MCP Server Setup

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect to outside tools and data. Once RankNest is connected over MCP, you can work in plain language ("list my clients and show their experiment counts", "crawl acme.com and generate a Linking Plan"), and the assistant calls RankNest on your behalf. Every call uses your account's access, so the assistant can only see and change what you can.

Where to find it

Open Account Settings, go to the Integrations tab, and click the MCP sub-tab. Pick your Client (Claude Desktop or Claude Code) and the page shows the exact setup steps for it. The Documentation sub-tab next to it lists every MCP tool the server exposes, with what each one does.

There is no token to create or paste. You approve the connection in your browser, logged in as yourself, and the assistant gets your account's access and nothing more.

Connecting Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop connects to RankNest's hosted MCP server and authenticates through your browser. There is no token to copy.

1. In Claude Desktop, go to Settings → Integrations and click Add custom connector.
2. Enter the details the generator shows:
   • Name: RankNest
   • Remote MCP server URL: https://www.ranknest.io/api/mcp
   • Leave OAuth Client ID and OAuth Client Secret blank.
3. Click Add. Claude opens a browser window. Log in to your RankNest account and click Approve.
4. Open a new conversation and try: "List all my RankNest clients and show me their experiment counts."

Connecting Claude Code

Claude Code connects to the same hosted MCP server and also authenticates through your browser.

1. Run this once in your terminal:

   claude mcp add --transport http ranknest https://www.ranknest.io/api/mcp
   

2. Inside Claude Code, run /mcp and select ranknest. A browser window opens. Log in to your RankNest account and click Approve.

3. Open a new conversation and try: "List all my RankNest clients and show me their experiment counts."

What the tools can do

The server exposes more than 50 tools, all named ranknest_<verb>_<resource>. Together they cover most of what the dashboard does:

• Clients: list, create, update, and delete clients.
• SEO tests: manage experiments and generate AI test variations. See SEO Testing.
• Link maps: manage link maps plus their pages, links, and topic clusters, and trigger a site crawl. See Link Mapping.
• Linking Plan: generate recommendations and update their status. See Linking Plan.
• Site Audit: run a technical SEO audit of a site. See Site Audit.
• Search Console: pull performance data for a connected property. See Google Search Console.
• Tasks and SEO variables: manage client tasks and your test variable library.
• Site Connectors: manage connectors and their implementation queue. The ranknest_update_implementation_queue_item tool closes out a queued link change after it's been applied on the site; completing an item also marks its Linking Plan recommendation implemented. See Implementing Recommendations.

All calls inherit your subscription limits.

The full tool list, with parameters, lives in the Documentation sub-tab described above.

Tips

• Give the assistant IDs when you have them ("generate a linking plan for map <id>"). It skips a lookup round-trip and avoids ambiguity between similarly named clients.
• Treat destructive requests carefully: delete tools remove real data, exactly as the dashboard would.
• If you use both Claude Desktop and Claude Code, you can connect both at the same time. They authenticate independently.

Troubleshooting

Claude Desktop's browser window never shows the Approve screen. Make sure you're logged in to RankNest in that browser, then remove and re-add the connector.

Claude Code doesn't list any ranknest tools. Run /mcp inside Claude Code and check the server's status. If it shows as needing authentication, select it and complete the browser approval again.

Tools return "Invalid or expired token". The connection was revoked or has expired. Reconnect from your client (Claude re-opens the approval page), or check the Connected apps list in the MCP area, where you can also disconnect a connection you no longer want.

Related

• Personal Access Tokens
• CLI