What is SEO Tracer?
SEO Tracer is a native macOS SEO spider. You point it at a website, and it crawls the pages on your Mac. The crawl extracts page titles, meta descriptions, and heading structures, finds broken internal and external links, and reports HTTP status codes, redirect chains, and server response times.
It is built as a Mac alternative to Screaming Frog: a modern Mac interface, no Java runtime, and performance aimed at Apple silicon as well as Intel Macs. Exports are available as CSV, HTML, or PDF, including reports you can hand to a client.
Which Macs can run SEO Tracer?
The homepage download note lists macOS 15.6 or later. The terms of service require macOS 15.5 or later, and an internet connection when you buy or subscribe through the Mac App Store. The app is native. It is optimized for Apple silicon (M1, M2, and M3) and also runs on Intel Macs. There is no Java runtime to install.
Is SEO Tracer free, or do I have to pay?
SEO Tracer is free to start, and the homepage does not ask for a credit card. The free tier covers up to 500 page crawls per session. Larger crawls use a one-time lifetime purchase or a monthly or yearly subscription. Those plans are sold in the Mac App Store, and Apple processes the payment. SEO Tracer does not store your card details.
How does a crawl work?
Open SEO Tracer, enter the website URL in the main field, and start the crawl. The app requests publicly available pages and reads titles, meta descriptions, headings, and links while it records status codes, redirects, and response times. You can watch progress while it runs. A sound plays when the crawl finishes.
Internal links are links between pages on your own domain. They show how the site is structured and help you spot pages that nothing links to. External links point at other domains. That is where broken outbound URLs show up.
How do robots.txt and SEOTracerBot affect a crawl?
The crawler identifies itself as SEOTracerBot and respects robots.txt, including Disallow, Allow, and Crawl-delay where the app supports that directive. If a host blocks that user agent, those URLs are not fetched. Some people change the user agent inside the Mac app for their own tests. Only the default string documented on the SEOTracerBot page should be treated as the official bot.
The user-agent string, reverse-DNS verification steps, crawl-rate notes, and sample robots.txt rules are on the SEOTracerBot page at /bot.
Read the SEOTracerBot documentation.
How does SEO Tracer compare with Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog is a cross-platform Java crawler. SEO Tracer is macOS-only. It does not need Java, it uses a newer Mac interface, and it is optimized for Apple silicon. On the checks most audits start with, both tools extract titles and meta descriptions, find broken links, and read HTTP response codes.
Choose SEO Tracer when the people running the audit are on a Mac and you want the crawl to stay in a native app. The homepage comparison and the Screaming Frog alternatives article go into the tradeoffs in more detail. This is a high-level difference, not a claim that one tool replaces every setting in the other.
Screaming Frog alternatives for Mac.
Where is my crawl data stored?
Crawl data stays on your Mac. The privacy policy and the terms of service say that page titles, meta descriptions, broken links, and the rest of a crawl are processed and stored locally. SEO Tracer does not collect, store, or transmit the websites you crawl.
Anonymized crash reports may be sent so crashes can be diagnosed. They can include technical details such as device model, macOS version, and error logs, and they do not include the sites you crawled. Purchases are handled by Apple. You are responsible for CSV, HTML, and PDF files you export. The full account is in the privacy policy.
Privacy policy.
How do I export a crawl or find broken links?
After a crawl, open Tracer and choose Export, then pick CSV, HTML, or PDF. CSV is the spreadsheet handoff. HTML and PDF are the report formats the app offers for clients.
Broken links are listed from the Issues tab. Filter by broken links or by status codes such as 404 and 500. The app shows which pages contain the bad link and what they point at, so you can export that list and fix the important pages first. The terms note that some status codes can be false positives, for example when an image loads on a page but returns an error when requested directly.
Why is my crawl slow or stuck?
Crawl speed depends on your internet connection, how fast the site responds, and the crawl settings. To go faster, reduce the crawl delay in Settings, raise concurrent connections only if the server can handle it, and filter out file types you do not need, such as images or PDFs.
A crawl that looks stuck is often waiting on a slow host, a long crawl delay, or URLs that robots.txt disallows. If the same site never finishes, email support with the URL, your macOS version, and what you see on screen.
How do I contact support?
Email support@seotracer.app or use the contact form on the support page. Replies are sent within 24 hours. Include your macOS version, the site you crawled, and the steps that led to the problem. Product ideas can be filed on the feature request board linked from Support and the site footer.
Open the support center.
