The Best MCP Servers for SEO, Free Ones First

We built one of the servers on this list, seo-mcp, so read this as a maker’s view. Every requirement below comes from the project’s own documentation or repository, checked on 12 November 2026.

What an SEO MCP server does

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is the standard that lets an AI assistant call outside tools. Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT all speak it. An SEO MCP server hands the assistant SEO tools. It can crawl a site, read Search Console or look up keyword volumes. You ask in plain language, the assistant calls the tool and works with the result.

The servers split into two groups. The first group looks at your own site and your own data, and it is free. The second group sells market data such as keyword volumes, backlinks and competitor rankings. That data is expensive to collect, so those servers need a paid plan.

Nine servers compared

The four free servers

seo-mcp

seo-mcp is ours. It scans one page or crawls a whole site and checks 28 rules across meta tags, content, technical setup and performance. Each finding comes back with a severity, so the assistant can sort the list and explain the fixes. It runs on your machine, and the core tools need no API key. The code is MIT licensed.

It has four core tools. scan_url audits a page. scan_site crawls a site and also checks robots.txt, the sitemap and duplicate content. get_site_overview sums up a finished scan with the overall score, the top issues and the worst pages. analyze_page returns the page’s structure and HTML for deeper questions about keywords and content.

It reads a site the way a crawler does, and that is its limit. It knows nothing about search volume, backlinks or where you rank. The case study explains how we built it.

Google Search Console MCP

mcp-gsc by Amin Foroutan is a community project with more than 2,000 stars on GitHub. It reads the data Google holds about your site, including queries, clicks, impressions and positions. It inspects URLs one at a time or ten in a batch, and it submits sitemaps.

Setup is the hard part. You need a Google Cloud project with the Search Console API switched on, then an OAuth client or a service account.

It can’t ask Google to index a page. Google’s API has no such call for ordinary pages, so that click still happens in Search Console.

Google Analytics MCP

google-analytics-mcp lives in Google Analytics’ own GitHub organisation. It runs standard, funnel and realtime reports on a GA4 property and lists key events and custom dimensions. It only reads unless you start it with a write flag.

One caveat applies to every site with a cookie banner. Analytics counts only the visitors who accept, so the assistant sees a sample of your traffic.

Lighthouse MCP

lighthouse-mcp-server by Daniel Sogl runs Google Lighthouse for the assistant. You get performance scores, Core Web Vitals, accessibility checks and Lighthouse’s SEO audit. One npx line installs it.

Lighthouse measures in a lab, on your machine and your connection. Real visitors on slow phones see different numbers.

The five paid servers

Ahrefs. A hosted server for plans from Lite upward. Requests use the API units of your plan. A free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account is not enough. We tried it, and the server answered with a 401 error.

Semrush. A hosted server at mcp.semrush.com that signs you in with your Semrush account. It needs one of the plans that include API units, and every request spends some.

SE Ranking. A hosted server that covers keyword research, backlinks, rank tracking, site audits and AI visibility. Which tools you see depends on your subscription.

DataForSEO. A provider that sells SEO data through an API. It charges per request instead of per month, which suits occasional use. The server runs hosted or locally through npx. It fits developers who want raw data better than marketers who want a report.

Screaming Frog. The SEO Spider desktop crawler now includes an MCP server. Its user guide lists it as a paid-licence feature, and the licence is per person.

Which one to pick

Start with the question you want answered.

If you want to know what is wrong with a site, connect seo-mcp and Lighthouse. Both are free, and neither needs an account.

If you want to know how your site does in Google, add the Search Console server. Add Analytics if you want to see what visitors do after the click.

If you need keyword volumes, backlinks or competitor data, you have reached the paid group. Use the server of the platform you already pay for. We would not buy a second subscription for the same kind of data. If you pay for none, DataForSEO has a free trial and then charges per request.

You can connect several servers at once. The assistant picks the tool that fits each question.

Questions people ask

Is there a free MCP server for SEO?

Yes, four of the nine here. seo-mcp and Lighthouse MCP need no account at all. The Search Console and Analytics servers are free, and so are the Google APIs behind them.

Do I need to be a developer to set one up?

For the hosted servers from Ahrefs, Semrush and SE Ranking, no. You add them in the assistant’s settings and sign in. The local servers ask for one or two terminal commands and a line in a config file.

Which AI assistants work with these servers?

Any MCP client. Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor are the common ones, and ChatGPT connects to hosted servers.

What we do with it

larch is a product studio. We build MCP servers into our own products, and seo-mcp is the one we gave away. If you want a tool of yours to work inside an AI assistant, that is the kind of work we take on.