Content
# Google Search Console MCP Server
An MCP server for Google Search Console that lets you ask Claude questions about your search data and get real answers. Not raw API rows. Actual analysis.
20 tools. OAuth or service account. Free and open source.
> **Full setup guide with screenshots:** [suganthan.com/blog/google-search-console-mcp-server/](https://suganthan.com/blog/google-search-console-mcp-server/)
## See it in action
**"How is my site doing?"**
**"What are my quick win keywords?"**
**"Which pages are cannibalising each other?"**
**"What content is slowly dying?"**
**"Which pages lost traffic and why?"**
**"How does my CTR compare to benchmarks?"**
**"How is my blog cluster performing?"**
## What you can ask
```
"What are my quick win keywords?"
"Which pages lost traffic this month and why?"
"What content is decaying?"
"Which pages are cannibalising each other?"
"Check for any SEO alerts in the last 7 days"
"Give me content recommendations"
"How does my CTR compare to benchmarks?"
"How is my /blog/ cluster performing?"
"Show me US mobile traffic for the last 90 days"
"Is /blog/my-post/ indexed? If not, why?"
"Generate a full performance report and save it"
"Show me a dashboard across all my sites"
"Submit this URL for indexing: https://mysite.com/new-post/"
"Batch submit all my new blog posts for indexing"
"List my sitemaps and their status"
"Verify that claim about my homepage clicks"
```
## Quick start
### Option A: OAuth (recommended)
1. Create a Google Cloud project and enable the **Search Console API**
2. Go to **Credentials > Create Credentials > OAuth client ID**, choose **Desktop app**
3. Download the client secrets JSON
4. Add to your Claude Desktop config (`~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`):
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"gsc": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/Suganthans-GSC-MCP/dist/index.js"],
"env": {
"GSC_AUTH_MODE": "oauth",
"GSC_OAUTH_SECRETS_FILE": "/path/to/client_secrets.json",
"GSC_SITE_URL": "sc-domain:yoursite.com"
}
}
}
}
```
First use opens a browser for Google sign in. Token is cached after that.
### Option B: Service Account
1. Create a Google Cloud project and enable the **Search Console API**
2. Go to **IAM & Admin > Service Accounts**, create one, download the JSON key
3. Add the service account email to your GSC property (Settings > Users and permissions > Full access)
4. Add to your Claude Desktop config:
```json
{
"mcpServers": {
"gsc": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/path/to/Suganthans-GSC-MCP/dist/index.js"],
"env": {
"GSC_KEY_FILE": "/path/to/service-account.json",
"GSC_SITE_URL": "sc-domain:yoursite.com"
}
}
}
}
```
### Indexing API (optional)
To use `submit_url`, `submit_batch`, and `submit_sitemap`:
1. Enable the **Web Search Indexing API** in your [Google Cloud console](https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library/indexing.googleapis.com)
2. Your service account (or OAuth credentials) need owner-level access in Search Console
Note: Google officially says the Indexing API is for JobPosting and BroadcastEvent schema types. In practice, it processes requests for all page types.
### Multi-site
For multiple properties, add `GSC_SITE_URLS`:
```json
"env": {
"GSC_SITE_URL": "sc-domain:primarysite.com",
"GSC_SITE_URLS": "sc-domain:primarysite.com,sc-domain:secondsite.com"
}
```
## All 20 tools
### Analysis
| Tool | What it answers |
|---|---|
| `site_snapshot` | How is the site doing overall? Clicks, impressions, CTR, position with period comparison |
| `quick_wins` | Keywords at positions 4-15 with high impressions, scored by opportunity |
| `ctr_opportunities` | Pages with high impressions but CTR below expected for their position |
| `traffic_drops` | What lost traffic, and whether it's a ranking loss, CTR collapse, or demand decline |
| `content_gaps` | Topics with search demand but no real content targeting them |
| `cannibalization_check` | Keywords where multiple pages compete against each other |
| `content_decay` | Pages declining across three consecutive 30-day periods |
| `topic_cluster_performance` | Aggregated performance for all pages matching a URL path pattern |
| `ctr_vs_benchmark` | Your actual CTR per position vs industry benchmarks |
| `inspect_url` | Is this URL indexed? Last crawl date, canonical, robots/noindex issues |
| `check_alerts` | Position drops, CTR collapses, click losses, disappeared pages. Severity-rated |
| `content_recommendations` | Prioritised actions: pages to update, content to create, pages to consolidate |
| `advanced_search_analytics` | Custom queries with flexible dimensions and filters |
| `generate_report` | Full markdown report saved to disk |
| `multi_site_dashboard` | Health check across all properties in one command |
### Indexing
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| `submit_url` | Submit a URL to Google's Indexing API for crawling |
| `submit_batch` | Batch submit up to 200 URLs (daily quota) |
| `submit_sitemap` | Notify Google of a new or updated sitemap |
| `list_sitemaps` | All submitted sitemaps with status, errors, and indexed counts |
### Safety
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| `verify_claim` | Self-check: re-queries GSC data to verify a numeric claim before presenting it |
## What makes this different from other Google Search Console MCP servers
**Analysis, not just API access.** Most Google Search Console MCP servers wrap the raw API. This one ships with pre-built analysis: opportunity scoring, cannibalisation detection, decay tracking, CTR benchmarking, traffic drop diagnosis. You ask a question, it runs the analysis and tells you what to do.
**Hallucination guardrails.** Every tool instructs Claude to base analysis only on returned data. Provenance metadata in every response. The `verify_claim` tool lets Claude fact-check its own numbers. Credit to [Krinal Mehta](https://www.linkedin.com/in/krinal/) for pushing this.
**Visual dashboards.** Results render as rich, interactive visualisations in Claude Desktop. Summary cards, colour coded indicators, bar charts, and tabbed sections. Not plain text dumps.
**Fresh data.** Uses `dataState: 'all'` so data matches the GSC dashboard, not 2-3 days stale.
**Proactive, not reactive.** Alerting, content recommendations, and scheduled reports catch problems before you think to look.
## Environment variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `GSC_AUTH_MODE` | No | `oauth` or `service_account` (default: `service_account`) |
| `GSC_KEY_FILE` | Service account mode | Path to service account JSON key |
| `GSC_OAUTH_SECRETS_FILE` | OAuth mode | Path to OAuth client secrets JSON |
| `GSC_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID` | OAuth mode (alt) | OAuth client ID |
| `GSC_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET` | OAuth mode (alt) | OAuth client secret |
| `GSC_SITE_URL` | Yes | Primary GSC property URL |
| `GSC_SITE_URLS` | No | Comma-separated list for multi-site |
## Full guide
Step-by-step setup with screenshots, use cases, and examples:
**[suganthan.com/blog/google-search-console-mcp-server/](https://suganthan.com/blog/google-search-console-mcp-server/)**
## Changelog
**v2.2.1** Fixed OAuth EADDRINUSE crash when multiple tool calls triggered concurrent authentication flows. The server now reuses the active auth session instead of spawning duplicate listeners. Thanks to [Rushabh Rathod](https://github.com/rushabhhh) for finding and reporting this.
**v2.2.0** Visual dashboard rendering. All analysis tools now produce rich, interactive visualisations in Claude Desktop with summary cards, colour coded indicators, bar charts, and tabbed sections instead of plain text output. No reinstall needed, just restart Claude Desktop.
**v2.1.0** Added Indexing API tools: submit\_url, submit\_batch, submit\_sitemap, list\_sitemaps. Request Google to crawl and index pages directly from Claude.
**v2.0.0** Added OAuth authentication, advanced search analytics, check\_alerts, content\_recommendations, generate\_report, multi\_site\_dashboard, verify\_claim. Server grew from 10 to 16 tools.
**v1.1.0** Added hallucination guardrails: explicit prompts in tool descriptions, data provenance metadata in responses, and verify\_claim self-checking tool. Thanks to [Krinal Mehta](https://www.linkedin.com/in/krinal/) for the feedback.
**v1.0.0** Initial release with 10 analysis tools and service account authentication.
## Licence
MIT
Built by [Suganthan Mohanadasan](https://suganthan.com). If you find it useful, star it.
