Original data
UK SEO statistics, measured here rather than borrowed.
Most statistics pages in this industry are a hundred numbers collected from other people's studies, each a link away from a source that is itself citing someone else. This one is short on purpose. Every figure below was measured for this site, carries its own date, and links to the full dataset it came from. Free to cite, and easier to check than to trust.
Two datasets sit behind this page. The UK SEO Difficulty Index measured keyword difficulty, search volume and traffic potential across 38 UK local markets on a single day. The link spam log catalogued 130 unsolicited referring domains that arrived at this site in 6 days. Both are published in full with their method and their limits, and both are free to reuse with a link.
Every number on this page is computed from those datasets at build time rather than typed, so a figure quoted here cannot drift from the study it came from.
Local search difficulty
How competitive UK local SEO actually is.
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, United Kingdom, the plain "seo [place]" term across 38 markets totalling 26,420 searches a month. All pulled on 25 July 2026.
1.5
The median keyword difficulty for the plain "seo [place]" term across 38 UK local markets is 1.5 out of 100, measured on 25 July 2026.
15 of 38
15 of 38 UK local SEO markets measure a keyword difficulty of exactly zero, meaning the pages currently ranking carry almost no links of their own (25 July 2026).
4
Only 4 of 38 UK local SEO markets score above 30 for keyword difficulty. The hardest is Cardiff at 54, not London (25 July 2026).
KD 1
London is the largest UK local SEO market at roughly 3,200 searches a month and scores just 1 out of 100 for keyword difficulty (25 July 2026).
r = 0.17
Market size barely predicts market difficulty in UK local SEO. Across 38 markets the correlation between monthly search volume and keyword difficulty is r = 0.17, meaning size accounts for roughly 3% of the variation in difficulty (25 July 2026).
8.4x
Brighton shows the widest gap between headline volume and actual traffic among UK local markets with at least 100 monthly searches: about 250 searches on the headline term, while the top ranking page receives an estimated 2,100 visits a month, roughly 8.4 times the headline figure (25 July 2026).
Cite these as:
UK SEO Difficulty Index, Alin Boatca, 25 July 2026. https://alinboatca.com/uk-seo-difficulty-index/
Link spam
What an unsolicited link blast is actually made of.
Every referring domain Ahrefs first saw pointing at this site between 26 and 31 July 2026, pulled in one go on 31 July 2026. The site had zero referring domains before that week, so nothing here is hiding inside an existing profile.
130
130 unsolicited referring domains appeared against a single UK site in 6 days, from a starting position of zero referring domains (31 July 2026).
0
Every one of the 130 spam referring domains catalogued measured zero organic traffic, without exception (31 July 2026).
20
20 of 130 spam domains carried an Ahrefs Domain Rating of 50 or above while measuring zero organic traffic, the highest at DR 74. Domain Rating is computed from links with no traffic term, so link networks manufacture it directly (31 July 2026).
40
40 of 130 spam domains link out to 300 or more distinct domains, with the worst pointing at 5,323. Outbound domain count is the cheapest tell of a link farm and almost nobody checks it (31 July 2026).
93 on .shop
93 of 130 spam referring domains sat on a single TLD, .shop (31 July 2026).
Cite these as:
Link Spam Log, Alin Boatca, 31 July 2026. https://alinboatca.com/link-spam-log/
Method and limits
What these figures cannot tell you.
Source and date. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and Site Explorer, United Kingdom database. Difficulty figures pulled 25 July 2026, spam figures pulled 31 July 2026. These move, so a re-pull will differ, and both dates travel with every claim above for that reason.
One phrasing. The difficulty figures use the plain "seo [place]" term throughout. Mixing phrasings would make markets incomparable. The cost is that the plain term is not always the commercially important one in a given city.
Not the map pack. None of this measures local pack results, which are decided substantially by proximity to the searcher rather than by links, and which is where many genuinely local businesses compete.
One site, six days. The spam figures describe a single site over a short window. That window is unusually clean, because a domain with no prior referring domains gives the spam nowhere to hide, and it is still one sample rather than a survey of the web.
Who published this. We sell SEO, and figures showing UK local markets are winnable are convenient for us. Both datasets are published in full and every figure is reproducible in an Ahrefs account in about twenty minutes, which is the only reason any of it is worth citing. The difficulty data is also on GitHub as a CSV with re-pull instructions. Check it.
FAQ
Using these figures
Can I use these figures?
Yes, with a link to the study the figure came from. Each section below carries a citation line you can copy. Every number here is an original measurement taken for this site rather than a figure collected from someone else's roundup, which is the reason it is worth citing at all.
If you need a cut we have not published, a market not in the table or a breakdown we have not run, ask and it will be pulled on the same terms.
How current are these?
The difficulty figures were measured on 25 July 2026 and the link spam figures on 31 July 2026. Both dates are attached to every claim on this page rather than kept in a footnote, because a statistic without its date is not checkable.
Search figures move. A re-pull will differ, and the honest expectation is that the shape survives while individual rows change.
Why are there no industry-wide statistics here?
Because we did not measure them. Most SEO statistics pages are a hundred numbers borrowed from other people's studies, each one a link away from a source that is itself citing someone else, and a good share of them trace back to nothing checkable.
This page only carries figures measured here, which makes it much shorter and much easier to verify. Both datasets are published in full, with their method and their limits.
What do these figures not tell me?
The difficulty numbers do not measure the map pack, which is decided substantially by proximity to the searcher rather than by links. They do not measure commercial value: a market with nobody in it may be a market with no buyers. And they say nothing about your own chances, which depend on a domain the table knows nothing about.
The link spam figures describe one site over six days. That is a clean sample because there was no prior link profile for the spam to hide inside, and it is still one sample.
Keep reading
The studies behind these
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Need a figure we have not published?
If you are writing something and need a market not in the table, a different phrasing, or a breakdown we have not run, ask. It gets pulled on the same terms: measured, dated, and free to cite with a link.