If you’re a business owner handling your own SEO, chances are you’ve logged into a tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs to see how your website is performing. Most of these platforms include a chart tracking your total number of ranked keywords over time, and when that line dips, it’s natural to worry. Why is my total keyword count dropping? Why did my keyword rankings drop? Did something break on the site? Is a competitor pulling ahead? Is all of this SEO work going to waste?
Here’s the truth: a decreasing keyword count in SEMRush doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Many business owners assume that a drop in keywords is a red flag, but a decline in total keywords tracked isn’t the same thing as a decline in SEO performance. In this guide, we’ll break down why it’s the quality of the keywords you’re ranking for, not the raw quantity, that actually drives your business forward.
What Does “Keywords Tracked” in SEMRush Actually Mean?
SEO ranking tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs estimate where your website ranks for any keyword for which your domain shows up, often tracking anywhere within the top 100 positions. The problem is that most searchers never make it past the first page of results, let alone position 50 or 90. Rankings that far down the list provide little to no real visibility, even though they still count toward your total keyword number.
On top of that, Google will sometimes show your website for keywords that are only loosely related to your business, or not related at all. This tends to happen most often with newer or smaller websites that haven’t fully established their authority or niche with Google yet. It’s worth remembering that SEMRush and Ahrefs are modeled estimates built from sample data, not a direct read from Google itself. These tools count everything they can find, junk keywords included.
Why Your Total Keyword Count Naturally Goes Down
There are several common reasons for a decline in keyword count, and most of them have nothing to do with something going wrong. As your website matures and Google gets a clearer picture of what your business actually offers, through your content, on-page optimization, backlinks, and overall authority, your rankings naturally narrow in on the keywords that matter most. That refinement is a sign of progress, not a problem.
A site cleanup that consolidates thin or outdated pages, fixes keyword cannibalization, and prunes low-value content will shed some of the “junk” keywords picked up along the way. This is one of the most common causes of a SEMRush drop in keywords that isn’t actually a red flag. Google algorithm updates can also shift and tighten which pages qualify for which searches, even when nothing on your website has changed. None of this is bad news. It’s often a sign that your site’s SEO foundation is getting stronger, not weaker.
Keyword Quality vs. Quantity: What Actually Matters
At the end of the day, a large number of keyword rankings isn’t worth much if none of them are driving traffic, leads, or sales. Ranking for 3,000 loosely related search terms that no one in your target audience is actually searching for is far less valuable than ranking well for 300 terms tied directly to the services you offer and the customers you want to reach. Quality keywords, the ones aligned with your business and your ideal customer’s search intent, are what turn rankings into real results.
| Good SEO Strategy | Bad SEO Strategy |
| Track rankings for keywords tied to your core services and service areas | Panicking over total keyword count alone |
| Monitor rankings for pages that drive real revenue or conversions | Chasing irrelevant long-tail keywords with no buyer intent |
| Watch traffic, engagement, and conversions on your top-performing pages | Treating SEMRush’s keyword count as a reliable health score |
| Review new keywords periodically to confirm they match your business | Assuming every ranked keyword represents a real opportunity |
What You Should Be Watching Instead
If total keyword count isn’t a reliable metric on its own, what should you actually be watching? Start with your organic traffic trends in Google Analytics (GA4). How many people are visiting your key pages? Where is that traffic coming from? How long are they staying, and are they converting into leads or customers? That’s information no keyword count graph can give you.
It also helps to build and track your own target keyword list, rather than relying on everything SEMRush or Ahrefs happens to find. Choose the keywords tied directly to your services, your service areas, and your ideal customer’s search intent, then monitor those specifically instead of watching your total keyword count.
Click-through rate and impressions in Google Search Console (GSC) are another reliable diagnostic tool worth checking. GSC shows you how often your website actually appeared for a given search and how often people clicked through to your site, which tells you far more about real-world visibility than a raw keyword count ever could.
When a Drop in Keywords Is Worth Investigating
None of this means you should ignore your keyword rankings altogether. A sudden, sharp drop, rather than a gradual decline, especially on keywords tied to your priority pages, paired with a real drop in organic traffic, is worth investigating right away. Falling from 1,000 tracked keywords in SEMRush or Ahrefs to five practically overnight usually points to a serious issue, like pages being deindexed, a technical error, or a manual penalty. A small, gradual month-over-month dip in total keyword count, on the other hand, rarely means much on its own.
Building an SEO Strategy Around the Right Metrics
Total keyword count in tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs is often little more than a vanity metric. On its own, it can’t tell you much about how your website is actually performing. Relevance, search intent, and conversions are what really matter, and those are the numbers worth building your strategy around.
This guide covers some of the most common misconceptions we hear about basic SEO reporting tools, but building a full SEO strategy, with the right keyword research, ongoing monitoring, and continual optimization, involves a lot more moving parts. If you want a strategy built around the metrics that actually grow your business, our SEO Strategists at Upward Engine are ready to help.
