SEO

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

UK / wider Europe Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 1 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Screaming Frog Ltd · www.screamingfrog.co.uk

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The In-House SEO Lead v1.0 · The Agency Owner v1.0 · The Technical SEO v1.0 · The Content Strategist v1.0 · The Data Analyst v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v1 · evaluated 16 Sep 2026

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The In-House SEO Lead

Weighted verdict

Owns organic traffic for one large German site and reports on it monthly. Wants German-language keyword data that is not an afterthought, rankings she can defend when they disagree with Search Console, and audit findings specific enough to become a developer ticket.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The In-House SEO Lead

Crawling & technical audit

How this is scored

Site crawling at real scale: what the crawler finds, how deeply it checks, whether Core Web Vitals and indexation problems are diagnosed rather than merely listed.

0 — No site crawler; the product is keyword data only.

3 — A crawler with a low page cap that reports broken links and missing tags, with no prioritisation and no rendering of JavaScript.

5 — Scheduled crawls at a stated page limit, JavaScript rendering, issue categories with severity, and Core Web Vitals pulled per template.

8 — Log-file or Search Console integration to compare what the crawler sees against what Google fetched, indexation and canonical diagnosis, structured-data validation, and issues prioritised by traffic impact rather than count.

10 — The audit is diagnostic rather than a list: crawl budget analysed, rendering differences surfaced, regressions detected between crawls with the deploy that caused them inferrable, and remediation guidance specific enough for a developer ticket.

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The In-House SEO Lead

The crawler itself is diagnostic, not a checklist: unlimited URLs bounded only by my own memory and disk, Chromium rendering, structured-data and canonical/noindex diagnosis, per-issue priority based on potential impact, crawl comparison surfacing what changed between crawls and staging-vs-production mapping, with bulk error exports literally framed as 'send to a developer'. Search Console and PageSpeed Insights data pulled per URL satisfies the anchor-8 comparison clause, but no log-file analysis or crawl-budget reporting is evidenced, so I can't set the spider's view against what Googlebot actually fetched. 1 2 1

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Keyword research & content guidance

How this is scored

Keyword discovery, intent classification, SERP feature analysis and on-page guidance — judged on the depth of the German-language data as much as the English.

0 — A keyword list with volumes from one source and no intent or difficulty signal.

3 — Volume and difficulty for major markets, with thin or stale German data and no SERP feature detail.

5 — Keyword research with volume, difficulty and intent across German and other EU markets, SERP feature presence, and basic on-page recommendations.

8 — Topic clustering, competitor gap analysis, SERP composition tracked over time, content briefs with entity coverage, and cannibalisation detection.

10 — Research and guidance close the loop: opportunity sized against realistic traffic, content scored against what currently ranks rather than against a keyword density heuristic, and recommendations that reference the specific pages in the customer's own site.

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The In-House SEO Lead

As a keyword tool it doesn't exist: no volumes, difficulty, intent, SERP features or German-language keyword database appear anywhere in the features list — my German keyword planning would need an entirely separate product. The only content functionality is page-level hygiene: duplicate and thin-content detection, title/description length analysis, and spell check in 25+ languages. 1 2

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Rank tracking & index quality

How this is scored

The proprietary data: ranking accuracy and frequency, backlink index size and freshness. Scored on what the vendor documents about their own data, because nothing here can be verified from outside.

0 — Rankings and backlinks with no stated update frequency, no country or device granularity, and no documentation of how either is collected.

3 — Weekly rankings for one country and device, a backlink index with no stated refresh cadence or size.

5 — Daily rankings with country, language and device selection, local results, and a backlink index with a documented crawl frequency.

8 — Rankings at stated frequency across many locations including city-level, SERP feature attribution, backlink index size and refresh published, lost-and-found link detection, and historical data retained for the life of the account.

10 — The vendor is accountable for their own data: methodology documented, index size and freshness published and updated, historical rankings retained and exportable in full, and discrepancies against Search Console explained rather than hidden.

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The In-House SEO Lead

There is no proprietary ranking or backlink data at all: rank tracking is absent from the evidence, and backlink metrics are pulled from Majestic, Ahrefs and Moz APIs rather than any index the vendor owns or documents. Nothing here can agree or disagree with Search Console because it produces no rankings to compare. 1 1

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Reporting, integrations & API

How this is scored

Getting the data out and in front of someone: dashboards, white-label reporting for agencies, Search Console and analytics integration, and an API a team can build on.

0 — On-screen views only; export is a manual CSV and there is no API.

3 — Scheduled PDF reports and CSV export, one analytics integration, no API worth building against.

5 — Customisable dashboards, scheduled reports, Search Console and analytics integration, and a documented API with stated limits.

8 — White-label reporting with client access, data-warehouse or BigQuery export, multi-site and multi-client management, and an API with credit costs published per endpoint.

10 — The tool is a data source rather than a destination: full historical export in open formats, a versioned API with a deprecation policy, integrations the vendor maintains, and reporting an agency can hand a client unedited.

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The In-House SEO Lead

Scheduled crawls with auto-export to any location including Google Sheets, automated Looker Studio crawl reports, and GA, Search Console and PageSpeed Insights integrations get crawl data in front of stakeholders in my monthly chain. But the API story is inbound only — connecting to third-party APIs — with no documented API of its own with stated limits, and no white-label or data-warehouse export, so it sits at the 5 anchor rather than 8. 1 2

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Data portability & exit

How this is scored

Whether the ranking and crawl history — the only thing a multi-year subscription actually accumulates — remains the customer's when they leave.

0 — No bulk export; history is visible in the interface and nowhere else, and ends with the subscription.

3 — CSV export of current views only, with historical data capped or unavailable in bulk.

5 — Bulk export of rankings, keywords and crawl results including history, via interface or API.

8 — Complete historical export in open formats without credit metering that prices it out of reach, plus a documented retention period after cancellation.

10 — Exit is designed for: the full account exportable including every historical data point, API access sufficient to mirror the data continuously, and a stated grace period during which the archive remains retrievable.

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The In-House SEO Lead

Crawl history lives on my own disk by design — save/open crawls, bulk and scheduled exports to CSV and Google Sheets, a disk-based storage engine, and no credit metering — so open-format export of the full archive while licensed is complete. The caveat is that 'Save & Open Crawls' is a licensed feature and the free version restricts saving crawls, so the native crawl files need the paid app to read and post-cancellation access to the archive is not stated. 1 1 2

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the account and crawl data live and who the contracting entity is. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; weighted lower here than in categories holding personal data, because an SEO tool mostly holds the customer's own strategy rather than their customers' identities.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and site or user data of unclear scope leaving the EU.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published, and any analytics or Search Console data handling described with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a DPA that covers the crawl and analytics data the tool ingests.

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The In-House SEO Lead

Contracting entity is GB under English law, my licence and purchase data sit in UK and US data centres with explicit transfers outside the EEA, and subprocessors are unnamed beyond a promise of DPAs — squarely rubric level 0-3 territory. Partial credit because the desktop model keeps crawl data on my own machines, with third-party sharing only where I initiate it and Google user data 'not accessible or shared by us', so my site strategy never leaves my infrastructure. 3 1

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

The category where the headline price is least often the invoice. Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost including keyword limits, crawl credits, API units, extra users and client seats — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A monthly headline exists, but keyword limits, crawl credits or the cost of an additional user are unstated — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Tier prices public with the main limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (extra seats, API credits, historical data) is unpriced or metered opaquely.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with keyword, crawl and API limits, overage rates, per-seat costs, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given keyword count, crawl volume, API usage and team size, with overage and every credit cost published.

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The In-House SEO Lead

The annual invoice is computable from public pages alone: £199/$279 per user per year, published volume tiers down to £169, explicit per-user licensing, a stated one-year term, and no metering of any kind since paid crawls are unlimited up to my own memory and storage. Only the VAT treatment of the quoted price isn't spelled out, which keeps it short of 10. 2 1 1

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European sovereignty — proven facts

1 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Ownership	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Data residency	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Subprocessors	US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified	0/2 pts	3 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 11 Sep 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Data residency, Legal entity. Not confirmed on the vendor’s own pages as captured.
Weak sourcing — Subprocessors. No hosting or email provider is named anywhere, so US-headquartering is inferred from the disclosed US hosting and US-hosted email servers rather than from a named subprocessor list, and the SEO Spider product itself is desktop software.
AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

43 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
16 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
8 pricing facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
5 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 compliance fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
1 integrations fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
2 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown. Know more? Tell us
6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement. Know more? Tell us
The panel’s written verdict is withheld: our own re-read found claims in it that the evidence does not carry, and a second synthesis did not fix them. The scores and the material below are unaffected. Know more? Tell us

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Sources (12)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Product page www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 16 Sep 2026 +2 earlier captures: 15 Sep 2026, 11 Sep 2026 Details →
2 Pricing www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 16 Sep 2026 +1 earlier capture: 15 Sep 2026 Details →
3 Privacy policy www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 16 Sep 2026 Details →
4 Terms of service www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 21 Sep 2026 Details →
5 Crawling & technical audit — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
6 Crawling & technical audit — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
7 Keyword research & content guidance — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
8 Keyword research & content guidance — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
9 Rank tracking & index quality — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
10 Rank tracking & index quality — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
11 Reporting, integrations & API — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
12 Reporting, integrations & API — found from sitemap www.screamingfrog.co.uk Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →