Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop tool that crawls your website like a search engine and identifies technical and on-page issues.
It highlights broken links, redirects, missing metadata, duplicate content, slow pages, and indexing problems.
The tool works on Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu, with a free version that crawls up to 500 URLs.
You can integrate it with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights for deeper insights.
Irish businesses use Screaming Frog to run reliable SEO audits, understand site health, and prioritise fixes that support better visibility in Google Search.
If your website isn’t performing well in Google Search, the problem often lies in technical issues you can’t easily see.
Broken links, slow pages, missing metadata, or indexing errors can all make it harder for customers to find your business online.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a tool that helps you uncover these issues quickly.
It crawls your website the same way a search engine would and gives you clear, practical insights you can act on.
For Irish businesses that rely on their website for leads, bookings, or local visibility, this type of audit can make a noticeable difference to performance and user experience.
This guide explains what Screaming Frog SEO Spider is, how it works, and how it can help you improve your website’s SEO in a structured and effective way.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls your website the same way a search engine does, identifying technical and on-page issues that affect your visibility in Google Search.
It highlights broken links, redirect errors, missing or duplicated metadata, slow pages, large images, and indexing problems, giving you a clear list of improvements.
The tool works on Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu, and the free version crawls up to 500 URLs, often enough for smaller Irish websites.
Integrations with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights help you prioritise fixes using real performance data.
Irish businesses use Screaming Frog to run fast, reliable SEO audits, maintain a healthy site structure, and improve how users and search engines experience their website.
Advanced features like JavaScript rendering, custom extraction, and competitor crawling support deeper analysis and ongoing optimisation.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop tool that crawls your website the same way a search engine does.
It scans all your URLs and highlights issues that can affect how your site performs in Google Search, including broken links, missing or duplicated meta tags, redirect problems, slow pages, and other technical SEO errors.
For businesses in Ireland, it’s a straightforward way to understand what’s holding your website back and what needs to be fixed to improve visibility, traffic, and user experience.
Screaming Frog works by crawling your website in the same way a search engine like Google does.
It follows every link it can find, scans each URL, and collects technical and on-page data.
This includes status codes, meta tags, page titles, headings, canonical tags, structured data, image information, and response times.
The crawl gives you a full, accurate picture of how your site is built and how search engines experience it.
Pro tip:
Enable JavaScript Rendering if your site uses page builders or dynamic content.
It gives a more accurate picture of what Google can actually see and helps you spot content that may not load correctly during indexing.
Screaming Frog SEO spider identifies technical and content issues that can affect your visibility in search results.
These include:
Broken links (404 errors) and server errors
Redirect chains and loops
Duplicate content, titles, and meta descriptions
Missing or poorly written meta tags
Large images and slow-loading pages
Missing alt text
Incorrect canonical or hreflang setup
Pages blocked by robots.txt or noindex tags
Orphan pages that have no internal links
Problems with structured data
JavaScript-rendered pages that may not load correctly for Google
This makes it easy to see what needs attention and where your website might be holding back your SEO performance.
Pro tip:
Sort issues by “Level” and “Status Code” first.
This helps you prioritise critical problems, such as 404s, blocked pages, and redirects before spending time on lower-impact fixes.
For businesses in Ireland, Screaming Frog provides a practical way to understand and fix the issues that impact how your site appears in Google Search.
Many Irish SMEs rely on their website to drive enquiries, bookings, or local visibility, but small technical issues often go unnoticed.
Screaming Frog highlights these problems clearly, allowing you to improve your site’s structure, user experience, and search performance without guesswork.
It helps you compete more effectively in local and national search results, even against larger brands with bigger digital teams.
Screaming Frog crawls your website in real time and collects detailed data from every URL it can access.
It reads HTML, follows internal and external links, handles XML sitemaps, and can also crawl a list of specific URLs in List Mode.
It provides full visibility into each page’s status code, indexability, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, word count, structured data, and more.
You can also enable JavaScript rendering to analyse pages that rely on dynamic content.
This depth of analysis helps you understand how search engines interpret your site’s structure and content.
Pro tip:
Use List Mode to crawl specific URLs like product pages, service pages, or landing pages.
This is more efficient than running a full site crawl every time and helps you focus on the pages that matter most to your business.
The tool performs a wide range of technical SEO checks that are essential for modern websites.
It flags server errors, redirect hops, mixed content issues, broken links, duplicate pages, slow-loading URLs, oversized images, incorrect canonical tags, missing hreflang attributes, and noindex or blocked pages.
Screaming Frog also highlights crawl depth, click distance from the homepage, and pagination issues.
These insights make it easier to fix the technical problems that influence how well your site is crawled, indexed, and ranked.
Pro tip:
Use the “Issues” tab to quickly spot problems affecting indexability.
Pages marked as “Noindex,” “Blocked,” or “Canonicalised” often reveal hidden barriers to ranking.
Screaming Frog provides a clear view of your on-page SEO elements so you can assess how well each page communicates its purpose.
It extracts titles, meta descriptions, header tags, image alt text, word count, and internal linking patterns.
This makes it easy to spot thin pages, duplicate content, missing tags, or poorly structured headings.
You can also review internal anchor text, identify orphaned pages, and check for inconsistencies across sections of your website.
This level of detail supports a stronger content structure and a more user-friendly experience.
Pro tip:
Review titles and descriptions by word count and pixel width.
Even small adjustments can improve how your pages appear in search and increase click-through rates.
With Custom Extraction, you can pull specific elements from any page using CSS Path, XPath, or regex.
This is useful for extracting structured data, product information, prices, breadcrumbs,
Open Graph tags, schema markup, or any custom field that appears in your HTML.
For Irish businesses with large inventories, directories, or service pages, custom extraction helps automate data checks and ensures important content is consistent and accurate across the site.
Pro Tip:
Use XPath to check schema markup at scale.
This is a fast way to confirm that all key pages include correct structured data for products, services, FAQs, or local business information.
Screaming Frog allows you to export any dataset for detailed review or reporting.
You can export to CSV, Excel, Google Sheets (if connected), JSON, or create tailored reports using custom filters.
The tool also generates visual site architecture diagrams that show how your pages are connected.
Integrations with Google Analytics and Google Search Console allow you to combine crawl data with performance metrics such as impressions, clicks, sessions, and conversions.
These reports help you track improvements, share findings with your team, and prioritise what to fix next.
Screaming Frog helps Irish businesses identify technical and content issues that can limit visibility in Google Search.
By fixing broken links, redirects, slow pages, and missing metadata, your website becomes easier for Google to crawl and understand.
This supports stronger performance in local searches, whether people are looking for a service “near me” or searching within Ireland.
Many Irish SMEs rely on their website for enquiries, bookings, or sales, but small usability issues often go unnoticed.
Screaming Frog highlights slow pages, large images, missing alt text, and inconsistent titles or headings.
Improving these elements makes your website easier to use and more trustworthy, which can increase conversions.
Small and medium businesses often don’t have full-time SEO staff.
Screaming Frog gives you a clear, structured list of what needs attention, without requiring specialist knowledge.
This makes it easier to prioritise improvements, plan updates, and maintain your site’s health as it grows.
The crawler helps you see which pages lack strong titles, descriptions, internal links, or clear headings.
For service providers, trades, e-commerce shops, or local organisations in Ireland, these insights help strengthen key pages and make sure important information is easy to find for both users and Google.
With full exports and integrations, you can compare crawl data with performance data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
This lets Irish businesses understand which technical issues may be affecting impressions, clicks, or conversions and helps you decide what to fix first based on impact.
AI models prefer pages with clear sections, consistent headings, and well-defined topics.
Screaming Frog shows where headings are missing, duplicated, or out of order.
Fixing these improves how your content is chunked and interpreted by AI systems.
AI search relies on metadata to understand page context.
Screaming Frog flags missing or duplicated titles, descriptions, and canonical tags, helping you create more accurate and AI-friendly content.
If pages are blocked, slow, or poorly linked, AI systems may not ingest the content properly.
Screaming Frog detects:
Noindex or blocked pages
Broken internal links
Redirect loops
Slow-loading pages
JavaScript rendering issues
Fixing these ensures AI systems can access and use your content.
AI search prefers pages with clear facts, data points, and precise statements.
Screaming Frog makes it easy to find thin content, duplicated content, or pages with low word counts so you can strengthen them with clearer, more complete information.
AI search uses internal linking to understand page relationships.
Screaming Frog identifies orphan pages, weak link structures, and inconsistent anchor text so you can create a more semantically connected site.
By reviewing titles, headings, and content patterns at scale, Screaming Frog shows where topics are incomplete or under-explained.
These gaps are often where AI search struggles to produce confident answers.
Fixing them improves your visibility.
AI benefits from accurate schema markup.
Screaming Frog checks for missing or inconsistent structured data across your website, helping you provide clearer signals to AI search systems.
Pro tip:
Use Screaming Frog’s “Content” and “Structured Data” reports to spot thin sections or missing schema.
Strengthening these areas makes your pages easier for AI systems to understand and more likely to be used in AI-generated answers.
Download Screaming Frog SEO Spider from the official website and install it on your computer.
It works on Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu.
The free version allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs, which is often enough for smaller Irish websites.
If your site is larger, the paid licence unlocks full functionality, including custom extraction, scheduling, and API access.
Open the program, enter your website’s homepage URL, and click “Start.”
Screaming Frog will begin crawling your site the same way a search engine would.
As it runs, you’ll see data populate across different tabs, including internal links, page titles, meta descriptions, headers, response codes, and image information.
For websites that rely on JavaScript, enable “JavaScript Rendering” in the settings so the crawler can load dynamic content properly.
Pro tip:
Set your crawl limit slightly higher than your estimated number of URLs.
This prevents the crawl from stopping early and ensures you capture every page, especially on larger Irish websites.
Once the crawl finishes, review the main reports to understand the health of your website:
Response codes: shows broken links, server errors, and redirects
Page titles & meta descriptions: highlights missing, duplicated, or overly long tags
H1 & H2 headings: flags pages with missing or repeated headings
Images: identifies large images and missing alt text
Content: helps find thin pages or duplicate content
Canonical & indexability: shows which pages Google can index and which are blocked
Internal links: helps you spot orphan pages and weak internal linking patterns
These reports give a clear, actionable overview of the technical and on-page issues that may affect your visibility in Google Search, especially for local searches within Ireland.
Pro tip:
Use the visual site architecture diagram to find deep pages.
Pages buried several clicks away from the homepage often perform poorly and benefit from stronger internal linking.
Screaming Frog gives you a detailed view of how your website works behind the scenes.
Focusing on the right checks helps you improve visibility, fix technical issues, and create a better experience for users and search engines.
These are the checks that have the biggest impact on SEO, especially for businesses in Ireland that rely on local and national search performance.
The Response Codes report highlights pages returning 404 errors, 5xx server issues, soft 404s, and unnecessary redirects.
Fixing these improves crawlability, prevents wasted crawl budget, and removes dead ends that can frustrate users.
Why it matters:
Broken or inaccessible pages often prevent Google from indexing your content properly.
Screaming Frog shows where multiple redirects lead from one URL to another, or where a loop prevents a page from loading.
Cleaning these up makes your site faster and easier for search engines to understand.
Why it matters:
Redirect chains slow down page loads and can dilute link value.
The tool flags titles and descriptions that are missing, duplicated, too long, or too short.
These elements help search engines understand page topics and influence click-through rates.
Why it matters:
Clear, accurate metadata supports better visibility in search and improves engagement.
Screaming Frog shows whether your headings are missing, duplicated, or poorly structured.
Consistent heading structure helps both users and AI systems understand your content.
Why it matters:
Headings act as anchors for content sections and influence how information is interpreted.
The Indexability report highlights pages marked with noindex, conflicting canonical tags, or technical blocks.
It provides a clear view of what Google can index and what may be unintentionally hidden.
Why it matters:
If important pages aren’t indexable, they won’t appear in search results.
The tool helps you find pages with similar or duplicated titles, descriptions, or body content.
Cleaning these up reduces confusion for search engines.
Why it matters:
Duplicate content can lead to uneven rankings or Google choosing the wrong page to show.
Screaming Frog can report page speed using PageSpeed Insights integration or highlight large images and resources.
Reducing file sizes improves load times across Ireland’s varied connection speeds and device types.
Why it matters:
Fast pages support better rankings and stronger user experience.
Missing or empty alt text is flagged clearly.
This helps you strengthen accessibility and improve relevance signals for image search.
Why it matters:
Alt text supports both usability and ranking clarity.
Screaming Frog shows pages with no internal links and pages hidden deep in your structure.
Improving internal linking ensures search engines can reach and understand all your content.
Why it matters:
Internal links help distribute authority and make content easier to find.
Using Custom Extraction or the Structured Data tab (if enabled), Screaming Frog reveals missing or inconsistent schema markup.
Structured data helps AI search systems interpret your content more accurately.
Why it matters:
Good structured data increases your chances of appearing in rich and AI-generated results.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider can connect with Google services.
This feature improves your website’s SEO. You can link it to Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
Doing so allows you to get rich data about your site’s performance.
Data from these tools helps in making smart decisions.
You will see how visitors find your site and what they do there.
This insight is key for better on-page optimisation and URL analysis.
Using this integration makes it easier to track progress and improve search engine rankings.
Modern websites often rely on JavaScript to display key content.
Screaming Frog includes a built-in headless Chrome renderer that loads pages the same way a browser would.
When enabled, it captures titles, text, links, images, and structured data that only appear after scripts run.
This is important for Irish businesses using page builders, frameworks, or interactive components.
If Google struggles to render parts of your site, important content may not be indexed.
By comparing the HTML crawl and JS-rendered crawl, you can see what search engines might miss and address those gaps early.
Custom filters let you create rules that flag specific issues or patterns across your site.
You can filter for anything that matters to your business; for example, URLs containing query strings, pages missing reviews or pricing, or pages with thin content.
These filters are useful for maintaining large or frequently updated websites, such as e-commerce stores, directories, professional services, or multi-location Irish businesses.
They help you surface issues quickly without manually reviewing every page. Custom filters adapt well to ongoing SEO checks and can be saved for repeated use.
You can also crawl competitor websites to understand how they structure content, use headings, handle internal linking, or manage their technical SEO.
Screaming Frog won’t show private data such as analytics or traffic, but it reveals public-facing details that influence rankings.
For Irish businesses competing in crowded sectors, such as trades, hospitality, legal services, healthcare, or local retail, this provides practical insights into how others present their services and organise their websites.
It helps you identify gaps, benchmark quality, and understand where your site can improve to compete more effectively in Google Search.
Pro tip:
Compare their page titles and internal linking patterns with yours.
Small structural differences often explain why competitors rank higher for important keywords.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is used to crawl your website and identify technical and on-page issues that affect how your site appears in Google Search.
It highlights broken links, redirects, missing or duplicated metadata, slow pages, and other SEO problems.
Irish businesses use it to diagnose issues quickly and maintain a healthy, well-optimised website.
Screaming Frog and Google Search Console measure different things.
Screaming Frog analyses your website’s structure and content by crawling it directly, while Search Console shows how Google interacts with your site.
Using both gives a more complete picture.
When combined through integration, they help you understand which issues may be affecting impressions, clicks, and indexing.
Yes. Screaming Frog detects duplicate page titles, meta descriptions, H1 headings, and body content.
It also highlights near-duplicates and pages with similar content patterns.
This helps Irish businesses avoid duplicate content issues that can dilute rankings and confuse search engines.
Screaming Frog supports JavaScript rendering using a built-in headless Chrome browser.
When enabled, it loads dynamic content and captures elements that rely on scripts.
This is useful for Irish businesses using modern page builders, frameworks, or interactive components where key content may not appear in static HTML.
Yes. By identifying broken links, slow pages, missing metadata, indexing issues, and thin content, Screaming Frog helps strengthen the pages that matter most for local search visibility.
Clean, well-structured pages generally perform better in Google’s local results, including “near me” searches and Ireland-specific queries.
You don’t need deep technical knowledge to use the main features.
The interface is straightforward, and most reports are labelled clearly.
You can start with the basics and gradually explore more advanced options like custom extraction, rendering, and integrations as your confidence grows.
Most small and medium businesses benefit from running a crawl every month or after any major website changes.
Larger sites or e-commerce stores in Ireland may run weekly crawls to stay on top of frequent updates and product changes.
Yes. Screaming Frog can crawl any publicly accessible website.
This lets you review a competitor’s site structure, metadata, headings, and internal linking.
It won’t reveal private data, but it helps identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to improve your own site.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a reliable way to understand what’s happening behind the scenes on your website.
It shows you the technical and on-page issues that can affect how your site appears in Google Search and gives you a clear path to improvement.
For businesses in Ireland, it offers a practical way to maintain a healthy website, improve visibility, and make informed decisions based on accurate data.
Whether you manage a small brochure site, a multi-location business, or a growing e-commerce store, regular crawls help you stay ahead of problems and keep your website performing at its best.
By using Screaming Frog as part of your ongoing SEO process, you can strengthen your site’s structure, improve user experience, and create a more solid foundation for long-term growth.
Alessandro Boscolo Conway — Hello Digital
I'm a Dublin-based freelance SEO and digital marketing consultant with over 20 years of experience, including time on Google Ireland’s Search Quality team.
I run Hello Digital, a consultancy that helps startups and small businesses across Ireland grow online through clear strategy, expert delivery, and practical support.
I've worked with over 50 Irish companies to improve their visibility, generate better leads, and grow sustainably through SEO and digital marketing.
I'm a certified Google Partner and a trusted advisor to e-commerce brands, local services, and fast-growing startups.
Based in Dublin, 20+ years of experience
Former Googler, certified Google Partner, SEO strategist, and performance marketer
Trusted by 50+ Irish startups, e-commerce brands, and local businesses
Understanding how tools like Screaming Frog work is a great start, but results come from applying the insights consistently and turning them into a structured optimisation plan.
If you want to:
Improve how your website appears in Google and AI-powered search
Fix technical issues that hold back your rankings
Strengthen your site structure and user experience
Get clearer insights from your analytics and search data
Whether you’re:
Maintaining a small business website and want it performing at its best
Solving technical SEO issues that are difficult to diagnose
Or building a more scalable SEO strategy for long-term growth
I offer hands-on technical SEO support for businesses across Ireland, including audits, on-page improvements, content structure reviews, technical fixes, and ongoing optimisation.
Let’s make your website easier to find, easier to use, and more effective for your business.
Book your free consultation today, and we’ll create a practical SEO plan tailored to your goals.