Life is full of huge, difficult questions. Are we alone in the universe? Why do movie characters never say “goodbye” before hanging up? And how do you pronounce Ahrefs?
I can answer one of those questions for you. (Sorry, the universe thing is above my pay grade.)
I work at Ahrefs, and we pronounce Ahrefs like “H-refs”. It’s how we say it in company meetings, interviews, sales calls, YouTube videos, and everyday life. Yep—the “A” is silent.
Here’s what that looks like using the International Phonetic Alphabet:
/eɪʧ-rɛfs/
/eɪtʃ/ → “H” as in the letter name
/rɛfs/ → “refs” as in “references”
And if you want to hear how it sounds, here’s Rob from our enterprise team, talking us through it:
But here’s the thing: Ahrefs is used all over the world, and that means Ahrefs is pronounced differently all over the world, too.
“H-refs” might be the official pronunciation, but we’ve heard hundreds of different takes on our company name, from the British “ay-aych-refs” to the Indian “aah-refs” to the Klingon “ach-ref” (seriously). We think they’re pretty awesome too.
Check out this LinkedIn post where our CMO, Tim, collects Ahrefs pronunciations from around the world:
So now you know the official way to say “Ahrefs” (and you also have our blessing to say it a different way, too).