help.openalex.org

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

This tutorial walks through that workflow using a realistic starting scenario, explains what the numbers mean, and shows how to turn findings into actions.

Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

• A single important page (your homepage or a key product/service page)
• A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
• One section of a bigger site (e.g., /blog/)

For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
2. In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
3. Choose the Exact URL or Domain mode depending on scope. For a full-site view, use Domain or Prefix; for a single page, use Exact URL.
4. Press Enter.

You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

Step 2: See What You Already Rank For

Go to Organic Keywords in the left sidebar. This shows queries where your site appears in search results.

Sort by Traffic (descending) to see which pages bring the most estimated visitors. Then look for:

• Keywords ranking in positions 4–15 — these are often the easiest wins. A small content or on-page improvement can push them onto page one.
• Keywords with high volume but low position — potential opportunities if the topic is relevant.
• Irrelevant keywords — if you rank for something off-topic, it may signal thin or mismatched content.

Write down 5–10 of the position 4–15 keywords. These become your first optimization targets.

Step 3: Find Your Best and Weakest Pages

Open Top Pages. This ranks your URLs by estimated organic traffic.

Look for two things:

1. Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
2. Pages with traffic but poor rankings — these may need on-page fixes (title, headings, internal links).

If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

Step 4: Run a Technical Site Audit

Now move to Site Audit. This crawls your site and flags technical and on-page issues.

1. Click Site Audit → New project.
2. Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
3. Start the crawl and wait for it to finish.

Once complete, you'll see a Health Score and a list of issues grouped by category.

Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

Step 5: Turn Findings Into a To-Do List

You now have raw data. Convert it into a short, actionable list. Example:

1. Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
2. Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
3. Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
4. Remove or update 2 thin pages with no traffic.

Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
• Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
• Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
• Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
• Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

• Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
• Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
• Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
• Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

OpenAPI-generated API documentation is reference documentation that is produced automatically from an OpenAPI description file rather than written by hand. You write (or generate) a machine-readable specification of your API — endpoints, parameters, request bodies, responses, schemas, and auth — and a documentation tool reads that file and renders a browsable, often interactive reference site. The spec becomes the single source of truth; the docs become a build artifact.

This differs from manually written docs in one fundamental way: with hand-written docs, the prose is the source of truth and the API is described separately. With spec-driven docs, the API description is the source, and every page, table, and code sample is derived from it.

How the workflow actually runs

A typical spec-driven documentation pipeline has five stages:

1. Author or generate the spec. You either write an OpenAPI document by hand (YAML or JSON), or generate it from code annotations, framework metadata, or a design-first editor. Design-first means the spec is written before implementation; code-first means it is extracted from existing code.
2. Validate and lint. The spec is checked against the OpenAPI schema and against style rules — consistent naming, required descriptions, no undocumented 4xx responses, no orphaned schemas.
3. Bundle and transform. Multi-file specs are combined, $ref pointers are resolved, and the document is optionally split into per-tag or per-version outputs.
4. Render. A documentation tool converts the spec into HTML: an endpoint list, a sidebar of operations, parameter tables, response schemas, and a "try it" console.
5. Publish and version. The rendered site is deployed, and each API version gets its own snapshot so consumers can read docs matching the version they call.

Steps 2 through 5 are usually automated in CI. If the spec fails validation, the docs build fails — which is the point.

Spec-driven vs. hand-written documentation

The practical conclusion most teams reach: generate the reference, write the guides. Reference material is repetitive and mechanical, which is exactly what generation is good at. Conceptual explanations, migration notes, and tutorials carry judgment that a spec cannot express.

What you get out of the box

Generated reference pages commonly include:

• An operation list grouped by tag or path, with HTTP method and path.
• Parameter tables showing name, location (path, query, header, cookie), type, required flag, and description.
• Request and response schemas rendered as expandable trees, including nested objects and arrays.
• Authentication details pulled from the securitySchemes section.
• Interactive request consoles that let a reader send a real call from the browser.
• Generated code samples in several languages, derived from the same schemas.
• Multiple output formats, such as a static site, a single HTML file, or a mock server.

Because all of these come from one document, changing a field name in the spec updates the parameter table, the schema tree, and every code sample at once.

Where spec-driven documentation breaks down

Generation is not free. The trade-offs are real:

Spec quality becomes documentation quality. A field with no description produces a table row with an empty cell. A vague summary produces a vague heading. Tools can enforce presence of descriptions via linting, but they cannot enforce that the description is useful.

Customization has limits. If you need a page that does not map to an OpenAPI concept — a conceptual overview, a pricing explanation, a comparison of two endpoints — you write it outside the generator and link to it.

Not everything is expressible. Webhooks, streaming responses, long-polling behavior, and complex multi-step flows are awkward or impossible to describe fully in OpenAPI. Those need prose.

The spec can go stale. If the spec is maintained separately from the implementation, it drifts just like hand-written docs. The mitigation is to generate the spec from code, or to test the implementation against the spec in CI.

Interactive consoles need care. A "try it" button that hits a production API with real credentials is a security and rate-limit problem. Point it at a sandbox, or disable it.

Deciding whether to adopt it

Adopt spec-driven reference documentation if most of these are true:

• Your API has more than a handful of endpoints, or changes frequently.
• You ship client SDKs or code samples in more than one language.
• Multiple teams consume the API and need a consistent, always-current reference.
• You already have, or are willing to maintain, an OpenAPI description.

Stay with hand-written docs, or a hybrid, if:

• Your API is small and stable, and the reference fits on one page.
• Your documentation is mostly conceptual and contains little endpoint-level detail.
• You cannot commit to keeping the spec in sync with the implementation.

A reasonable middle path: generate the reference from the spec, and hand-write the getting-started guide, authentication walkthrough, and error-handling page. Link the two directions so readers can move from concept to endpoint and back.

A minimal starting checklist

1. Produce one valid OpenAPI document for a single API version.
2. Add a linter with rules for descriptions, operation IDs, and error responses.
3. Wire the docs build into CI so a failing spec fails the build.
4. Render the reference and review it as a reader, not as the author.
5. Write the two or three conceptual pages the generator cannot produce.
6. Version the published docs alongside the API version.

The core idea is simple: describe the API once, in a format both machines and humans can read, and let the reference documentation fall out of that description. Everything else — tooling, hosting, interactivity — is a detail on top of that decision.

The OpenAlex Help Center is organized around how much you already know and how deep you need to go. If you have one specific question, use the site search. If you are new, start with the five-minute Quickstart. If you want a short answer to a common task, read the How-to guides. If you want to learn a workflow end to end, follow the Tutorials. If you need details about the data, access, or the REST API, go to the Reference sections.

Start with the fastest route for your situation

Use search when you already know your question

Search is the fastest way to answer a specific question. If you can phrase what you need in one sentence, search first rather than browsing the sections. This is the right entry point when you are not trying to learn a whole workflow, only to resolve one blocker.

Use the Quickstart if you are new

If you are just starting, work through the five-minute Quickstart. It is the shortest path into OpenAlex and gives you a working starting point before you branch into the How-to guides or Tutorials.

Choose How-to guides or Tutorials based on how much you want to learn

• How-to guides are for simple answers. Use them when you already understand the basics and need a direct response to a common task.
• Tutorials are for longer, step-by-step recipes. Use them when you want to follow a complete process rather than look up a single answer.

Go to Reference when you need details

The Reference area is split into three parts, and each answers a different kind of question:

• Access covers getting the data, pricing, and fixing errors.
• Data defines and describes OpenAlex's contents.
• API reference documents the REST API.

If your question is about what something means, what it costs, why something failed, or how to call an endpoint, this is where you look.

Other ways to get help

• Ask Claude. Most of what you would do with OpenAlex, Claude can do for you. Add the free OpenAlex connector and ask in plain language. You do not need it, but it makes most things easier. A ChatGPT version is coming soon.
• AI agents. Start at help.openalex.org/llms.txt, a plain-text index of every page. Each page also has a markdown version: add .md to its URL.
• Chat. Ask other users in the Google Group, report a bug to the team, or ask the docs with your AI. Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are listed as options.

A practical order to try

1. Search the help center with your specific question.
2. If you are new, do the five-minute Quickstart first.
3. If you need a short answer, open the How-to guides.
4. If you need a full process, follow the Tutorials.
5. If you need definitions, data access, pricing, error fixes, or API details, go to Access, Data, or the API reference.
6. If you would rather ask in natural language, use the OpenAlex connector with Claude, or start from llms.txt for an index of every page.

The OpenAlex Help Center (help.openalex.org) is the official documentation site for OpenAlex, described as "the open catalog of the global research system." It exists to help you get answers about OpenAlex, learn how to use it, and look up technical details. It is useful if you are trying to query, use, or integrate OpenAlex data — whether you are brand new or already working with the API.

What OpenAlex is

OpenAlex is a comprehensive index of the world's research. The Help Center treats it as the thing you are trying to understand or build on, and the site itself as the place to find out how.

What the Help Center gives you

The site organizes its content into a few clear paths, depending on what you need:

• Search — described as "the fastest way to answer a specific question," it searches the full help center.
• Learn — for people just starting. This includes a five-minute Quickstart, How-to guides for simple answers, and Tutorials for longer, step-by-step recipes.
• Ask Claude — you can add a free OpenAlex connector and ask questions in plain language. The site notes you don't need it, but it makes most things easier, and says a ChatGPT version is coming soon.
• Reference — the detailed material, split into three parts:
  • Access — getting the data, pricing, and fixing errors.
  • Data — defines and describes OpenAlex's contents.
  • API reference — documents the REST API.
• AI agents — a plain-text index of every page is available at help.openalex.org/llms.txt, and each page also has a markdown version you get by adding .md to its URL.
• Chat — ways to talk it through: ask other users in the Google Group, report a bug to the team, or ask the docs with your AI (Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity).

Who it's for

The Help Center is aimed at anyone who wants to query, use, or integrate OpenAlex data. That spans a range of needs:

How to use it

1. If you have a specific question, use Search first — the site calls it the fastest route to an answer.
2. If you're new, work through the five-minute Quickstart, then dip into How-to guides as needed.
3. If you need depth, go to Reference: Access for getting data and fixing errors, Data for what's in OpenAlex, and the API reference for the REST API.
4. If you'd rather ask in plain language, add the free OpenAlex connector to Claude. The site is explicit that you don't need it, but it makes most things easier.
5. If you're working with an AI agent, start at help.openalex.org/llms.txt, or append .md to any page URL for its markdown version.

A note on pricing and access

The Help Center lists "pricing" as a topic covered under Access, so cost-related details live there rather than on the homepage. The homepage itself does not state prices or login requirements, so check the Access section for the specifics that apply to your situation.

You can use OpenAlex with Claude by adding the free OpenAlex connector and asking questions in plain language. According to the OpenAlex Help Center, "most of what you'd do with OpenAlex, Claude can do for you," and while the connector isn't required, it "makes most things easier." A ChatGPT version is listed as coming soon, and you can also point other AI tools at OpenAlex's documentation directly.

Adding the OpenAlex connector to Claude

The Help Center presents the connector as the primary way to work with OpenAlex through an AI assistant.

1. Add the free OpenAlex connector to Claude.
2. Ask your question in plain language — for example, about a researcher, an institution, or a body of work.
3. Claude handles the OpenAlex interaction for you.

The connector is described as optional: you don't need it, but it makes most tasks easier. The Help Center does not state that a Claude account or any paid plan is required, so treat access requirements as something to confirm on your own.

What Claude can do for you

The Help Center's framing is broad rather than a fixed feature list: most of what you'd normally do with OpenAlex, Claude can do for you once the connector is in place. That covers the everyday OpenAlex tasks you'd otherwise handle through the site or the API, expressed as ordinary questions instead of queries.

Using AI with the OpenAlex docs

Beyond the connector, OpenAlex supports AI tools that read its documentation:

• Ask the docs with your AI. The Help Center offers options to ask its documentation using Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity.
• Use the plain-text index. Start at help.openalex.org/llms.txt, a plain-text index of every page, so an AI agent can see what's available.
• Fetch any page as markdown. Add .md to a page's URL to get a markdown version — useful for feeding a specific page to an AI tool.

Other ways to get help

If an AI assistant isn't the right fit for a question, the Help Center points to:

What's coming

A ChatGPT version of the connector is noted as coming soon. Until then, ChatGPT and Perplexity can still be used to ask the OpenAlex documentation directly.