Extract every URL, page title, and meta description from any website. Export to CSV, JSON, or a Google-ready XML sitemap. No software to download. No account required. Works right in your browser.
Table of Contents
- What Is SiteCrawl?
- Why You Need to Crawl Your Website
- Key Features
- How It Works — Step by Step
- Built-In XML Sitemap Generator
- Who Is It For?
- SiteCrawl vs. Screaming Frog & Other Tools
- SEO Benefits of Regular Site Crawling
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Is SiteCrawl?
SiteCrawl is a free online website crawler and XML sitemap generator that lets you scan any website and instantly extract a complete list of every URL, page title, and meta description — no software installation, no account signup, and no technical knowledge required.
Unlike desktop tools that require a download, SiteCrawl runs entirely in your browser. Enter a URL, hit crawl, and within seconds you’ll see a live feed of every page being discovered across the site — exactly the way Googlebot sees it.
Think of SiteCrawl as your personal Googlebot. It follows every internal link it finds, maps the full structure of any website, and hands you the data in a clean, exportable format — for free.
When the crawl is complete, you can download your results in three formats: a CSV spreadsheet for Excel or Google Sheets analysis, a JSON file for developers and API pipelines, or a fully valid XML sitemap ready to submit directly to Google Search Console.
Why You Need to Crawl Your Website
Most website owners assume they know what’s on their site. They’re usually wrong. Pages get orphaned, URLs get restructured, old blog posts lose their internal links, and metadata goes missing — silently, over months and years. A crawl reveals the reality of what’s actually indexable.
Here’s what undiagnosed crawl issues cost you:
- Lost rankings — Search engines can’t rank pages they can’t find. Orphaned pages with no internal links often sit at PageRank zero indefinitely.
- Wasted crawl budget — Google allocates a limited number of daily crawls to your domain. Broken links, redirect chains, and duplicate URLs eat into that budget, leaving important pages under-crawled.
- Poor user experience — 404 errors and broken navigation frustrate real visitors and increase bounce rates, which signals poor quality to search algorithms.
- Missing sitemap coverage — If your XML sitemap is outdated or incomplete, search engines may never discover your newest and most valuable content.
- Duplicate content issues — Multiple URLs serving identical content (HTTP vs HTTPS, www vs non-www, trailing slashes) dilute your ranking authority across duplicate pages.
Running a site crawl regularly — even just once a month — is one of the highest-ROI technical SEO activities available. It costs nothing with SiteCrawl, and it takes less than five minutes.
Key Features
🔍 Full-Site URL Discovery
SiteCrawl follows every internal link it finds, recursively discovering pages across your entire domain. Configure the depth, delay between requests, and maximum page count to suit your needs.
📋 Page Title & Meta Description Extraction
For every URL discovered, SiteCrawl extracts the exact <title> tag and <meta name="description"> content as a search engine would see it. Spot missing titles, duplicated descriptions, and over-length tags in seconds.
📊 Three Export Formats
- CSV — open directly in Excel, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet tool
- JSON — pipe into scripts, dashboards, or any developer workflow
- XML Sitemap — a fully schema-compliant sitemap.xml file, ready to submit to Google Search Console immediately
⚡ Live Results — No Waiting
Results stream to your screen in real time as each page is crawled. You don’t need to wait for the crawl to complete before reviewing data. Pause or stop at any time.
🔒 No Account Required
Enter an email address to unlock exports — that’s it. No subscriptions, no dashboards to learn. Just enter a URL and start crawling.
📱 Works on Any Device
Because SiteCrawl runs entirely in the browser, it works on laptops, desktops, and tablets. No installation, no Java, no bloated desktop app.
How It Works — Step by Step
Getting a complete crawl of your website takes under two minutes from start to export:
- Enter your email address — A quick one-time email gate unlocks the full tool. No account is created, no password required.
- Paste in any website URL — Enter the full URL of the site you want to crawl. SiteCrawl starts from that page and follows every internal link it discovers.
- Watch the live crawl — Results populate in real time. You’ll see each URL as it’s discovered along with its page title, meta description, and crawl status.
- Export in your preferred format — Download as CSV for analysis, JSON for developers, or click ↓ Sitemap XML to generate a complete Google-ready sitemap in one click.
Built-In XML Sitemap Generator
One of SiteCrawl’s most powerful features is its ability to generate a production-ready XML sitemap directly from crawl results. Most sitemap plugins require CMS access or a paid subscription. SiteCrawl generates one from any website, in seconds, for free.
The generated sitemap.xml file:
- Follows the official sitemaps.org protocol (version 0.9)
- Includes
<loc>,<lastmod>,<changefreq>, and<priority>tags - Only includes successfully crawled pages — no broken links or error pages
- Is fully valid and passes Google’s sitemap validation requirements
- Downloads as a proper
.xmlfile ready to upload to your server root
Use case: Migrating a website to a new CMS and need a complete sitemap of the old site? Crawl the old domain with SiteCrawl, click Sitemap XML, and you have a complete URL inventory in XML format in under five minutes.
Once downloaded, submit your sitemap to Google Search Console via Indexing → Sitemaps and to Bing Webmaster Tools for maximum search engine coverage.
Who Is It For?
SiteCrawl was built to be useful to anyone who works with websites — from solo bloggers to enterprise SEO teams.
- SEO Professionals — Perform rapid technical SEO audits, discover orphaned pages, identify missing metadata, and generate sitemaps for clients without installing anything.
- Web Developers — Audit site structure before and after migrations. Export full URL inventories to JSON for redirect mapping or automated testing.
- Content Marketers — Build a complete content inventory of any site. Find gaps, spot keyword cannibalisation issues, and map existing content against target keywords.
- Business Owners — Get a bird’s-eye view of your website without needing technical knowledge. See exactly what Google can and can’t find on your site.
- Digital Agencies — Run instant crawls for prospects during sales calls. Generate client-ready exports without waiting for a scheduled crawl.
- Students & Researchers — Collect structured website data for analysis, academic research, or machine learning datasets with no API key or coding required.
SiteCrawl vs. Screaming Frog & Other Tools
Screaming Frog is the industry standard for technical SEO crawling — but it requires a desktop download and a £199/year licence to crawl beyond 500 URLs. Here’s how SiteCrawl compares:
| Feature | SiteCrawl | Screaming Frog | Semrush Audit | Sitebulb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | ✅ Free | Free / £199/yr | $139.95/mo | $13.50/mo |
| No install needed | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| No account needed | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Live results | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| CSV export | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| JSON export | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| XML sitemap export | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Mobile-friendly | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
SiteCrawl isn’t trying to replace Screaming Frog for deep enterprise audits. But for quick audits, sitemap generation, content inventories, and everyday URL extraction, it does everything you need without the overhead.
SEO Benefits of Regular Site Crawling
Crawling your website isn’t a one-time task — it’s an ongoing health check. Here’s what you gain from making it a regular part of your SEO workflow:
1. Discover and Fix Orphaned Pages
An orphaned page has no internal links pointing to it. Search engines may never find it, and it will never rank. A regular crawl shows you exactly which pages exist on your server but are invisible to Google.
2. Keep Your XML Sitemap Current
Most CMS plugins generate sitemaps automatically — but they often include noindexed pages, deleted URLs, and canonicalized duplicates. Using SiteCrawl to generate a sitemap from a live crawl guarantees only real, indexable pages are included.
3. Audit Title Tags and Meta Descriptions at Scale
Exporting every page title and meta description to CSV lets you quickly spot titles over 60 characters, missing tags, or identical metadata used across multiple pages — quick wins that directly impact click-through rates from search results.
4. Prepare for Site Migrations
Before migrating to a new platform or domain, crawl the old site and export a full URL list. Use it to build your redirect map so no existing rankings are lost during the transition.
5. Monitor for Unintended Changes
Publishing a new theme or running bulk edits can unintentionally break pages, remove canonical tags, or change titles site-wide. A quick post-change crawl catches these issues before Google does.
Ready to crawl your website?
Free, instant, no install. Scan any website and download a Google-ready XML sitemap in minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a website crawler and what does it do?
A website crawler (also called a web spider or SEO spider) is a program that automatically browses a website by following links from page to page. Starting from a seed URL, it discovers every internal link, visits each page, and collects data such as the URL, page title, meta description, and HTTP status code. Search engines like Google use crawlers continuously to discover and index web content. SEO professionals use crawlers to audit websites for technical issues, missing metadata, broken links, and structural problems that affect search rankings.
Is SiteCrawl really free? Are there any hidden costs?
Yes — SiteCrawl is completely free to use. There are no paid tiers, no credit card required, and no hidden costs. You enter your email address to unlock the export feature, but no account is created and you won’t be billed for anything. The only limit is a daily crawl quota per IP address to ensure fair access for all users.
How is SiteCrawl different from Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop application you download and install on your computer. The free version is limited to 500 URLs; the paid licence costs £199 per year. SiteCrawl runs entirely in your browser with no installation required. It’s free with no licence needed, and it adds JSON export and XML sitemap generation that Screaming Frog’s free tier doesn’t offer. For quick audits, content inventories, and sitemap generation, SiteCrawl is significantly faster to get started with.
Can I use SiteCrawl to generate an XML sitemap for Google?
Yes. After a crawl completes, click the ↓ Sitemap XML button to download a fully valid XML sitemap containing every successfully crawled URL. The file follows the official sitemaps.org 0.9 schema and includes <loc>, <lastmod>, <changefreq>, and <priority> tags. Upload it to your server root and submit the URL to Google Search Console via Indexing → Sitemaps.
Can I crawl a competitor’s website?
Yes. SiteCrawl can crawl any publicly accessible website — your own site, a competitor’s, or any site you’re researching. It only accesses pages that are publicly available, the same as any web browser visiting those pages. Be mindful of the target site’s robots.txt file and terms of service. SiteCrawl is intended for analysis and research purposes.
How many pages can SiteCrawl crawl at once?
SiteCrawl can be configured to crawl up to 500 pages per session. For very large sites, we recommend running multiple focused crawls on specific sections rather than one unlimited crawl to keep results fast and manageable.
What data does SiteCrawl collect from pages it crawls?
For each URL discovered, SiteCrawl extracts: the full URL, the <title> tag content, the <meta name="description"> content, and the crawl status. It also identifies all internal links on each page to discover the next set of URLs. No user data, cookies, or session information is collected from crawled sites.
What is an XML sitemap and why does my website need one?
An XML sitemap is a structured file that lists every important page on your website and tells search engines where to find them. While search engines can discover pages through link-following, a sitemap acts as a direct index — especially important for new websites, large sites, or pages that are hard to reach through internal links alone. Submitting a sitemap to Google Search Console speeds up indexing of new content and is one of the most impactful technical SEO steps you can take.
How often should I crawl my website for SEO purposes?
For most websites, crawling once a month is sufficient to catch issues before they compound. For actively updated sites — news publishers, ecommerce stores, or blogs publishing multiple times a week — a weekly crawl is recommended. Always run a crawl after significant site changes: theme updates, CMS migrations, bulk content edits, or URL restructuring.
Does SiteCrawl work on JavaScript-heavy websites?
SiteCrawl uses server-side PHP crawling as its primary method, which fetches raw HTML as delivered by the server. For websites that rely heavily on client-side JavaScript to render content (React, Vue, Angular single-page apps), some dynamically rendered links may not be discovered. For primarily server-rendered sites — WordPress, Shopify, and traditional HTML sites — SiteCrawl works very effectively.
