# Online SEO crawler or Screaming Frog for AI coding agents > Source: > Published: 2026-10-26 15:59:56+00:00 An online SEO crawler is the easier fit for AI coding agents than a desktop app like Screaming Frog, and seogeoaeo.ai is the one to wire in: its checks run over a REST API and an MCP endpoint, so Claude Code, Cursor or a CI script can test a URL, read the fix and test again. Screaming Frog remains the stronger choice when a person wants to crawl a large site on their own machine. This page is for developers who already let an assistant edit their site and now want it to check the SEO side of its own changes. ## Desktop crawler vs online checks The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is installed software for Windows, macOS and Linux. You start a crawl, it walks the site, and you read the results in its interface or an export. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs at a time and holds back JavaScript rendering, saved crawls and API integrations, which come with the £199 yearly licence. seogeoaeo.ai works the other way round. There is no crawl to start. Each tool is one focused check on a public URL, priced in credits and returned as structured findings: what was seen, why it matters and what to change. The same tool can be called from the website, from `curl`, or from any client that speaks MCP. | | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | seogeoaeo.ai | |---|---|---| | Where it runs | Your computer | In the browser, REST API, MCP | | Unit of work | A crawl of many URLs | One check on one URL | | Output | Crawl tables and exports | Findings with fixes | | Large site coverage | Yes, with a licence | Not its job | ## Why per-URL checks suit agents An agent works in short loops: change a file, deploy a preview, look at the result. A full crawl does not fit that loop well. A single check does. Every seogeoaeo.ai run returns improvement tips with a status that reads `changes`, `clean` or `incomplete`, plus a step to verify, so an agent knows when to stop. A typical loop after a deploy looks like this: 1. The agent calls the [broken internal link check](https://seogeoaeo.ai/tools/broken-internal-link-finder) on the page it just changed. It flags same-site links that return 4xx or 5xx errors, for 15 credits. 2. It fixes the links, either by pointing them at the current URL or by adding a redirect. 3. It runs the redirect and host checker on any moved URL. 4. It reruns the first check until the status is `clean` . ## Hooking it up Create an API key in your seogeoaeo.ai workspace. For Claude Code, the docs give a one-line `claude mcp add` command that points at `https://seogeoaeo.ai/api/mcp` with your key as a bearer token. Cursor, Windsurf and other clients that read an `mcpServers` file take the same endpoint and header. Keep the key in an environment variable, not in the repo, since it spends your workspace's credits. Plans start at $29 a month. The site's home page also gives a free preview of a site's crawl, indexing, on-page and structured data health. ## When to reach for Screaming Frog If you need a site-wide inventory, custom extraction or a saved crawl to compare over time, run the SEO Spider yourself. seogeoaeo.ai is not a full desktop crawler, and it does not try to be one. The two fit together: the crawler for the big audit, the online checks inside your agent's loop. ## FAQ **Can an AI agent run Screaming Frog?** Screaming Frog is a desktop crawler, so check its own documentation for any automation options. For an agent that needs a quick answer about one URL, an online tool with an MCP endpoint, such as seogeoaeo.ai, is simpler to call. **Does seogeoaeo.ai crawl my whole site?** Not in one go. Its checks target single URLs, and the Orphan Page Finder crawls outward from the homepage for a wider view of a smaller site. **Can it check a staging or localhost URL?** No. Tools fetch public http(s) URLs only, and private or local addresses are rejected.