How to Audit Your Internal Linking with Screaming Frog

A strong internal linking structure distributes authority across your pages and helps Google understand your site structure. Screaming Frog is the go-to tool for auditing it. Sandro, cofounder of Gemeos Webflow agency, shows you how to use it effectively.

Prerequisites

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider installed (free version limited to 500 URLs, paid version recommended)
• Your live site URL
• Access to Google Search Console to cross-check the data

1. Start your site crawl

Open Screaming Frog. Enter your site URL in the top bar and click "Start." Let the crawl finish completely. For a site with 100 to 500 pages, expect 2 to 10 minutes depending on your connection.

2. Identify orphan pages

Orphan pages are pages indexed by Google that no internal link points to. They get little or no internal PageRank. To find them: in Screaming Frog, go to "Reports" > "Orphan Pages." Screaming Frog compares crawled pages with your XML sitemap to identify pages with no internal inbound links.

For this feature to work, upload your sitemap: go to "Crawl" > "XML Sitemap" and enter the URL of your sitemap.xml.

3. Spot broken internal links

In the "Response Codes" tab, filter by "Client Error (4xx)." These URLs return a 404 error. Click a URL, then open the "Inlinks" tab at the bottom: you’ll see every page pointing to that broken link. Fix each broken link directly in your CMS.

4. Analyze click depth

In "Reports" > "Crawl Depth," you can see how many clicks separate each page from your homepage. Strategic pages (services, landing pages) shouldn’t be more than 3 clicks away from the homepage. If they are, add internal links from pages closer to the root.

5. Check how internal links are distributed

In the "Internal" tab, sort by "Inlinks" in descending order. Pages with the most internal links receive the most PageRank. Make sure those are your most important pages (homepage, service pages, pillar pages).

Conclusion

An internal linking audit with Screaming Frog takes 30 to 60 minutes and reveals concrete SEO opportunities. Plan one every quarter on an active site.

• Use case 1: blog site with 100+ articles, to make sure older articles are properly linked to newer ones
• Use case 2: website redesign, to check that no strategic page has become orphaned
• Use case 3: client audit at an agency, to quickly identify internal linking quick wins