Screaming Frog for Teams.

Screaming Frog: teamwork

Collaboration is often essential to reach your goals, especially in SEO. By the nature of the job, you often work with different parts of a company, such as developers, designers and copywriters, to share knowledge and coordinate the project.

Even though Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler, there are several ways to collaborate and make sure everyone is on the same page and up to date on each stage of the project.

Exporting data

One of the most used features is exporting data to spreadsheets. It’s handy if you want to share data with someone who doesn’t use SEO Spider, or if you don’t want to send a whole crawl file.

Just click the Export button to export the data from the tabs and filters of the main window.

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1InternalThe tab to export.2FilterYou export only the URLs in the active filter, here HTML.3ExportSaves the data as CSV, Excel or Google Sheets.

For bottom window data, select the items you want in the main window, right-click and choose which data to export (in the example we export the “Inlinks”).

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1Selected URLsSelect one or more URLs in the main window.2ExportRight-click to open the Export submenu.3InlinksFor example, export all the inlinks of the selected URLs.

The third option is the 1Bulk Export menu in the main bar.

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1Bulk ExportThe menu to bulk export the whole crawl’s data.2LinksThe group of link exports.3All InlinksEvery URL’s inlinks in a single file.

Exporting the crawl

My favourite method is exporting the full crawl data, which lets me share the state of play with colleagues and also show them every setting used to get certain data from the crawl.

This kind of collaboration has huge technical advantages, because every aspect of the SEO audit can be seen in detail, but one big drawback: the other person needs to know SEO Spider well, which isn’t always the case in web agencies. Compared with the previous method it makes it easier to move a larger amount of data rather than report by report, but expertise becomes essential.

In “Memory Storage” mode (not recommended) you can save the crawl data with 1File›2Save As… and reopen it with 1File›2Open….

In “Database Storage” mode crawl data is saved automatically and you can reopen it from 1File›2Crawls…. To swap crawls with a colleague use 1File›2Export… and, on their side, 1File›2Import….

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1FileThe main menu.2Crawls…The list of crawls saved in Database Storage.3Import… / Export…To swap crawl files with colleagues.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to hand over the crawl data, just send the configuration you used, so your colleague can run a crawl with the same settings. To do this, click 1Configuration›2Profiles›3Save As….

Whoever receives it can load it before crawling from 1Configuration›2Profiles›3Load….

In 99% of cases the results will be identical, but if time passes between the two crawls there may be slight differences, such as temporary server errors.

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1Configuration LoadedConfirmation that the configuration is loaded.2Configuration fileThe name of the loaded .seospiderconfig file.3OKClose and start the crawl.

Exporting data with Google Drive

Google Drive is a great ally for collaborating with Screaming Frog. Once you’ve connected your Google Drive account to SEO Spider you have two options.

Exporting individual reports to Google Sheets

Export the data as shown at the start of this guide and, in the Save Location window, choose Google Sheets (*.gsheet) as the format and the Google Drive account to save to.

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1Spreadsheet FormatChoose Google Sheets (*.gsheet).2Google Drive AccountThe Drive account to save the file to.3SaveSaves the sheet to the Drive folder.

Exporting automatically with scheduled crawls (recommended)

Set up a scheduled crawl from 1File›2Scheduling and, in the 1Exports›2Output Settings section, choose the Google Drive account and file format: every crawl shares the reports automatically. From here you can also export data to Looker Studio, a great option for sharing analyses with colleagues and clients.

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1Exports › Output SettingsThe scheduled crawl’s output settings.2Google Drive AccountExports are uploaded to Drive automatically.3Spreadsheet FormatThe format of the exported files.4Data StudioAlso exports for Looker Studio reports.

Exporting data to a shared location

Just as with exporting to Google Sheets, you can of course export to a shared network drive such as Dropbox or OneDrive. It’s as simple as choosing the network drive when saving crawls, configuration files, exports and more.

If you’re using database storage mode, a network drive isn’t supported as the database location, because it would be too slow and the connection unreliable.

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1TypeThe format of the file to save.2DirectoryThe shared folder, for example on OneDrive or Dropbox.3SaveSaves the file to the shared folder.

Screaming Frog in the cloud

As you know, SEO Spider needs your device to be switched on when a scheduled crawl is due. With the cloud you can get around this: you can quickly spin up virtual machines for daily tasks, run simultaneous crawls and use Compute Engine’s advanced scheduling to automate without tying up local resources.

Running it in the cloud also lets you and your colleagues access ongoing or finished crawl data from anywhere, so you can easily get the information you need. For a step-by-step setup, read the official guide Screaming Frog in the cloud.