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Screaming Frog has just rolled out its most significant update yet with SEO Spider 22.0—and it’s not just another routine update. It introduces AI-powered features that elevate how SEOs analyze, audit, and optimize websites, thanks to advancements in semantic analysis and intelligent content discovery.
SEO Spider 22.0 offers powerful enhancements that are designed to streamline workflows and reveal deeper and more meaningful SEO opportunities. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in this game-changing update from Screaming Frog.
In previous versions, Screaming Frog only relied primarily on detecting exact keyword matches to assess content relevance.
But with the newest update, with the integration of AI and large language models, Screaming Frog can now analyze the actual meaning and context of your page content. Instead of just checking for exact words, it evaluates how closely a page aligns with a specific topic or query, even if the phrasing differs.
This semantic similarity analysis is the standout feature of version 22.0 and marks a significant leap beyond traditional keyword-based matching.
Imagine two blog posts delivering the same message with different phrasing. These might have slipped through unnoticed. But now, the AI-driven analysis of this new version can detect those subtle overlaps and hidden duplicates by comparing their meaning, not just language.
This is especially useful for spotting hidden duplicate content, content cannibalization, or opportunities to consolidate and strengthen pages that may be competing for the same keywords. It gives SEOs a smarter way to clean up and refine site content for better performance.
The new update can also help in identifying pages that do not align well with the overall theme and context of your website.
For instance, if your website is an online clothing store but includes a page about car repair, running it through Screaming Frog will show and flag it as off-topic using semantic similarity analysis.
Therefore, auditing your website using this version will ensure that your content stays focused and relevant to your niche—helping your website maintain topical consistency while signaling stronger thematic relevance to search engines.
Another standout feature in SEO Spider 22.0 offers a powerful way to visually understand how your website content is organized.
Note: To access, go to Visualisations> Content Cluster Diagram
Think of it as a map that groups your pages based on their meaning rather than just keywords. Pages that cover similar topics are positioned close together, forming natural content clusters. If a page appears far from the rest, it could be an outlier—either off-topic or lacking strong connections to related content.
This feature makes it easier to identify gaps in your content strategy, spot isolated pages that may need better internal linking, and ensure your website is clearly structured around well-defined themes and topics.
The new version also involves the Semantic Search Feature, which takes content discovery to a whole new level. Instead of using the find function (“CTRL + F”) to search for specific words, you can now type a concept or idea—and the tool will show pages that are related in meaning.
For example, if you run a car repair shop and search for “engine trouble,” the tool might highlight pages that mention “car won’t start,” “strange engine noises,” or “check engine light”—even if they don’t use the exact term.
This smarter search capability makes it easier to locate related content, identify gaps, and improve internal linking across related topics.
SEO Spider 22.0 takes automation and workflow efficiency to the next level. With improved integrations and smarter tools, analyzing, generating, and organizing data across your SEO projects has been easier. It works more smoothly with leading AI platforms such as OpenAI, Gemini, and Ollama.
This upgrade allows users to tap into advanced AI capabilities directly within their SEO workflows, enabling more advanced content generation and semantic analysis during your website audits. It’s a useful tool in this age of AI-driven SEO.
Here’s what’s new with the enhanced workflow features:
Instead of relying on traditional methods to pull image data, the update enables AI to intelligently analyze and extract images and related information from your website. This is particularly useful for auditing alt text, flagging missing or duplicate images, and ensuring your visual content aligns with SEO best practices
Rather than sifting through cluttered spreadsheets filled with irrelevant columns, you can now define exactly which data points to include so you get only the data you need. This lets you save time and keep your reports focused.
This update enables you to automatically sync your crawl data to a shared spreadsheet in real time. This makes collaboration smoother by giving your team or clients instant access to the latest audit results—no need for manual exports or email attachments.
In previous versions, Screaming Frog could only crawl one XML sitemap at a time, which limits efficiency, especially for larger or more complex websites. But with version 22.0, you can now download and crawl multiple sitemaps simultaneously. This is particularly useful for websites that use sitemap index files or have separate sitemaps for different content types, such as products, blog posts, and categories.
This update speeds up large-scale audits, ensures broader coverage, and helps you spot inconsistencies or errors across your entire sitemap architecture.
It is actually a time-saving enhancement designed for more comprehensive and scalable SEO analysis.
This new Screaming Frog feature gives you complete control over the data you see in your crawl reports.
Instead of scrolling through dozens of default columns (many of which may not be relevant to your specific audit), you can now customize the interface to display only the metrics that matter to you. This helps reduce visual clutter, speeds up analysis, and ensures your exports are clean, concise, and aligned with your reporting goals.
The result? A more efficient auditing process and clearer insights for you and your team.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider 22.0 isn’t just an update—it’s a major leap forward, transforming the way we approach audits and optimization. Now, when you start crawling websites, you will begin to discover more valuable insights, from broken links and missing metadata to deeper content gaps and structural issues, all of which can significantly impact your website’s performance and search visibility.
With smarter tools and deeper insights at your fingertips in this version, you will uncover opportunities you might have missed, giving you the edge to stay ahead in the competitive SEO landscape.
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