· 8 min read
Download Screaming Frog for Windows, Mac or Linux. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs with no sign-up. Run the installer — Java is bundled so no extra steps needed.
Open Screaming Frog, type your website URL in the search bar at the top and click Start. The spider will crawl every page it can find, following internal links automatically.
Once the crawl is complete, go to the Issues tab. Screaming Frog identifies over 300 SEO issues including broken links (404s), redirect chains, missing titles, duplicate content and more. Each issue includes an explanation and fix recommendation.
Go to the Response Codes tab and filter by Client Error (4xx). This shows all 404 and other error pages. Right-click any URL to see the inlinks (which pages link to it) so you can fix them.
Go to the Page Titles tab to see all titles — filter by Missing, Duplicate, Too Long or Too Short. Do the same for Meta Description. Export to CSV for bulk editing.
In the Response Codes tab filter by Redirection (3xx). Look for redirect chains (multiple hops) and redirect loops which waste crawl budget and slow your site.