Screaming Frog SEO Spider 19.2

We are thrilled to introduce Screaming Frog SEO Spider version 19.2. Although it may not be immediately apparent, we have given the GUI a subtle facelift to enhance its overall look and feel. Additionally, we have improved the user experience by relocating crawl behavior functions, such as crawling a subdomain, subfolder, or all subdomains, to the main navigation for your convenience.

Let’s look at what’s new in it:

1. Updated Design

2. Unified Config
3. Segments
4. Visual Custom Extraction
5. 3D Visualisations
6. New Filters & Issues

In this new latest filters introduce:

'URL > GA Tracking Parameters': This filter identifies URLs that contain Google Analytics tracking parameters. These parameters can create duplicate pages that require crawling. Additionally, using tracking parameters on internal links can overwrite the original session data. For instance, utm= parameters strip the original source of traffic, starting a new session with specified attributes. _ga= and _gl= parameters are used for cross-domain linking and user identification. Including these on links can prevent a unique user ID from being assigned.

'Page Titles > Outside <head>': This filter identifies pages with a title element positioned outside the HTML head element. Ideally, page titles should be within the head element; otherwise, search engines might ignore them. While Google may still recognize page titles outside the head element, it's not a reliable practice.

'Meta Description > Outside <head>': This filter identifies pages with a meta description located outside the head element in the HTML. Meta descriptions should ideally be within the head element to ensure proper recognition by search engines.

'H1 > Alt Text in h1': This filter identifies pages where image alt text is found within an h1 element. This can occur when text within an image serves as the main heading on the page or due to incorrect markup. While there are debates about using text rather than alt text for headings, search engines may interpret alt text within an h1 as part of the heading and adjust the scoring accordingly.

'H1 > Non-sequential': This filter identifies pages with an h1 that is not the first heading on the page. Heading elements should follow a logical sequential order, from h1 to h6, to convey the page's structure effectively.

'H2 > Non-sequential': This filter identifies pages with an h2 that is not the second heading level after the h1. Like h1 elements, heading elements should follow a logical sequential order for optimal structure and accessibility.

'Content > Soft 404 Pages': This filter identifies pages that respond with a '200' status code, indicating they are 'OK' but appear to be error pages (commonly referred to as '404' or 'page not found'). These pages should ideally return a 404 status code when the page is no longer available.

'Content > Lorem Ipsum Placeholder': This filter identifies pages that contain 'Lorem ipsum' text, typically used as a placeholder during website development.

'Images > Missing Size Attributes': This filter identifies image elements without specified dimensions (width and height attributes) in the HTML. This can cause layout shifts during page loading, impacting user experience.

'Images > Incorrectly Sized Images': This filter identifies images with dimensions that do not match their display dimensions when rendered, often indicating potential optimization opportunities.

'Canonicals > Outside <head>': This filter identifies pages with a canonical link element positioned outside the head element in the HTML. Canonical link elements should ideally be within the head element for proper recognition by search engines.

'Directives > Outside <head>': This filter identifies pages with a meta robots tag outside of the head element in the HTML. While Google may still recognize some meta robots directives outside the head element, it's best practice to place them within the head element.

'Hreflang > Outside <head>': This filter identifies pages with an hreflang link element positioned outside the head element in the HTML. For proper recognition by search engines, hreflang elements should ideally be within the head element.

'JavaScript > Pages with JavaScript Errors': This filter identifies pages with JavaScript errors captured in the Chrome DevTools console log during page rendering. Such errors can impact search engine rendering and user interactions with the page.

'Validation > <body> Element Preceding <html>': This filter identifies pages that have a body element preceding the opening html element. This can result in issues with how browsers and search engines interpret the page's structure and metadata.

In some cases, new data is collected and reported alongside these filters, such as image element dimension attributes, display dimensions, and real dimensions. This additional data helps identify oversized images and can be found in the image details tab and various bulk exports.