Ahrefs How to Remove a Site From My Dashboard?
Quick Summary
Managing an SEO agency or an enterprise portfolio often reduces to a game of resource tetris. We aren’t just managing rankings; we are managing tool limits. The query “how to remove a site from my dashboard” usually stems from two scenarios: you have hit your project cap on a legacy plan, or you are offboarding a client and need to sanitize your workspace for compliance.
Removing a site in Ahrefs is technically trivial—a few clicks. However, the strategic implication involves data retention and “slot economy.” Once you delete a project, that historical crawl data and rank tracking history is wiped. There is no undo button. This guide covers the technical steps to remove a site, but more importantly, it covers the pre-deletion protocol I enforce with my teams to prevent accidental data loss.
The “Project Cap” Crisis: A Real-World Scenario
Early in my career, running an agency SEO department, we operated on a tiered Ahrefs subscription. We were constantly hovering at 98/100 project slots. One junior analyst, trying to be proactive, deleted a “dormant” project to make room for a new prospect pitch.
Three weeks later, that dormant client returned, asking for a Year-Over-Year growth report to justify renewing their contract. We had the GSC data, sure, but we lost the granular keyword movement, the competitor gap snapshots, and the technical audit history that proved our value. We had to piece together a narrative from scattered PDFs and external spreadsheets. It was embarrassing and entirely avoidable.
Since then, I established a strict “Archive Protocol.” We never delete a project without a full CSV export of the ranking history and the latest technical audit. Deleting a site from the dashboard is the final step of offboarding, not a quick fix for freeing up space.
Deep Dive: Removing Projects & Managing Workspace Limits
Option 1: Deleting a Project (The Nuclear Option)
This is the direct answer to your query. This action removes the site from your main Dashboard, Site Audit, Rank Tracker, and all associated alert systems.
The Process:
- Navigate to the main Dashboard where your list of projects resides.
- Locate the target domain.
- Look for the three dots (meatball menu) on the far right of the project row, or hover over the project to reveal the settings gear (depending on your UI version, Ahrefs toggles this occasionally).
- Select Delete project.
- Crucial Step: A confirmation modal will appear. It usually asks you to check a box acknowledging that all data (Rank Tracker keywords, Site Audit crawls) will be permanently lost.
- Confirm the deletion.
Expert Note on Search Intent:
If your dashboard feels cluttered but you want to retain the data, currently, Ahrefs doesn’t offer a true “Archive” option that preserves projects without using a project slot. As a result, any project that consumes a slot must remain active. Conversely, deleting a project to free up space permanently removes its data. Ultimately, this limitation is a rigid constraint of Ahrefs’ pricing model.
Option 2: Downgrading/Modifying Instead of Deleting
Sometimes you don’t need to nuke the project; you just need to stop the credit bleed.
- Turn off scheduled crawls: In Site Audit, switch the schedule to “None.” This stops the tool from eating your crawl credits automatically.
- Pause Rank Tracker: You can’t exactly “pause” rank tracking without removing keywords, but you can reduce the frequency (daily to weekly) to save updates, though this doesn’t help with project slot limits.
Comparative Analysis: Deletion vs. Data Retention
When you are staring at a full dashboard, you have limited options. Here is how I weigh the trade-offs.
| Strategy | Best Use Case | Strengths | Limitations | Risk Level |
| Full Deletion | Client offboarding; churned customers; duplicate setups (http vs https). | Frees up a project slot immediately. Cleans UI. | Irreversible data loss. Loss of historical context. | High |
| Export & Delete | Standard operating procedure for completed one-off audits. | Preserves the snapshot of data for future reporting. Frees up slot. | Static data. You cannot interact with the graphs later. | Medium |
| External Archiving | High-value dormant clients. | Keeps data alive via API or exporting to a data warehouse (BigQuery). | Requires technical setup (API costs) or manual labor. | Low |
| Upgrade Plan | When “dormant” projects are actually “waiting” projects. | seamless continuity. No data loss. | Increases monthly burn rate. | Low (Financial risk only) |
Common Mistakes in Dashboard Management
1. The “GSC Verification” Trap
I often see SEOs delete a project thinking, “I can just re-add it later because I have Google Search Console access.”
Why this fails: Ahrefs connects to GSC to pull data, but Ahrefs’ own metrics (Health Score history, keyword movement relative to their index, broken link history) are proprietary. Re-adding the site via GSC later gives you the GSC data back, but your Ahrefs historical timeline starts at day zero. You lose the “us vs. them” narrative.
2. Ignoring the “www” vs “non-www” Duplicates
In older setups, I’ve seen teams burn two project slots for example.com and www.example.com.
The Fix: You don’t need to delete the site entirely; just merge them. Modern Ahrefs project setup usually handles canonicalization well via “Domain” level tracking. If you have duplicates, identify which one has the historical tracking data. Keep that one. Change the scope to “Subdomains” or “Domain” to cover all bases, then delete the duplicate.
3. Deleting During a Crawl
Deleting a project while a Site Audit is actively running can sometimes cause ghost credits to hang in the system for a few hours before reconciling. It’s a minor bug, but annoying when you are frantically trying to add a new client before a meeting. Cancel the crawl first, then delete.
Verdict & Strategic Next Steps
Removing a site from your Ahrefs dashboard is a maintenance task that requires a data governance mindset. Do not treat your dashboard like a temporary scratchpad.
My recommendation:
- Audit your slots monthly. If a project hasn’t been touched in 90 days, flag it.
- Export before you execute. Go to Rank Tracker -> Export -> All time. Go to Site Audit -> Export -> Latest Crawl. Save these in the client’s folder on your drive.
- Delete with confidence. Once the data is secured, remove the project to free up the slot for active revenue-generating work.
If you are constantly hitting limits, stop deleting. You have likely outgrown your current tier, and the cost of the upgrade is likely lower than the labor cost of juggling exports and deletions.
How to Remove a Project from Ahrefs Dashboard
Time needed: 3 minutes
A quick, irreversible process to free up project slots by removing a domain from your Ahrefs workspace. Ensure you have exported necessary data before proceeding.
- Access Your Project Dashboard
Log in to your Ahrefs account and navigate to the main “Dashboard” tab. This view lists all active projects currently consuming your subscription slots.
- Locate the Target Domain
Scroll through your project list or use the search bar to find the specific website you intend to remove. Double-check the URL to ensure it is not a similar sub-domain (e.g., staging vs. production).
- Open Project Options
Hover over the project row. Locate the three dots (meatball menu) on the far right side of the row. Click it to reveal the dropdown settings menu.
- Confirm Deletion
Select “Delete project” from the menu. A warning modal will appear; check the confirmation box acknowledging data loss, then click the final delete button to free up the slot.
