putt.day

putt.day gives everyone the same mini golf hole each day, with a new one arriving at midnight Pacific. You play by dragging the ball back and releasing to putt, and the score that counts is your first finish of that day — not your best retry. Finished days stay available in the calendar, so you can look back at the holes you've already played.

The daily hole

• One new hole per day. A fresh hole appears at midnight Pacific.
• Same hole for everyone. The hole isn't generated per player, so scores are comparable across everyone playing that day.
• Holes are numbered and dated. The page shows a hole number and date (for example, "No. 142 · October 1, 2026"), which is how you reference a specific day.

Because the hole is shared, the daily reset is the main event: once midnight Pacific passes, the previous hole moves into the calendar and a new one takes its place.

How to play a hole

The controls are drag-based rather than click-based:

1. Grab the ball and drag back.
2. Let go to take the shot. Pulling further back hits harder.
3. Drag anywhere else to look around the hole.
4. Pinch or scroll to zoom in and out.
5. Get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as you can.

Two rules matter for your score:

• Water sends you back to where you were before the shot.
• A first shot that finds water doesn't count — so an opening tee shot into the water isn't charged as a stroke.

How scoring works

Your score is the number of strokes you take to hole out, and the number that counts is your first finish of the day. That means:

This is the key mechanic to understand before you start: treat your first completed round as the real one, because later attempts won't replace it.

Party mode

The page also lists a Party mode for racing your friends. If you want a head-to-head format rather than a solo daily score, that's the mode to use — it sits alongside the standard daily hole rather than replacing it.

Reviewing old days

Past holes aren't lost. Old days are in the calendar, along with your stats, so you can go back and see which holes you played and how you scored. The calendar is the place to check if you've missed a day or want to revisit a hole you remember.

Quick answers

When does the new hole appear? At midnight Pacific, every day.

Is my hole the same as everyone else's? Yes — one hole is shared by all players for that day.

Can I retry to get a better score? You can keep playing, but only your first finish of the day counts.

What happens if I hit the water? You return to where you were, and if it was your first shot, it isn't counted as a stroke.

Where do previous holes go? Into the calendar, where old days remain available.

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.

Grab the ball, drag backward, and release to putt. Pull farther back for a harder shot. Your goal is to sink the ball in as few strokes as possible, and everyone plays the same hole, with a new one arriving at midnight Pacific. Water sends you back to where you were, but a first shot that finds water doesn't count against you.

The basic shot

The whole control scheme is one gesture:

1. Grab the ball with your pointer or finger.
2. Drag back away from the hole. The farther you pull, the more power you load.
3. Let go to release the shot.

There's no power meter to watch — the pull distance is the power. If you're overshooting, pull back less on the next attempt.

Looking around and zooming

You don't have to shoot from a fixed camera:

• Drag anywhere else (not on the ball) to look around the hole.
• Pinch or scroll to zoom in and out.

Use this to read the slope and plan your line before you commit to a shot. Zooming in helps on longer or more cluttered holes.

Scoring and the water rule

• Fewest strokes wins. Your score is simply how many shots it takes to hole out.
• Water sends you back to where you were before the shot.
• A first shot that finds water doesn't count. So an aggressive opening line into the water costs you nothing — you just replay from the start.

That last rule is worth exploiting: your first attempt can be a full-power read of the hole with no penalty if it goes wrong.

One hole a day

• One new hole per day, the same for everyone, refreshing at midnight Pacific.
• Your first finish counts — so the score you post on your first completed round is the one that sticks.
• Old days are in the calendar, so you can go back and play previous holes.

Because your first finish is the one that counts, it's worth using the free water rule and a look-around before you settle into a scoring attempt.

Quick reference

On putt.day, your stats and past holes live in two places on the main page: the Stats section and the calendar. The Stats section shows your performance, and the calendar holds the old daily holes so you can go back and play or review previous days. Both are reachable from the page itself — look for the "Stats" and "calendar" links.

What the Stats section shows

The page lists a Stats heading alongside How to play. This is where your performance is tracked. Based on how the game works, the numbers that matter are your stroke counts, since the goal is to get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible.

One scoring rule shapes what your stats actually reflect: your first finish counts. If you replay a hole, the earlier result is the one that sticks. So the Stats section is a record of your first completed attempt each day, not your best-ever retry.

What the calendar contains

The calendar is the archive. The page states plainly that old days are in the calendar, and that there is one new hole a day. The current hole shown in the page evidence is No. 142, dated October 1, 2026, which tells you the calendar accumulates a running history rather than resetting.

Use the calendar to:

• Revisit a specific past day's hole
• Review how you did on days you already finished
• Catch up on holes you missed

How the two fit together

The Stats section answers "how am I doing," while the calendar answers "what were the earlier holes." If you want to review a previous day, the calendar is the entry point; if you want to see your numbers, go to Stats.

A few things to keep in mind

• New hole timing: a new hole appears at midnight Pacific, so the calendar advances on that schedule.
• First finish rule: because only your first finish counts, replaying a hole won't improve your recorded stat — it's a record of that first completed run.
• Water penalty: water sends you back to where you were, but a first shot that finds water doesn't count. This affects how a hole's stroke total is built up, which is what the Stats section reflects.

If you can't find the links, they're on the main page near the "How to play" and "Stats" headings — the same page that shows the current hole number and date.

Party mode on putt.day is a way to race your friends on the same daily mini-golf hole instead of playing it alone. The site labels it "Party mode: race your friends" alongside the current hole, so it is an alternative to the standard solo round rather than a separate course or game. The hole itself stays the same for everyone, and a new one appears at midnight Pacific.

How it fits with the daily hole

putt.day gives everyone one shared hole per day. You play it solo by default, and your first finish counts toward your stats. Party mode changes who you play against, not which hole you play: you and your friends take on the same layout and compare how few strokes it takes to sink the ball.

Because the hole is identical for all players, a race is a fair comparison of shot choices and pull strength rather than luck of the draw.

What carries over from solo play

The core controls and rules are the same in a party as in a solo round:

• Shooting: grab the ball, drag back, and let go. Pulling further hits harder.
• Looking around: drag anywhere else to look around; pinch or scroll to zoom.
• Goal: get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as you can.
• Water: sends you back to where you were. A first shot that finds water doesn't count.
• Scoring: your first finish counts.

So if you already know how to play the daily hole, you know how to play a party — the difference is that you're racing other people on the same hole.

How to start or join a party

The site presents party mode as an option next to the daily hole, but the exact steps for starting or joining a party aren't spelled out in the page text. To find them, open putt.day and look for the party mode entry near the current hole, then follow the on-screen prompt to set up or enter a race with friends.

If you can't find it, the most reliable move is to check the site itself on the day you want to play, since the available options sit with the current hole.

When party mode is the right choice

Party mode is for the social version of the same challenge. If your goal is your own stats or catching up on missed days, the solo hole and the calendar are the relevant tools.