Run SEO Checks in Claude and Cursor With an MCP Server

By Ugur Saritepe · July 17, 2026

You practically live in Claude or Cursor, but your site still isn't showing up on Google - and every time you go to check why, you leave the chat for Search Console, curl, and view-source. You can move all of that into the assistant: add one MCP server URL and it runs the checks for you, in the same window.

What “run SEO checks in Claude” means

It means giving your assistant a set of SEO tools it can call on your behalf. An MCP server- MCP is the Model Context Protocol, the open standard assistants use to call outside tools - is just a URL you add to Claude or Cursor. Add an SEO one and the assistant can crawl a page, read its status codes and headers, and check the same indexing signals you'd otherwise chase by hand, then explain the result in the chat that can already see your code.

The TrafficTriage MCP server gives it the 8 checks that keep new sites off Google - soft-404s, sitemap, robots, canonicals, one site version, page basics, machine readability, index signals - ending in one verdict: the single thing to fix first. It is read-only and runs on a free account. Prefer a one-off without connecting anything? The free web report runs the same 8 checks from a URL with no account at all.

Add the TrafficTriage MCP server

One URL, added once: https://traffictriage.com/mcp. Create a free account first, or let the first call sign you in - either way the connection takes about a minute.

In Claude

As of July 2026, in Claude (web or desktop):

1. Open Customize → Connectors.
2. Click +, then Add custom connector.
3. Paste https://traffictriage.com/mcp and click Add.
4. The first time the assistant uses it, a browser window opens to sign you in to TrafficTriage. After that it can run the checks whenever you ask.

Custom connectors are a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise feature and are in beta; Claude's connector documentation has the current details and any plan limits.

In Cursor

Add the server to .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for every project):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "traffictriage": {
      "url": "https://traffictriage.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cursor supports OAuth for remote servers, so the first call opens the same sign-in - no API key to paste. The Cursor MCP documentation covers the panel if you'd rather add it from Settings. Any other MCP client works from the same URL; Claude and Cursor are the two we test against.

The six tools, and what to ask for

You never type a tool name. You ask in plain English and the assistant picks the tool and fills in the arguments. The six it has:

• run_triage - the 8 checks and one verdict on any URL. Ask: triage example.com.
• run_gsc_report - 6 checks against your real Search Console data. Ask: run a Search Console report for example.com.
• list_my_sites - the Search Console properties you connected. Ask: list my sites.
• list_my_reports - reports you already ran, newest first. Ask: show my recent reports.
• get_report - one past report in full. Ask: get my last report for example.com.
• get_my_usage - runs left this month. Ask: how many runs do I have left.

The workflow: from verdict to fix

Ask the assistant to triage your URL. It returns each of the 8 checks scored Critical, Monitor, or Healthy, plus one verdict - the single thing to fix first. Then you stay in the chat and ask the two questions that actually move it: why is this happening on my site? and fix it.

That second step is the whole point of doing this in an assistant instead of a dashboard. Say you ask it to triage a site built on Lovable and it comes back Criticalon “Can Google read your pages?” because the HTML is empty until JavaScript runs. Because the assistant can see your repository, the next message - fix it - gets you the actual code change that server-renders the page, not a general lecture about rendering.

The verdict tells you which branch you're on: an empty-HTML flag is a rendering problem, a canonical flag means a page is pointing Google at the wrong URL, a robots flag means something is blocking the crawl. The full cause list behind each verdict is in our platform triage guide - the assistant runs the same checks it describes.

Connect Search Console for the inside view

run_triage reads your site from the outside, exactly like the web report. Connect Google Search Console from your dashboard and run_gsc_reportadds the inside view: 6 checks against 90 days of your real data - which query you're closest to winning, pages people see but never click, rankings stuck on page 3. Those Search Console tools don't count against your monthly run limit.

What it costs and what it can touch

A free account gets 50 triage runs a month, which is far more than most people use, and the Search Console tools are on top of that. Every tool is read-only - it crawls or reads, it never writes to your site or your Search Console - and reports created over the server are private to your account. A paid Pro tier with a bigger monthly budget is on the way; the pricing page has the current breakdown.

Verify it's connected

Ask how many runs do I have left. A number back means the server is connected and you're signed in. Then ask it to triage your own domain for the first real result.

From experience

I built this server because I kept running the same three checks by hand - a site: search, view-source, and a curl for the status code - every time someone asked why their site was invisible. Moving them into the assistant meant the verdict and the fix landed in the same window, and I stopped alt-tabbing to a terminal to answer a question the assistant could answer itself. That is the honest reason it exists: not new checks, just the same ones where you already are.

More on running SEO from your assistant is in the SEO in Your AI Assistant guides.

FAQ

Do I need to know the tool names to use it?

No. You ask in plain English - "triage example.com" or "why isn't my site on Google" - and the assistant picks the right tool and fills in the arguments. The tool names are just what shows up in the transcript.

Which AI assistants work with the MCP server?

Any MCP client. Claude and Cursor are the two we test against. The server speaks standard remote MCP over HTTP with OAuth, so if your client can add a remote MCP server by URL, it works.

Is it free?

Yes to start. A free account gets 50 triage runs a month, and the Search Console tools don't count against that. No credit card, no trial. A paid Pro tier with a bigger monthly budget is on the way for heavy users.

Can the assistant change anything on my site?

No. Every tool is read-only. It crawls public pages, reads your Search Console data if you connected it, and reads reports you already own. It cannot write to your site or your Search Console.