# How do I run an SEO audit from Claude or ChatGPT?

An assistant on its own can review one page you paste in, but it cannot crawl a whole site. For a site-wide audit, connect an SEO tool's MCP server. With SEOBolt, add https://seobolt.app/mcp as a custom connector in Claude, or https://seobolt.app/mcp/chatgpt in ChatGPT, sign in with OAuth, then ask it to crawl the site and read the fix plan.

By SEOBolt. Published 13 November 2026, updated 13 November 2026.

## Why this happens
Claude and ChatGPT can read a page you paste, or fetch a single URL when search or browsing is on. What they cannot do reliably is crawl a site: follow every internal link, record status codes, find duplicate titles across hundreds of pages, and remember the result for next week. A crawl has to run somewhere, and the assistant needs a way to ask for it and read the output.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is that way. An MCP server publishes named tools; the assistant calls them with arguments and gets structured results back. For SEO, that means the assistant can start a crawl, wait for it, and then read the audit instead of guessing from one page.

The practical risk is scope and trust. An assistant should only call tools you have connected, and any tool that writes (such as starting a crawl that uses your allowance) should ask first. The steps below keep a person in the loop.

## How to do it, step by step
Steps 1 to 3 work with no tool at all; steps 4 to 8 use an MCP connector.

1. **Decide the scope.** One page, or the whole site? A single page needs no crawler. A whole site does.
2. **For one page, paste the source.** Paste the page's HTML (view-source) and ask the assistant to check the title, meta description, H1, canonical, structured data and internal links, and to quote the line for each finding. It only sees what you paste, so it cannot judge the rest of the site.
3. **For a site without a connector, upload a crawl export.** Run any crawler (desktop or cloud), save the issues as a spreadsheet file and upload it. Ask for a prioritised list. This works but is manual and goes stale.
4. **Add the MCP connector.** In Claude: Settings, Connectors, add a custom connector with the URL https://seobolt.app/mcp and sign in. In ChatGPT: add a custom MCP connector with https://seobolt.app/mcp/chatgpt, choose OAuth and sign in (which ChatGPT plans can add custom connectors is set by OpenAI). Cursor uses an API key header instead of OAuth.
5. **Ask it to list your projects.** Ask: list my SEOBolt projects. The assistant calls seo_projects and shows each site with its health score. This confirms the connection works before anything is changed.
6. **Start a crawl and read the result.** Ask it to start a crawl for one project with seo_start_crawl (this counts against your plan's crawl allowance), then read seo_audit, seo_issues and seo_fix_plan once it finishes. Ask it to show the list before making any change.
7. **Approve and apply.** The fix plan gives each issue with a code snippet and the affected URLs. SEOBolt's tools do not edit your website; any change happens in your repository or CMS after you approve it. A coding agent such as Claude Code can apply the fixes on a branch for you to review.
8. **Re-crawl to verify.** After you deploy, start a new crawl and compare the health score and issue count with the first one.

## Connector details per client
How to connect SEOBolt to each client (from SEOBolt's MCP documentation)

| Client | Where to add it | Sign-in |
| --- | --- | --- |
| ChatGPT | Custom MCP connector, URL https://seobolt.app/mcp/chatgpt | OAuth |
| Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop) | Settings, Connectors, custom connector, URL https://seobolt.app/mcp | OAuth |
| Claude Code | claude mcp add --transport http seobolt https://seobolt.app/mcp, or the plugin | OAuth (/mcp inside Claude Code) |
| Cursor | mcp.json with the server URL and an Authorization header | API key |
| Gemini CLI | gemini extensions install from the seobolt-gemini-extension repository | OAuth (/mcp auth seobolt) |

## When to use SEOBolt for this
SEOBolt's MCP server (https://seobolt.app/mcp) exposes tools for exactly this flow: seo_projects, seo_start_crawl, seo_audit, seo_issues, seo_fix_plan and seo_fix_suggestions, plus Core Web Vitals, content scoring and Search Console analysis. Crawl limits, pages per crawl and which tools are available follow your plan; /pricing lists the details. OAuth sign-in creates an API key named after the client that expires after 90 days and can be revoked in Settings.

It is built for an agent to operate and a person to supervise: write tools are flagged so clients ask before running them, and crawls and fix plans stay visible in the dashboard.

MCP tools involved: `seo_projects`, `seo_start_crawl`, `seo_audit`, `seo_issues`, `seo_fix_plan`, `seo_fix_suggestions`.

**When SEOBolt is not the right tool:** If you only need a one-off review of a single page, pasting it into an assistant is enough. If you need a desktop crawler with deep manual configuration, custom extraction or very large local crawls, a desktop spider is the better tool.

## Prompt to give your AI assistant

With the SEOBolt MCP server connected (https://seobolt.app/mcp-seo):

```text
Assign to SEOBolt: list my projects with seo_projects, start a crawl for example.com with seo_start_crawl, and when it finishes read seo_audit and seo_fix_plan. Summarise the five most important issues in plain language and do not change anything on the site. Show me what you did so I can approve the fixes.
```

## FAQ
### Can Claude or ChatGPT crawl my site by themselves?
Not reliably. They can read a pasted page or fetch single URLs, but a crawl across every internal link needs a crawler the assistant can call through a tool such as an MCP server.

### Does the assistant edit my website?
SEOBolt's tools read audits and return fix plans; they do not edit your site. Changes happen in your repository or CMS after you approve them.

### Do I need an API key?
Not for ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini CLI, which use OAuth. Cursor and other clients that cannot use OAuth use an API key from Settings.

### What if a crawl uses my allowance?
seo_start_crawl counts against your plan's crawl allowance. It is flagged as a write tool so clients ask before running it.

## Related
- [Connect SEOBolt to ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor or Gemini](https://seobolt.app/mcp-seo)
- [Which SEO tool has an MCP server?](https://seobolt.app/guides/seo-mcp-server)
- [How do I get a prioritized SEO fix list with code?](https://seobolt.app/solutions/prioritized-seo-fix-list-with-code)
- [How can I use Search Console data from Claude or ChatGPT?](https://seobolt.app/solutions/google-search-console-with-claude-or-chatgpt)
- [All problems and solutions](https://seobolt.app/solutions)

HTML version: https://seobolt.app/solutions/run-seo-audit-from-claude-or-chatgpt