Load testing is a crucial step in ensuring your website performs well under heavy traffic. Whether you’re preparing for a product launch, a large marketing campaign, or a seasonal rush, you need to know how your website handles increased demand. Some people try to use Screaming Frog, a well-known SEO crawling tool, to put load on a website. But while Screaming Frog can create server activity, that does not make it a true load testing tool.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how someone might conduct a basic traffic-heavy crawl using Screaming Frog and then explain why it’s not the right tool for real load testing. Finally, we’ll introduce a more effective alternative: LoadView.
Understanding Load Testing
Before diving into Screaming Frog, let’s take a look at what load testing is and why it’s essential for maintaining a high-performing website.
What Is Load Testing?
Load testing is a type of performance testing that evaluates how a website or application behaves under different levels of demand. It simulates multiple users accessing the system at the same time to determine how well the infrastructure holds up under expected and peak traffic.
Key Goals of Load Testing
- Identify Performance Bottlenecks: Find weak points in your website’s architecture before they cause real-world issues.
- Ensure Scalability: Verify that your website can handle increased traffic without failure.
- Prevent Downtime: Reduce the risk of unexpected outages during high-traffic events.
- Optimize User Experience: A fast, responsive website helps ensure a smooth experience for visitors.
- Improve Server Efficiency: Optimize resource allocation for better performance and cost-effectiveness.
Load testing is not just for large enterprises. Any business with an online presence can benefit from testing website reliability and performance before traffic spikes occur.
How to Put Load on a Website with Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is primarily an SEO tool that crawls websites to analyze URLs, broken links, metadata, redirects, canonicals, and on-page elements. Some users repurpose it by running higher-intensity crawls to create server load.
Here’s a basic method to put some load on a website using Screaming Frog:
Step 1: Install and Configure Screaming Frog
Before you can start, you need to have Screaming Frog installed and set up properly.
- Download and install Screaming Frog SEO Spider.
- Launch the application and enter your website’s URL in the search bar.
- Ensure your local machine and network connection can handle an intensive crawl.
Step 2: Adjust Crawl Settings
To increase the load on your website, configure Screaming Frog’s crawl settings.
- Navigate to Configuration > Speed and increase Max Threads to send more requests to your server at once.
- Under Configuration > User-Agent, select an appropriate user-agent for the crawl.
- If needed, configure Custom Headers to include specific request parameters.
Step 3: Start the Crawl
Once your settings are configured, you can initiate the crawl.
- Click Start to begin crawling your website.
- Monitor how your server responds as Screaming Frog requests multiple pages at the same time.
- Keep an eye on your hosting dashboard or use monitoring tools to track performance metrics.
Step 4: Analyze the Results
After the crawl is completed, review the data to understand the impact on your website’s performance.
- Look for increased response times and HTTP errors.
- Check server logs to see if the crawl caused strain, rate limiting, or resource exhaustion.
- Evaluate whether any real users experienced disruptions during the crawl.
At this point, you’ve used Screaming Frog to create some load on your site, but is this real load testing? Not exactly. Let’s look at why Screaming Frog falls short.
Why You Shouldn’t Use Screaming Frog for Load Testing
While Screaming Frog is great for SEO audits, it is not built for load testing. Here’s why:
Not Real-User Simulation
Screaming Frog sends crawler-style HTTP requests, similar to how search engine bots scan web pages. It does not simulate real user interactions such as logging in, submitting forms, completing checkout, interacting with JavaScript, using search filters, or navigating dynamic app workflows. These interactions are essential parts of true load testing.
Limited Concurrency Control
Although you can adjust the number of concurrent threads in Screaming Frog, it lacks the granular control that dedicated load testing tools provide. You cannot properly simulate gradual traffic increases, sustained high loads, spike patterns, regional traffic distribution, or complex user journeys.
No Cloud-Based Load Generation
Proper load testing often involves distributing traffic from multiple geographic locations. Screaming Frog runs locally, which means it cannot replicate how users from different regions experience your website under load. It also means the test may be limited by your local machine, network connection, or IP-based rate limits.
Incomplete Performance Data
Screaming Frog provides crawl data and some response time information, but it does not offer the full performance view needed for load testing. Dedicated load testing reports can help evaluate:
- Response times under different load levels
- Error rates as traffic increases
- Concurrent user behavior
- API and transaction performance
- Third-party service response times
- Bottlenecks across critical user flows
Risk of Overloading Your Own Machine
Since Screaming Frog runs on your local computer, running a high-intensity crawl can slow down or crash your own system. Instead of accurately testing your website’s performance, you may end up testing the limits of your local hardware, internet connection, or crawl configuration.
If you’re serious about real-world load testing, you need a tool designed for the job. That’s where LoadView comes in.
A Better Alternative: Load Testing with LoadView
If you want accurate, reliable, and scalable load testing, LoadView is a stronger fit than trying to repurpose an SEO crawler. Unlike Screaming Frog, LoadView is built to conduct load tests with realistic user simulation.
LoadView offers features that make a real difference, including:
- Real Browser Testing: Simulates actual users interacting with your site, not just crawler requests.
- Cloud-Based Infrastructure: Tests your website from multiple global locations for more realistic traffic conditions.
- Scalable Load Generation: Creates large volumes of virtual users to mimic real-world traffic surges.
- Customizable Load Scenarios: Allows for ramp-up periods, steady-state testing, spike testing, and stress testing.
- Detailed Performance Insights: Provides reports on response times, errors, user activity, and potential bottlenecks.
- Support for Dynamic Websites: Tests JavaScript-heavy applications, user authentication, multi-step workflows, and eCommerce transactions.
How to Get Started with LoadView
- Sign Up for LoadView: Create an account at LoadView Testing.
- Set Up Your Test: Choose your test type, such as website, API, or web application.
- Configure Load Parameters: Define user concurrency, ramp-up, load curve, test duration, and geographic distribution.
- Run the Test: Execute the test and monitor live results.
- Analyze Reports: Identify performance bottlenecks and optimize accordingly.
With LoadView, you get precise, actionable performance data instead of a rough idea of how your website responds to a crawler.
Conclusion
Screaming Frog is an excellent SEO tool, but it is not a proper load testing solution. While it can put some strain on your server, it lacks the capabilities needed for comprehensive performance testing, realistic user simulation, distributed load generation, and detailed load testing analysis. If you’re serious about ensuring your website can handle high traffic, you need a tool built for that purpose.
LoadView provides scalable load testing that helps you understand how your site performs under real-world demand. Sign up today and take the guesswork out of load testing.