Screaming Frog’s Version 21.0 is here, bringing a host of updates designed to refine how you approach SEO audits. While Version 20.0 made strides with improved crawling and data insights, Version 21.0 focuses on enhancing workflow efficiency and speeding up crawl performance. If you’re managing JavaScript-heavy sites, optimizing for Core Web Vitals, or collaborating across teams, these new features are built to make your job easier. In this post, we’ll walk through the key improvements in Version 21.0 and explore how they can enhance your SEO audits, streamline team collaboration, and boost overall site performance. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new and how these upgrades can directly support your SEO efforts.
1. Improved JavaScript Crawling
Crawling JavaScript-heavy websites and apps for every app optimization, especially Single Page Applications (SPAs), can be tricky. Traditional crawlers miss content that loads dynamically with JavaScript.
What’s New?
Version 21.0 improves JavaScript crawling. Screaming Frog now renders pages like a browser, capturing dynamic content. This is especially useful for websites built with React or Angular.
Practical Example:
For an e-commerce site with dropdown menus, earlier versions might have missed these links. Now, they’ll be crawled and indexed, helping with internal linking and SEO strategy.
2. PageSpeed Insights Integration
Google’s Core Web Vitals impact rankings, so page speed is crucial for SEO. Screaming Frog now integrates directly with PageSpeed Insights to fetch Core Web Vitals data.
What’s New?
You can now see LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) data in your crawl reports. This helps identify slow-loading pages and issues with third-party scripts or assets.
Practical Example:
If your homepage has poor LCP due to large images, the report will highlight it. You can then suggest image compression or other optimizations directly from the crawl.
3. Better Duplicate Content Detection
Duplicate content is a common SEO issue, especially for e-commerce sites with similar product pages. Version 21.0 improves the ability to find near-duplicate content.
What’s New?
The tool now detects subtle variations in content, making it easier to identify pages that might compete against each other in search rankings.
Practical Example:
For a retailer with multiple pages for similar products (like different colors), the tool will flag these near-duplicates. This helps you set canonical tags or rewrite descriptions to avoid penalties.
4. Enhanced Reporting Tools
Screaming Frog has made reporting faster and more flexible. You can now export crawl data directly to Google Sheets or other formats like Trello or Asana.
What’s New?
Reports are cleaner, customizable, and ready to share. No more formatting data manually—everything is pre-organized for easier collaboration.
Practical Example:
An SEO agency can now export broken link reports into Google Sheets, ready for the team to review and fix issues directly in the project management tool.
5. Google Sheets Integration
Real-time collaboration is key for many teams. Version 21.0 makes it easier by allowing you to export crawl data directly to Google Sheets.
What’s New?
No need for manual file uploads. Teams can work together seamlessly in shared Google Sheets, making collaboration more efficient.
Practical Example:
If your agency has multiple SEO specialists, they can update and collaborate in a shared Google Sheet as they work through the audit findings.
6. New Regex Functionality
Regex (regular expressions) allow you to customize crawl behavior. Version 21.0 gives you more advanced regex options to filter specific content or URLs.
What’s New?
You can now define custom crawl patterns—ideal for excluding outdated content or focusing on key sections of a website.
Practical Example:
If you want to exclude blog archives from a crawl, use a regex pattern like ^/archives/ to ensure only current blog posts are crawled, saving time and resources.
7. Custom Crawl Prioritization
Prioritizing crawl resources can help focus on high-value pages first. Version 21.0 introduces Custom Crawl Prioritization to help SEO teams target critical areas of a site.
What’s New?
You can now prioritize key pages, like product pages or conversion-focused content, ensuring these are crawled first and crawl budget is used effectively.
Practical Example:
For an e-commerce site, prioritize crawling product categories and checkout pages. This ensures that issues on these high-priority pages are found and fixed first.
8. Improved Crawl Performance
Screaming Frog has improved crawl speed and reduced system resource usage. Crawls are now faster, especially for large websites.
What’s New?
Improved algorithms mean you can crawl larger sites more quickly, without running into performance bottlenecks.
Practical Example:
If you’re auditing a large corporate site with over 100,000 URLs, the crawl will finish faster, allowing you to deliver insights more efficiently.
Screaming Frog Version 21.0 is packed with powerful updates that make SEO audits quicker and more efficient. Whether you’re optimizing for Core Web Vitals, doing SEO technical fixes , handling JavaScript-heavy sites, or collaborating across teams, these new features streamline the process and improve workflow.
Conclusion
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider 20.0 and 21.0 updates bring powerful new features that tackle modern SEO challenges head-on, improving crawl efficiency, enhancing reporting, and saving valuable time. By leveraging the enhanced JavaScript crawling, Page Speed Insights integration, smarter duplicate content detection, and customizable reporting tools, SEO professionals can optimize their workflows and deliver better results for their clients.
