Screaming Frog SEO Spider is one of the best and most essential tools that gives you a detailed view of a site for technical SEO audits. You can use it to check URLs, response codes, page titles, meta descriptions, internal links, images, and other elements across a website.

To unlock the full potential of Screaming Frog SEO Spider for website scraping, regular data collection, or other crawling tasks, integrating it with proxies makes the process more efficient.

How to Add Proxies to Screaming Frog

Here are four simple steps to set up and use a Screaming Frog proxy and start your first crawl.

Step 1. Download and Install Screaming Frog

First, download Screaming Frog SEO Spider from the official website and install it if you don't have it yet.

After installation, launch the application. You’ll see its main page with many available features.

Screaming Frog does have a free version that allows you to crawl 500 URLs, so you can get it for free and try it out, though it has certain limitations. If you're using it, you can skip the licence activation and move on to Step 2.

But if you already have a paid licence, click Licence at the top of the screen and select Enter Licence.

A window will pop up. Enter your licence username and key. When done, click OK and Restart.

Step 2. Open Proxy Settings

Now let’s integrate proxies. Click File, open Settings, and select Proxy.

Step 3. Enter the Proxy Details

Next, mark the checkbox next to Use Proxy Server and get ready to enter the proxy details.

If you don't have a proxy yet, don't worry. IPcook works seamlessly with Screaming Frog, offering excellent residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies at affordable prices. With its user-friendly dashboard, you can easily adjust your proxy settings. By the way, don't miss out on IPcook's 100MB of free residential proxy traffic.

Get your proxy host and port, plus your username and password, from the IPcook dashboard in just a few clicks. Refer to our quick start guide for more details.

Enter your proxy address and port in the relevant fields in Screaming Frog. Check Use Proxy Credentials and enter your proxy username and password. Then, click OK and Restart to complete the proxy setup.

Step 4. Start Your First Crawl

Once the application restarts, enter the URL you want to scrape at the top of the window and press Start.

You can now start scraping public SEO data through your proxy connection.

Why Integrate Screaming Frog With Proxies

Screaming Frog works well on its own, but some crawling situations can be more challenging when every request comes from the same connection. Proxies give you more flexibility when running larger, repeated, or location-based crawls.

Some key benefits include:

Reduce blocks and rate limits: Using different IPs can help lower the chance of repeated crawl requests being limited or blocked by target websites.
Access content from specific locations: Proxies can bypass geo restrictions and help you collect data from different regions and see website content in the way local visitors do.
Improve data collection: Rotating proxies can help you collect data more efficiently during larger site audits, repeated SEO checks, and other crawling tasks.

Which Proxy Type Works Best for Screaming Frog

Residential proxies are definitely the best choice for Screaming Frog. These quality IPs help minimize the chances of blocks and other restrictions. For larger or repeated crawls, you can also use rotation mode. Although Screaming Frog only lets you configure one proxy server at a time, IPcook handles IP rotation externally through Randomize IP, while Sticky IP keeps the same IP for 1 minute to 24 hours.

Of course, static ISP, datacenter, and other proxies can also work well on sites with less strict crawling restrictions.

Final Word

You've completed the proxy setup in Screaming Frog. Integrating IPcook proxies makes data collection more efficient and supports larger crawling tasks like site audits, competitor analysis, and website monitoring, while also helping you access geo-specific website data for SEO tasks.

Enhance your Screaming Frog projects with IPcook today.

How to Use Proxies With Screaming Frog for SEO Crawls