someone really wants the data, they’ll find ways.
But if you can stop 95% of the casual spies (people just running Ahrefs, SEMrush, Similarweb reports), maybe that’s still worth it ?


Kind of like locking your door.
It won’t stop a pro, but it stops the lazy ones.

And in competitive markets like casinos, even making it slightly harder to reverse-engineer what’s working might give you a small edge.


Of course, it depends how much you want to bother with it.
Some people prefer to just focus on growing instead of hiding.
I get that too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by patdog

I noticed recently that more and more affiliates seem to be limiting access to SEO tools.
You run Ahrefs or Similarweb, and there’s nothing — or almost nothing — showing.
Is there some value in doing this ?

So I asked chatgpt and he gave me some of the reasons why it could be beneficial :

Protect your backlink strategy
If your competitors can see your backlinks, they can easily replicate them or attack your link profile (negative SEO).

Hide profitable keywords and pages
Casino niches are ultra-competitive. If others see what’s ranking and what brings traffic, they’ll copy it fast. Hiding this keeps your hard work safer.

Shield niche or PBN networks
If you use satellite sites or PBNs, hiding them helps avoid footprint detection and keeps Google (and your competitors) in the dark.

Avoid abuse complaints (ABUS) and legal headaches
Some casino offers or markets operate in gray zones. Hiding your SEO data can reduce exposure to legal threats or platform complaints.

Prevent content scraping
When your best content is easy to detect through tools like Similarweb (top pages, top keywords), scrapers can steal it fast. Blocking these tools protects your originality.


Not saying everyone should do it — but I can see why more people are.
Especially as spying tools get better and the competition gets tougher.

Curious if anyone else here is thinking the same way or already doing this?

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This trend is definitely gaining momentum in 2025. Many affiliates are deliberately restricting access to their SEO data to keep their most valuable keywords and top-performing pages under the radar from tools like Ahrefs and Similarweb. In highly competitive niches like casinos, even a small advantage can be significant.
That said, some prefer to focus entirely on innovation and emerging strategies rather than on hiding data. Both approaches have their place, depending on your goals and resources.
Think of it as locking your door to deter casual onlookers. It won’t stop determined experts, but it makes it harder for the majority.
What’s your perspective — prioritize discretion or full transparency to accelerate growth?

Hi there!
Hiding SEO data helps protect your strategy by preventing competitors from seeing your backlinks, keywords, and content insights, making it harder for them to copy or outrank you, although our team usually don't do these things.