Item: Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's used in the search and analytics department. I use it for crafting pitches - getting insights on possible site issues on a client site - troubleshooting any site issues for active clients, and completing audits, particularly tracking internal linking webs, scraping metadata, and assessing status code issues - both within the web app and in Excel spreadsheets.

Pros and Cons

I love the ability to scrape all internal links on the site - even with anchor text! Great for troubleshooting site circulation.
The Building Tree view is useful for quick visualization of the site structure.
I just love being able to scrape all the metadata - makes the setup for optimization super easy.

The Crawl Tree Graph always seems like it would be great, but the output is extremely unwieldy
Sometimes the status codes come out wrong - I always feel the need to double-check a few, when I end up with a list of 404s—and often I need to run them again in list mode to get the proper code. Not sure why!
I wish you could save a crawl within the platform - say I crawl a site, then crawl a different one, and want to poke around within the platform at that first site again. It seems I just have to perform the crawl again, rather than being able to load up an old crawl.

Return on Investment

Hard to put a number on it, but Screaming Frog has saved me tons of hours by allowing me to export tons of structural data to start digging into.
Screaming Frog has been an invaluable tool for on-the-spot troubleshooting when a site issue comes up.
Screaming Frog lets me see my clients' sites inside and out, increasing my comprehension of the issues facing the site, and making sure I don't miss anything.

Alternatives Considered

DeepCrawl and SEMRush

The HTML-heavy little platform, Screaming Frog, is my favorite crawler compared to DeepCrawl and SEMRush. Partially precisely due to the fact that the tool doesn't try to give me recommendations or tell me what to do. Many similar tools go above and beyond to prescribe solutions - but to be frank, that's my job. I know what I'm doing, so all I need is the data and the specifics of what's going on with the site - I like that Screaming Frog just gives me the raw goods and lets me draw my own insights and recs from it. Surely not everyone will agree with this - but I appreciate the tool not trying to hold my hand through my own job.

Support Rating

I've only called support once, and it was helpful! The FAQs, blog posts, and how-to guides on the website are extremely helpful and detailed. I've frequently spent time reading through these and I've been able to troubleshoot my way through most things from accessing this helpful storehouse of valuable content. If I don't have to pepper your business with calls, then that usually means that your user support efforts on the site are on-point!

Key Insights

Do you think Screaming Frog SEO Spider delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Screaming Frog SEO Spider's feature set?

Yes

Did Screaming Frog SEO Spider live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Screaming Frog SEO Spider go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Screaming Frog SEO Spider again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Moz, iSpionage, SEMRush

Likelihood to Recommend

Screaming Frog is fantastic for digging in for an SEO audit. It's the first thing I do when I start looking at a site—throw the domain in the Screaming Frog. Then I can export a few views and start sorting by status code, empty or duplicate metadata, canonicals, etc. Filtering the URLs allows me to get a good handle on the URL hierarchies. I can knock out a big chunk of the technical audit in a few steps with Screaming Frog!

Don't tell my clients how easy Screaming Frog makes my job!

Overall Satisfaction with Screaming Frog SEO Spider