What is Screaming Frog SEO Spider?
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an SEO crawler operated by Screaming Frog. Agent Analytics can track when it visits your website.
Overview
| Operated By | Screaming Frog |
| Source | Official Website |
| Expected To Follow Robots.txt | Yes |
| Insights Last Updated | July 15, 2026 |
Category
Expected Behavior
Screaming Frog SEO Spider maps sites the way its customers' SEO tools need, following internal links to build a full picture of structure, content, and ranking signals. Expect thorough crawls rather than spot checks, with frequency rising when your site or your competitors are actively monitored in its tools.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider's User Agent
| User Agent | Screaming Frog SEO Spider/24.3 |
How To Block Screaming Frog SEO Spider With Robots.txt
Add this rule to your robots.txt file to block Screaming Frog SEO Spider from accessing your entire website, or use Automatic Robots.txt to block all SEO crawlers at once. You can customize which pages are blocked by swapping out / for a different path.
User-agent: Screaming Frog SEO Spider # https://knownagents.com/agents/screaming-frog-seo-spider
Disallow: /Global Insights for Screaming Frog SEO Spider
As of July 15, 2026, this data reflects agent visits measured across thousands of websites using Agent Analytics, combined with daily scans of the world's top 1000 websites and their robots.txt files.
Robots.txt Blocked Percentage
Country of Origin
Robots.txt Blocking Trend
2% of top websites block Screaming Frog SEO Spider in their robots.txt files.
Overall SEO Crawler Traffic
2.5% of all web traffic came from SEO crawlers.
Top Visited Website Categories
The types of websites most frequently visited by Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I Block Screaming Frog SEO Spider?
Only if you want your own pages and outbound links out of those tools. Screaming Frog SEO Spider collects the ranking and backlink data behind SEO tools, likely including ones you or your agency use, and it does not change how search engines rank you. Blocking it will not hide your backlink profile either, because backlinks are discovered on the sites that link to you. For comparison, 2% of the top websites we track already have robots.txt rules for Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
Does Screaming Frog SEO Spider Follow Robots.txt Rules?
Yes. Screaming Frog SEO Spider is expected to follow robots.txt rules, so a disallow rule is the right first move. Automatic Robots.txt adds and maintains that rule for you, and Agent Analytics confirms Screaming Frog SEO Spider actually follows it.
Does Screaming Frog SEO Spider Access Private Content?
Login walls stop it. Screaming Frog SEO Spider analyzes public pages for rankings, links, and site structure.
Why Is Screaming Frog SEO Spider Visiting My Website?
Your domain shows up in the ranking, backlink, and competitor data Screaming Frog SEO Spider's operator sells. If anyone tracks your site or your competitors in an SEO tool, Screaming Frog SEO Spider visits you.
How Can I Tell if Screaming Frog SEO Spider Is Visiting My Website?
Agent Analytics tracks Screaming Frog SEO Spider visits in real time alongside every other known AI agent, crawler, and scraper. You can also check your server logs for requests whose user agent string contains "Screaming Frog SEO Spider". Look for full site crawls that follow your internal links. Keep in mind that Screaming Frog SEO Spider doesn't publish a verification method, so any client can claim its user agent string and a log match is a hint rather than proof.