Dmytro Gerasymenko, the CEO of the popular Ahrefs SEO tool announced that they will not renew about 15% of legacy subscriptions in order to improve service for the majority of users.
Account Sharing And Data Scraping
It’s not uncommon for some in the search community to share their SEO tools subscriptions, and not just at Ahrefs.
When several people share one of the more expensive accounts they are able to unlock more advanced tools, so it makes sense for some users, especially those who are casual users.
But according to Gerasymenko, there are some legacy account subscriptions who use an enormous amount of data to the point that the service slows down or crashes the entire system.
The heavy load is created by a subset of users who share accounts or engaged in heavy data scraping, which resulted in sudden increases in usage.
Ahrefs initially dealt with the issue by increasing resources to handle the load and create a credits system to reduce the sudden jumps and make it fair for all users who don’t consume as much resources.
However, these actions may not have been enough to stabilize Ahrefs for everyone, so they will begin not renewing legacy accounts.
According to a tweet by Gerasymenko:
“Now it is time to finish this transition.
To do that we will stop renewing around 15% of legacy accounts that consume the most data.
These accounts will start getting notifications soon, and will come one month before the legacy subscriptions expire.
There will be plenty of time to explore if Ahrefs provides enough value, and if these accounts want to continue with Ahrefs under the new terms or move somewhere else.
Ultimately we will level out the playing field for all customers, so that everyone is using Ahrefs under the same terms.”
User Reaction On Twitter
Some of the users responding to Ahrefs weren’t happy with the announcement, saying that the move was a betrayal of users who have been customers for a long time.
One person responded:
It could be 15, it could be 50, or it could be all – as end users we will never know and that’s unsettling.
Here’s the thing: those loyal, early customers are the very people who propelled you to the stature you have today.
We stood by you during your growth stages, provided…
— Code+SEO 🇹🇼 (@rainprofits) October 15, 2023
Read the announcement on X/Twitter here.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Jane Kelly
