name: seo-firecrawl
description: >
Full-site crawling, scraping, and site mapping via Firecrawl MCP.
Use when user says "crawl site", "map site", "full crawl",
"find all pages", "broken links", "site structure",
"discover pages", "JS rendering", or needs site-wide analysis.
user-invocable: true
argument-hint: "[command]
This skill requires the Firecrawl extension to be installed:
./extensions/firecrawl/install.sh
Check availability: Before using any Firecrawl tool, verify the MCP server
is connected by checking if firecrawl_scrape or any Firecrawl tool
is available. If tools are not available, inform the user the extension is not
installed and provide install instructions.
| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
/seo firecrawl crawl <url> |
Full-site crawl with content extraction |
/seo firecrawl map <url> |
Discover site structure (URLs only, fast) |
/seo firecrawl scrape <url> |
Single-page scrape with JS rendering |
/seo firecrawl search <query> <url> |
Search within a crawled site |
Crawl an entire website starting from the given URL. Returns page content, metadata, and links for all discovered pages.
MCP Tool: firecrawl_crawl
Parameters:
- url (required): Starting URL to crawl
- limit: Max pages to crawl (default: 100, max: 500)
- maxDepth: Max link depth from start URL (default: 3)
- includePaths: Array of glob patterns to include (e.g., ["/blog/*"])
- excludePaths: Array of glob patterns to exclude (e.g., ["/admin/*", "/api/*"])
- scrapeOptions.formats: Output formats -- ["markdown", "html", "links"]
SEO Usage Patterns:
1. Comprehensive audit crawl: Crawl full site, extract all pages for subagent analysis
2. Section-focused crawl: Use includePaths to audit only /blog/* or /products/*
3. Broken link detection: Crawl with ["links"] format, check all hrefs for 404s
4. Content inventory: Extract all page titles, meta descriptions, H1s at scale
5. SPA/JS-rendered sites: Firecrawl renders JavaScript, solving the Issue #11 problem
Example orchestration for /seo audit:
1. firecrawl_map(url) -> get all URLs (fast, no content)
2. Filter to top 50 most important pages (homepage, key sections)
3. firecrawl_crawl(url, limit=50) -> get full content
4. Feed content to seo-technical, seo-content, seo-schema agents
Cost awareness: - Free tier: 500 credits/month - 1 credit = 1 page crawled or scraped - Map operations are cheaper (0.5 credits per URL discovered) - Always inform user of estimated credit usage before large crawls
Discover all URLs on a website without fetching content. Fast and credit-efficient.
MCP Tool: firecrawl_map
Parameters:
- url (required): Website URL to map
- limit: Max URLs to discover (default: 5000)
- search: Optional search term to filter URLs
SEO Usage Patterns: 1. Sitemap comparison: Map site, compare discovered URLs vs XML sitemap 2. Orphan page detection: URLs in sitemap but not linked from any page 3. Crawl budget analysis: Total indexable pages vs pages linked from homepage 4. URL pattern analysis: Identify URL structure patterns, duplicates, parameter bloat 5. Pre-audit discovery: Run map first, then targeted crawl on key sections
Output: Array of URLs. Present as:
Site: example.com
Pages discovered: 342
URL Pattern Breakdown:
/blog/* - 128 pages (37%)
/products/* - 89 pages (26%)
/category/* - 45 pages (13%)
/pages/* - 32 pages (9%)
/ (root pages) - 48 pages (14%)
Scrape a single page with full JavaScript rendering. More thorough than
fetch_page.py because it executes JS and waits for dynamic content.
MCP Tool: firecrawl_scrape
Parameters:
- url (required): Page URL to scrape
- formats: Output formats -- ["markdown", "html", "links", "screenshot"]
- onlyMainContent: Strip nav/footer/sidebar (default: true)
- waitFor: CSS selector or milliseconds to wait for content
- timeout: Request timeout in ms (default: 30000)
- actions: Browser actions before scraping (click, scroll, wait)
SEO Usage Patterns:
1. SPA content extraction: Scrape JS-rendered React/Vue/Angular pages
2. Dynamic content audit: Pages with lazy-loaded content below the fold
3. Paywall/login detection: Identify content behind authentication walls
4. Main content extraction: Use onlyMainContent for clean E-E-A-T analysis
5. Screenshot capture: Use screenshot format for visual analysis
When to use scrape vs fetch_page.py:
| Scenario | Use |
|----------|-----|
| Static HTML page | fetch_page.py (no API cost) |
| JS-rendered SPA | firecrawl_scrape (renders JS) |
| Need response headers | fetch_page.py (returns headers) |
| Need clean markdown | firecrawl_scrape (better extraction) |
| Rate-limited/blocked | firecrawl_scrape (handles anti-bot) |
Search within a website for specific content. Useful for finding pages related to a topic without crawling everything.
MCP Tool: firecrawl_search
Parameters:
- query (required): Search query
- url (required): Website to search within
- limit: Max results (default: 10)
- scrapeOptions.formats: Output format for matched pages
SEO Usage Patterns: 1. Content gap validation: Search for a keyword on the site to check if content exists 2. Internal linking opportunities: Find pages mentioning a topic that could link to each other 3. Duplicate content detection: Search for key phrases to find near-duplicates 4. Competitor content research: Search competitor site for specific topics
When Firecrawl is available during /seo audit:
1. Use firecrawl_map to discover all site URLs
2. Compare with XML sitemap (seo-sitemap) to find orphan/missing pages
3. Select top pages for deep analysis
4. Feed crawled content to all subagents (technical, content, schema, geo)
5. Report total crawlable pages, URL patterns, and crawl depth
| Error | Cause | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY not set |
MCP not configured | Run ./extensions/firecrawl/install.sh |
402 Payment Required |
Credits exhausted | Check usage at firecrawl.dev/app, upgrade plan |
429 Too Many Requests |
Rate limited | Wait 60s, reduce crawl concurrency |
408 Timeout |
Page too slow to render | Increase timeout, try without JS rendering |
403 Forbidden |
Site blocks crawling | Check robots.txt, may need to skip this site |
Graceful fallback: If Firecrawl is unavailable, inform the user and suggest:
1. Use fetch_page.py for single-page analysis (no API cost)
2. Use WebFetch tool for basic HTML retrieval
3. Install Firecrawl: ./extensions/firecrawl/install.sh