If you’re serious about improving your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve likely heard of Screaming Frog. This powerful website crawler and website audit tool is a favorite among SEO professionals and website owners. With its ability to quickly and efficiently analyze a website’s entire site, structure, metadata, and content, Screaming Frog can help you identify areas for improvement and create a plan to optimize your website’s performance.
In this review article, we’ll look in-depth at Screaming Frog and its features, exploring its strengths and weaknesses and evaluating whether it lives up to its reputation as a must-have tool for website audits. Whether you’re a seasoned SEO pro or just starting to dip your toes into the world of website optimization, this review will give you the information you need to decide whether Screaming Frog is the right tool for your needs.
What is Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog is a powerful website crawler and audit tool that has become essential to many SEO professionals’ toolkits. Developed by a UK-based digital marketing agency, the tool is designed to help users analyze and optimize their websites for search engines like Google.
At its core, Screaming Frog works by crawling a website’s pages, analyzing its structure, content, and metadata, and providing users with detailed reports on the site’s performance.
The tool is particularly useful for conducting website audits, which are essential for identifying areas of a site that need improvement from an SEO standpoint. Using Screaming Frog to crawl a site, users can quickly identify missing meta tags, and duplicate content, and find broken links, broken images, and broken links, which can be fixed to improve the site’s search engine rankings.
Screaming Frog is a powerful and versatile tool trusted by many SEO professionals to help them optimize their websites for search engines. In the following sections of this review, we’ll take a closer look at the tool’s features and capabilities, as well as its pros and cons, to help you decide whether it’s the right choice for your website and search engine optimization needs.
How to use it?
Screaming Frog is relatively straightforward, although becoming familiar with the tool’s features and settings can take some time. Here are the basic steps for using Screaming Frog to conduct a website audit:
- Download and install Screaming Frog: You can download Screaming Frog from the official website and install it on your computer like any other software.
- Set up your crawl: Once you’ve installed Screaming Frog, you must configure your crawl settings. This includes specifying the website you want to crawl, the user agent to use, and any advanced settings you want to use.
- Start the crawl: Once you’ve configured your crawl settings, you can start the crawl by clicking the “Start” button. Screaming Frog will then crawl the specified website, analyzing its structure, content, and metadata.
- Analyze the results: Screaming Frog will provide you with a detailed report on the website’s performance once the crawl is complete. This report will include information on broken links, missing meta tags, duplicate content, and other issues that can impact the site’s search engine rankings.
- Take action: Armed with the information provided by Screaming Frog, you can then take action to fix any issues identified during the audit. This might include updating page titles and descriptions, improving broken links, or optimizing content for specific keywords.
Screaming Frog is a powerful and versatile tool that can help you identify and fix issues hindering your entire website,’s search engine performance. Whether you’re a seasoned SEO professional or just starting, Screaming Frog is a must-have tool for conducting website audits and optimizing your entire site, for search engines.
Features
Website Crawling
Screaming Frog is primarily a website crawler, and one of its main features is the ability to crawl websites quickly and efficiently. The tool can crawl small and large websites and handle complex sites with JavaScript, AJAX, and other dynamic content.
Customizable Crawling
One of the benefits of Screaming Frog is its customizable crawling options. Users can specify exactly what they want to crawl on a website, such as specific URLs or subdomains, and exclude areas they don’t want to crawl. This can save time and reduce the amount of unnecessary crawl data used in the final report.
On-Page SEO Analysis
Screaming Frog can analyze various on-page SEO factors, and meta descriptions such as page titles, meta descriptions, headers, and images. The tool can identify missing or duplicate tags and long or short markers that may impact search engine rankings.
Link Analysis
Screaming Frog can analyze a website’s search engine results pages, site structure, and internal links, to identify broken links, redirect chains, and other issues impacting the website auditor search engine results pages and rankings. The tool can also explore the website auditor’s internal linking structure to identify opportunities for improving website navigation and user experience outbound links.
Integration with Google Analytics
Screaming Frog can be integrated with Google Analytics to provide additional data on website performance, such as bounce and conversion rates. This can help users identify areas of their own website, that may need improvement from a user engagement web analytics standpoint.
XML Sitemap Generation
Screaming Frog can generate XML sitemaps, which can help search engines crawl and index a website more efficiently. The tool can also identify issues with existing sitemaps, and technical errors such as missing or incorrect URLs.
Custom Extraction
Screaming Frog can extract custom metadata from websites using XPath, CSS Path, or regex. This can be useful for analyzing specific types of content or metadata on competitors’ websites, and metadata such as product information or customer reviews.
Rendered HTML Analysis
Screaming Frog can render web pages in a browser to analyze JavaScript, CSS, and other resources that may not be visible to standard crawlers. This can provide additional insights into a website’s performance and user experience.
It is a powerful and versatile tool that can help users identify a wide range of issues with their website, from on-page SEO reports factors to broken links and navigation issues. Its user interface, customizable crawling options, and ability to integrate with other tools like Google Analytics make it a must-have for anyone serious about improving their website’s search engine performance.
Pricing
- Free Version: Screaming Frog offers a free version of its tool, limited to crawling up to 500 URLs per website. While this may be sufficient for small websites or occasional use, larger websites or more frequent services may require the paid version. The free version works perfectly.
- Paid Version: The paid version of Screaming Frog, known as Screaming Frog SEO Spider, offers additional features and allows for unlimited website crawling. The current pricing for the paid version is $199 per year (as of March 2023).
- Bulk Licenses: For larger teams or agencies, Screaming Frog offers bulk licenses, which provide multiple users with access to the tool at a discounted rate. These licenses start at $665 per year for up to 5 users and increase in price for larger teams.
- Training and Consultancy: Screaming Frog also offers training and consultancy services to help users get the most out of the tool. These services include one-on-one training sessions and custom reports tailored to users’ needs.
- Upsells and Bonuses: While Screaming Frog doesn’t offer any specific upsells or bonuses, the tool integrates with various other tools and services, such as Google Analytics and Ahrefs. Users can also purchase additional features and add-ons, such as the ability to save and share reports, for an additional fee.
- Free Trial: Screaming Frog does not offer a free trial of its paid version, but users can try the free version to see if the tool meets their needs before committing to the paid version.
Screaming Frog offers a range of pricing options to suit the needs of different users, from small websites to large teams and agencies. While the paid version does come with a cost, its powerful features and customizable crawling options make it an invaluable tool for website audits and SEO optimization.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Customizable crawling options
- On-page SEO reports analysis
- SEO audit tool
- Link Analysis
- Integration with Google Analytics
- XML sitemap generation
- Custom Extraction
- Rendered HTML analysis
- Free version available
Cons:
- The paid version can be expensive for some users
- The steep learning curve for new users
- Limited support options
- Reports can be overwhelming for some users
- Limited third-party integrations
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main features of Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog’s main features include website crawling, on-page SEO analysis, link analysis, XML sitemap generation metadata mining, and custom extraction.
Is Screaming Frog SEO spider free?
Screaming Frog offers a free version of its tool, limited to crawling up to 500 URLs per website.
Can Screaming Frog crawl JavaScript and AJAX-based websites?
Screaming Frog can crawl JavaScript and AJAX-based websites, making it a versatile tool for both crawling websites to large websites and analyzing complex sites.
What is the learning curve like for Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog has a steep learning curve, but the tool offers many resources and tutorials to help users get started.
What support options are available for Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog offers email support, a user forum for its paid users, a customer support center, and a comprehensive knowledge base.
Screaming Frog alternatives
Ahrefs Site Audit
Ahrefs Site Audit is a comprehensive website auditing tool that can help users identify and find broken links and fix issues related to on-page SEO, search engine marketing, technical SEO search engine marketing, and content optimization. The tool offers features such as crawl reports, to find broken links, link checks, and content audits. Ahrefs Site Audit starts at $99 per month.
Moz Pro
Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers a variety of features, including website auditing, keyword research, link building, and rank tracking. The tool’s Site Crawl feature can identify broken links, missing meta tags, and duplicate content. Moz Pro starts at $99 per month.
SEMrush
SEMrush is a versatile SEO tool offering website auditing, keyword research, competitor analysis, and rank-tracking features. The tool’s Site Audit feature can help users identify site crawling ability, content, and technical SEO issues. SEMrush starts at $119.95 per month.
DeepCrawl
DeepCrawl is a website auditing tool designed to help users identify and fix technical SEO issues that may impact their website’s performance. The tool offers features such as crawl reports, to find broken links, link checks, and content audits. DeepCrawl starts at $149 per month.
These alternatives offer similar features and capabilities to Screaming Frog and can be useful for website auditing and optimization. Pricing and specific attributes may vary, so it’s important to evaluate each tool based on your particular needs and budget.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Screaming Frog is an indispensable tool for conducting website audits and optimizing your site for search engines. Its customizable crawling options and ability to integrate with other tools like Google Analytics make it a must-have for anyone serious about improving their website’s search engine performance.
While the tool may have a steep learning curve for new users, its comprehensive knowledge base and wide range of resources and tutorials can help users get up to speed quickly.
Additionally, the free version of Screaming Frog provides access to many of the same features as the paid version, making it a great choice for those on a budget or with smaller websites.
Investing in a website auditing tool like Screaming Frog can help you identify and fix issues hindering your website’s search engine performance, ultimately improving your website’s visibility and user experience.
Thank you for reading our Screaming Frog review!
