Free SEO tools
14 tools that are free, or that print a real free tier: official search-engine tools, crawlers and audits, keyword research, and on-page checks. Each note says what the tool does, the free limit the vendor prints, and who it suits. Checked October 2026. A cell that says "not stated" was left blank on purpose. There is no star rating.
Comparison
Free limits are the figures printed on each vendor’s own pages, checked October 2026. Open the linked page before you plan a crawl around a number.
| Tool | Group | Free limit | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Official search-engine tools | Free service. Performance data is kept 16 months. API performance export: 50,000 rows per day per type per property. A web-UI query cap is not stated | Anyone who owns a site and wants Google’s own search data before paying for a crawler. |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Official search-engine tools | Free SEO tools. A numeric monthly Site Scan quota is not stated | Site owners who want Bing’s crawl, keyword, and backlink reports without a paid SEO suite. |
| PageSpeed Insights | Official search-engine tools | No price is printed. A numeric query cap is not stated | Someone checking Core Web Vitals and a Lighthouse score for a single public URL. |
| Rich Results Test | Official search-engine tools | No price is printed. A numeric test cap is not stated | Anyone marking up a page for a Google rich result, such as a product, article, or FAQ. |
| Schema Markup Validator | Official search-engine tools | No price is printed. A numeric test cap is not stated | Someone checking Schema.org types that are not a Google rich-result feature. |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Crawlers and audits | Up to 500 URLs in a single crawl. No sign-up. Saving crawls and most configuration are not in the free version | A small site, or the first 500 URLs of a larger one, when you want the crawl on your own machine. |
| Ahrefs Free | Crawlers and audits | Unlimited verified sites. 5,000 crawl credits per verified project per month. Up to 1,000 backlinks at once. Up to 1,000 keywords at once | A verified site owner who wants Ahrefs crawl, keyword, and backlink data without a paid subscription. |
| Semrush | Crawlers and audits | No card. 1 demo project. 10 reports per day across vital tools. Free-account guide: Site Audit 100 URLs per month, Position Tracking 10 keywords | Someone who wants a few competitor or keyword lookups a day and a short audit, not a full-site crawl. |
| Seobility | Crawlers and audits | Basic plan: 100 pages per crawl. The FAQ prints both a 7-day and a 3-day wait before the next crawl | A small site whose owner wants an online audit and can wait between crawls. |
| Google Keyword Planner | Keyword research | No separate price is printed. Billing information is required for basic features. A numeric query cap is not stated | Someone who already has a Google Ads account and wants Google’s own search estimates. |
| Google Trends | Keyword research | No price is printed. A numeric query cap is not stated | Comparing whether interest in a topic is rising or falling, not estimating monthly search volume. |
| AnswerThePublic | Keyword research | 3 searches per day. Search volume and CPC on 2 branches per report. XLSX export of 30 keywords. 30 AI prompt responses per month. No Content Studio credits | Light question research. A 7-day trial of a monthly plan is the step past 3 searches a day. |
| Lighthouse | On-page checks | Open source. A numeric usage cap is not stated | A developer auditing a page in Chrome, including a page behind a login, which PageSpeed Insights cannot see. |
| Uno Meta Tag Checker | On-page checks | Free. The HTML stays in the browser. A numeric usage cap is not stated. Title pass: 30 to 60 characters. Description pass: 120 to 160 characters | A last look at title, description, canonical, and robots tags before a page is published. |
Official search-engine tools
Google Search Console
Google’s About Search Console page calls it a free service that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. You do not have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Search results. Using it needs a Google account, cookies, JavaScript, and a recent Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. The getting-started guide says to verify ownership, review index coverage, consider a sitemap, and monitor the performance report. Google’s Analytics help says Search Console keeps data for the last 16 months. The performance report’s default view is the past three months. The export help says the Search Console API is free and that performance report data is limited to 50,000 rows per day per search type per property. That page says the API has a usage quota. It does not print the quota as a number of requests. A numeric cap for clicking around the website itself is not stated on these pages.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing’s Webmaster Tools about page says you can get performance data and take advantage of free SEO/GEO tools, including backlinks, keyword research with search volumes, an SEO/GEO report, and Site Scan. Site Scan’s help page says you enter the maximum number of pages to scan, and that the crawl stops when that limit is reached. It also says the quota allocated to the site is calculated automatically from signals available to Bing, and that Bing does not currently support requests to increase that quota. A number for the monthly quota is not stated. The same help page says you can limit scan depth and crawl speed so a scan does not use the quota by accident.
PageSpeed Insights
The PageSpeed Insights site is the page where you enter a URL. Google’s About PageSpeed Insights page says it reports the experience of a page on mobile and desktop, using Chrome User Experience Report field data and a Lighthouse lab run. Field metrics include LCP, INP, and CLS. A lab score of 90 or above is called good. The API get-started page says you can call the API with or without a key, and that a key is recommended for frequent automated queries. Neither that page nor the about page prints a queries-per-day number. A price is not stated.
Rich Results Test
Google’s structured-data docs call the Rich Results Test the official tool for seeing which Google rich results the structured data on a page can generate, and for previewing how those results can look. The Search Central post that took the test out of beta says you can test a code snippet or a URL. It says errors disqualify the page from showing as a rich result, while warnings might limit the appearance and the page can still be eligible. A price is not stated. A numeric cap on how many tests you can run is not stated.
Schema Markup Validator
Google’s structured-data docs say to use the Schema Markup Validator, at validator.schema.org, for generic schema validation of all Schema.org types, without Google-specific warnings. The same page says to start with the Rich Results Test when the question is what Google can show. The validator homepage does not print a price or a usage cap.
Crawlers and audits
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The SEO Spider product page says you can download and crawl 500 URLs for free. The free-versus-paid table lists the free crawl limit as 500 URLs. The same page says the lite version is free to download and use without any sign-up or email capture, and that it is restricted to 500 URLs in a single crawl. Crawl configuration, saving crawls, and advanced features such as JavaScript rendering, custom extraction, and API integrations are also restricted on the free version. A paid licence removes the 500 URL limit. The product page prints both $279 per year and £199 per year for that licence, so this note does not collapse those into one price.
Ahrefs Free
The Webmaster Tools page says Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is now Ahrefs Free, and that it gives free access to Web Analytics, Site Audit, and Site Explorer for verified websites. The FAQ says you can use it on an unlimited number of verified websites. Site Audit gives 5,000 crawl credits per verified project per month. Those credits are used only when you crawl an HTML page with status code 200. Broken URLs, redirects, and non-HTML resources are not counted. You can see up to 1,000 backlinks at once and up to 1,000 keywords at once. The page says the tools and data match paid Ahrefs, with lower allowances, and that analyzing a site you have not verified needs a paid subscription. A dollar price for that subscription is not stated on this page.
Semrush
Semrush’s subscription page lists a Free plan for trying the platform, with no credit card required. It includes 1 demo project, 10 reports per day across all vital tools, and a limited set of AI Visibility features. The FAQ on that page repeats 1 demo project and 10 reports per day. Semrush’s free-account guide prints a Site Audit of up to 100 URLs per month. The table on that guide says 100 pages. The same guide prints Position Tracking for 10 keywords, lists 10 queries per day beside Domain Overview, Keyword Research, Competitor Research, and Backlinks, and says every new search in any keyword research tool counts toward the daily limit. This note does not add those daily rows together on top of the subscription page’s 10 reports. The subscription page also describes a 7-day free trial of paid plans and says exporting data is disabled during a trial. A single public starting price for a paid plan is not copied here.
Seobility
Seobility’s FAQ says the free Basic plan can analyze a maximum of 100 pages per crawl, that a crawl must be started manually, and that automatic continuous crawling is not available. Duplicate-content analysis is limited, and PDF exports with your own logo are not available. The limitations answer says you wait 7 days after a crawl before starting another. Two later answers on the same FAQ say Basic users wait 3 days. Both numbers are printed, so this guide does not pick one. The FAQ says the Basic plan is more suitable for smaller, non-commercial websites, and that most reports are still available. Paid plans are described as having a 14-day trial on the pricing page. A single Basic-to-paid price is not stated in the FAQ.
Keyword research
Google Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner help says the tool researches keywords for Search campaigns and shows estimates of searches and the cost to target them. To access basic features such as Get ideas for new keywords, you must complete account setup by entering billing information. A price for Keyword Planner itself is not stated. A numeric cap on how many ideas you can request is not stated. The forecasts help says average monthly searches are, by default, averaged over a 12-month period, and that those historical stats are shown for exact match. That 12-month window is how the metric is defined. It is not a free-tier quota.
Google Trends
Google’s Trends FAQ says Trends uses an anonymized, categorized, aggregated sample of Google searches, scaled from 0 to 100 for the time and place of the query. Terms with low volume appear as 0. Repeated searches from the same person over a short period are filtered out. The FAQ says Trends is not the same as Google Ads search-volume data. A price is not stated. A numeric cap on how many terms you can compare, or how many queries you can run, is not stated on that FAQ.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic’s help article, updated October 15, 2026, says there is a free plan with 3 searches per day, and that the daily limit resets automatically. Each search loads Keyword Wheels, AI Models, Organic Searches, Shopping, Social Media, Search Modifiers, and People Also Ask. Some suggestions stay locked. Search volume and CPC are available for only two branches per report. XLSX exports are limited to 30 keywords. Free plans include 30 AI prompt responses per month, up to 2 responses per prompt, and 10 prompts displayed per search. Free accounts do not include Content Studio credits, and each article uses 10 credits. A 7-day free trial on monthly plans includes 36 Content Studio credits and is available once per account. The USD pricing page lists Starter at US$20/month, Growth at US$99/month, and Business at US$199/month, and says the amount can differ by region.
On-page checks
Lighthouse
Chrome’s Lighthouse overview says Lighthouse is an open-source tool you can run on any web page, public or requiring authentication, with audits for performance, accessibility, SEO, and more. In Chrome DevTools you open the Lighthouse tab and run an audit. The command-line and Node workflows need Google Chrome installed on the machine. The same page points at PageSpeed Insights as a web UI for a Lighthouse run. A price is not stated. A numeric cap on how many local audits you can run is not stated.
Uno Meta Tag Checker
Uno’s meta tag checker says to paste page HTML or tags and check the title, meta description, canonical, robots, and viewport. It runs with DOMParser in the browser. The HTML is not sent to Uno and is not stored. A title passes between 30 and 60 characters. A meta description passes between 120 and 160 characters. noindex fails the robots check, including the shorthand none. A missing Open Graph image is a warning. A canonical should be an absolute https URL when one is present. A numeric cap on how many pastes you can check is not stated.
Which to start with
Verify the site in Google Search Console first. It is a free service, and the performance data Google keeps runs to 16 months. You do not need a crawler to see which queries already bring clicks. Add Bing Webmaster Tools if Bing traffic matters. Bing’s Site Scan quota is real, and the number is not stated.
Check one URL before you crawl the whole site. PageSpeed Insights covers field data and a Lighthouse lab score for a public URL. Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools is the one to use when the page requires a login. If the page has structured data, run the Rich Results Test, then the Schema Markup Validator for types that are not a Google rich result.
Match the crawler to the free cap. Screaming Frog’s free crawl stops at 500 URLs and needs no account. Ahrefs Free is the better fit when you can verify the site and want 5,000 HTML crawl credits a month plus a slice of backlinks and keywords. Semrush’s free account is 10 reports a day and, on Semrush’s own free-account guide, a 100-URL audit. Seobility’s Basic plan stops at 100 pages per crawl.
Pick a keyword tool by the question. Google Trends is relative interest, with no price printed. Keyword Planner is Google’s volume and cost estimates, and it asks for Google Ads billing information before basic features. AnswerThePublic’s free plan is 3 searches a day of questions and related searches. Before you publish, paste the HTML into the meta tag checker. A title passes at 30 to 60 characters, and a description passes at 120 to 160.
FAQ
Uno listings
The meta tag checker is Uno’s own on-page tool. The other links are existing SEO listings on Uno. They are separate from the vendor write-ups above.
List an SEO tool
Uno is a directory page for the product. The submit page explains the free and paid ways to add one.
Submit a toolChecked October 2026. Details checked on: About Search Console; Get started with Search Console; Search Console data in Analytics; Search Console performance report; Search Console API export; Bing Webmaster Tools; Bing Site Scan; PageSpeed Insights; About PageSpeed Insights; PageSpeed Insights API; Rich Results Test; Google structured data testing; Rich Results Test behavior; Schema Markup Validator; Screaming Frog SEO Spider; Ahrefs Free; Semrush subscriptions; Semrush free account; Seobility FAQ; Keyword Planner; Keyword Planner forecasts; Google Trends; Google Trends FAQ; AnswerThePublic free plan; AnswerThePublic pricing; Lighthouse.