Screaming Frog SEO Spider (https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/) is a powerful website crawler that helps improve your website’s SEO by extracting data and identifying common SEO issues.
What Can You Do with Screaming Frog SEO Spider?
Screaming Frog gathers key SEO data, allowing you to analyze and optimize your website efficiently.
- The free version allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs.
- The paid version removes this limit and unlocks advanced features—an investment worth considering for SEO professionals.
Key Features of Screaming Frog
1. Identify Broken Links
Screaming Frog helps you detect 404 errors (page not found) and 500 server errors on your website. Additionally, you can export error reports along with their source URLs to quickly fix them or send them to a developer.
2. Audit Redirects & Redirect Chains
- Detect 301 and 302 redirects (permanent and temporary).
- Identify redirect chains and loops.
- Upload and audit a list of URLs during website migrations.
3. Analyze Metadata (Titles & Descriptions)
- Identify missing, duplicate, too long, or too short page titles and meta descriptions.
- Optimize these elements for better search engine visibility.
4. Examine Heading Structure (H1 & H2 Tags)
- Find missing, duplicate, too long, or too short H1 and H2 tags.
- Ensure proper use of headers for better readability and SEO performance.
5. Check Robots.txt & Meta Robots Directives
- Identify blocked URLs due to robots.txt, meta robots, or X-Robots-Tag directives.
- Ensure correct implementation of rel="canonical", rel="next", and rel="prev" tags.
6. Generate XML Sitemaps
- Quickly create XML sitemaps and image sitemaps with custom configurations.
- Control included URLs, last modification dates, priorities, and update frequency.
7. Integrate with Google Analytics (GA), Search Console (GSC), & PageSpeed Insights (PSI)
- Retrieve valuable user and performance data for all site URLs.
- Identify pages with low traffic, slow loading speeds, or high bounce rates.
8. Crawl JavaScript-Based Websites
- Render JavaScript-heavy websites, including Angular, React, and Vue.js.
- Analyze dynamic content that traditional crawlers may miss.
9. Visualize Website Architecture
- Evaluate internal linking and URL structure with interactive site diagrams and tree graphs.
Advanced Features in the Paid Version
- Crawl scheduling – Automate website audits.
- Custom crawl configurations – Set specific crawl parameters.
- Save and reload crawls – Resume work without restarting.
- JavaScript rendering – Improve analysis of dynamic content.
- Duplicate content detection – Identify duplicate pages and thin content.
- AMP crawling and validation – Ensure Accelerated Mobile Pages compliance.
- Structured data analysis – Validate schema markup.
- Spelling and grammar checks – Improve content quality.
- Custom data extractions – Extract specific SEO data.
- Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights integration – Gather in-depth performance insights.
- Form-based authentication – Crawl password-protected pages.
- Free technical support – Get expert assistance when needed.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an essential tool for anyone serious about SEO. Whether you're fixing broken links, analyzing metadata, auditing redirects, or optimizing internal linking, this tool provides invaluable insights to boost your site's performance. The free version is great for small websites, while the paid version offers extensive features for professionals managing larger or more complex sites.
Want to improve your website’s SEO? Try Screaming Frog today and take control of your site's search engine visibility!