About Screaming Frog SEO Spider

The Screaming Frog SEO Spider free version lets you crawl a small website and find broken links, redirects and missing page titles at no cost. It has a crawl limit on the number of URLs, so it fits small sites best. If your site is bigger, you need a yearly paid licence.

Screaming Frog is a UK company, and the SEO Spider is its best-known product. It is a program you install on Windows, macOS or Linux. It is not a website you log in to.

What does Screaming Frog SEO Spider do?

The SEO Spider is a crawler. A crawler starts at one page, follows every link it finds and records what it sees. Search engine bots work in a similar way. That is why a crawl shows problems that a bot would run into.

After a crawl, you see a table of every URL with tabs for each type of data. Common checks include:

  • Broken links: pages that return a 404 error and the pages that link to them.
  • Redirects: 301 and 302 redirects, plus chains where one redirect leads to another.
  • Page titles and meta descriptions: missing, duplicate, too long or too short.
  • Headings: missing or duplicate H1 and H2 tags.
  • Canonical and noindex tags: signs that tell Google which page to index, or not to index a page at all.
  • XML sitemaps: you can create a sitemap from the crawl.

It can also render JavaScript and connect to Google Analytics and Search Console to pull in traffic data.

Is the Screaming Frog SEO Spider free version enough?

For many small sites, yes. Screaming Frog says the free version includes the same core features as the paid one. The main difference is the crawl limit. Once the crawl reaches that number of URLs, it stops.

Keep in mind that a "URL" is not only a page. Images, CSS files and scripts can count too. A blog with a modest number of posts can still reach the limit. You can change the settings so the tool skips images and scripts, which saves room for pages.

The paid licence lasts one year and then needs renewal. It removes the crawl limit, so the only limit is your computer's memory and disk. The pricing page lists no other paid-only features. Check the current price on the official SEO Spider pricing page. Buying several licences at once lowers the cost per licence.

What are the limits of Screaming Frog?

  • It looks only at your own site. It does not show backlinks from other sites or keyword rankings.
  • It shows data, not answers. You get long lists. You still need to decide which issues matter.
  • It uses your computer. Large crawls need memory, and a slow laptop can struggle.
  • It has a learning curve. The screen has many tabs and settings. Beginners can feel lost at first.
  • It can stress weak hosting. A fast crawl sends many requests. Lower the speed if your host is small.

How do you run your first crawl?

  1. Download the SEO Spider from the official site and install it.
  2. Open the program and paste your home page address into the box at the top.
  3. Click "Start" and wait for the progress bar to reach the end.
  4. Open the "Response Codes" tab and filter by "Client Error (4xx)" to see broken links.
  5. Check the "Page Titles" and "Meta Description" tabs for missing or duplicate text.
  6. Click any URL and open "Inlinks" at the bottom to see which pages link to it.
  7. Export the list you want to fix as a spreadsheet and work through it.

When you rewrite titles and descriptions, preview them in our SERP snippet preview tool. If you need to set up redirects for broken pages, the htaccess redirect generator writes the rules for you.

Who should use Screaming Frog?

The SEO Spider suits site owners who like to see raw data and fix things by hand. It is a good fit after a site move, a redesign or a change of URLs. In those moments, broken links and redirect loops are common, and a crawl finds them in minutes.

It is less useful if you only want a simple score or a to-do list. In that case, a cloud audit with plain advice may feel easier. Many people use both: a cloud tool for a monthly check, and the SEO Spider when they need detail.

What are the alternatives to Screaming Frog?

  • Ahrefs Webmaster Tools runs a free site audit in the cloud for sites you verify. No install needed.
  • Semrush has a Site Audit tool inside its suite, with a free account and paid plans.
  • Google Search Console is free and shows which pages Google could not index and why.

See more crawlers and audit tools in our SEO tools list.

For a small blog or business site, the Screaming Frog SEO Spider free version is often all you need for a regular health check. Run it after a redesign or a move, fix the broken links and titles first, and buy a licence only when your site grows past the crawl limit.

Frequently asked questions

How many URLs can I crawl for free in Screaming Frog?

The free version has a fixed crawl limit, shown on the official pricing page. When a crawl reaches that limit, it stops. Images and scripts count toward it, so skip them in the settings to fit more pages.

Does Screaming Frog work on a Mac?

Yes. The SEO Spider runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. You install it like any other desktop program. The free and paid versions use the same download.

No. It only crawls the site you enter, so it shows links inside your own site and links that point out. To see links from other sites, use a backlink tool such as Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.