Screaming Frog Tips + Tricks
- Download + instal tool from https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/
- Enter License from Last Pass
Connect to Google Analytics for more powerful reports
- Configuration > API Access
- Connect New Account
- Choose Account, Property, View
- Segment - All users (or whichever segment might apply best for your audit)
Choose a Date range
- Defaults to a month
- Might be helpful to see the year
Metrics
- Pick what you want to display
- Users and sessions
Rest of the settings get pretty granular. Click through, or use the defaults.
Enter URL to spider in top bar
- wait for both Crawl and API bars to hit 100%
Tab across top filters to that particular data
Review status code for broken links
- 200 good, normal
- 301 redirects
- 400 - 500 can be a problem
Review Images and look for:
- Over 100kb
- Missing alt text
Structured data
- Validation errors or warnings
- Missing structured data
Inlinks + outlinks
- Check anchor text and alt text
Reports - create CSV
- Redirects
- Non-indexed
- Orphan pages
Bulk Export
- Response Code for 404s
Visualizations
- Crawl Tree
- Directory Tree
Put reports in a Google Drive Folder
Once things are fixed you can run the crawl again and compare
Save
- So you don’t have to crawl everything all over again’
Tool can help with Accessibility AND Search engine ranking/SEO
- Important to remember based on a client's needs or priorities
Resources
https://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide/
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/how-to-crawl-large-websites/