Connect Your AI Chat Tool to MCP Servers

Connecting an MCP server means pasting one URL into your AI tool's connector settings. Use https://seolinkmap.com/mcp to follow along -- it is our free public server and needs no account.

Once connected, your assistant answers questions about this site by calling the server instead of guessing. The steps differ by platform, so skip to yours below.

What MCP Connection Does

An MCP server hands your assistant a list of tools and permission to call them. The assistant reads live data instead of producing an answer from training data.

What it reaches depends on the server: a database, a file system, an API, an entire application. One URL covers every tool that server offers.

Some servers only read. Others act -- creating a calendar entry, sending mail, booking a table -- and the assistant asks before each call.

What The Public MCP Answers

SEOLinkMap runs two MCP servers. The public one at https://seolinkmap.com/mcp is this website in chat form, open to anyone with no login. The private one requires your account and turns your subscription into a conversational AI interface for instant insights into your own crawl and SERP data.

Ask the public server "how do I enable this feature in my account?" or "what does it cost to crawl 500 pages off schedule?" and it returns the paragraphs that answer the question, not the page they sit on.

Follow-ups are the point. Ask it to define a term, go deeper on one answer, or restate it for someone who does not do SEO.

Select Your AI Platform

Claude has the widest MCP support at this time -- web, desktop, and mobile accept a remote server URL on every plan. Visual Studio Code ships MCP support switched on. ChatGPT accepts custom MCP servers only on Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans, where an admin enables them.

Every platform connects to the same URL. Only the menu path changes.

Claude Web And Mobile

Claude accepts custom connectors on Free, Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, with Free limited to one. Go to Customize > Connectors, click "+", choose "Add custom connector", paste https://seolinkmap.com/mcp and click Add.

If a server needs credentials, "Advanced settings" takes an OAuth Client ID and Secret. Ours needs neither.

Switch a connector on per conversation with the "+" button in the chat box, then Connectors. On Team and Enterprise plans an Owner adds it first under Organization settings > Connectors, and members connect afterward.

Claude Desktop Extensions

Remote servers use the same connector flow as the web app, because Claude Desktop brokers them through your account. Local servers -- ones running on your own machine -- install as desktop extensions instead.

Go to Settings > Extensions and click "Browse extensions" for the reviewed directory, or Advanced settings > Install Extension... to load an .mcpb file you packaged yourself.

To see what connected, click "+" in the chat box and select Connectors. It lists each server and its tools.

ChatGPT Custom MCP Apps

Pointing ChatGPT at your own MCP server requires a Business, Enterprise, or Edu workspace at this time, and full MCP support there is in beta. Plus and Pro accounts can install published apps but cannot enter a server URL.

An admin enables developer mode under Workspace Settings > Permissions & Roles, then creates the app at Workspace settings > Apps > Create.

Enter the server endpoint, pick an authentication method, click Scan Tools, then Create. The app sits in Drafts with a Dev label until it is published to the workspace.

Visual Studio Code Setup

VS Code has MCP on by default, so there is nothing to enable. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X), type @mcp, and install a server from the gallery -- or run MCP: Add Server from the Command Palette for a guided flow.

To configure by hand, create .vscode/mcp.json in your project, or run MCP: Open User Configuration for a file that follows you across projects.

{
  "servers": {
    "seolinkmap": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://seolinkmap.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

A workspace file is shared through source control. A user profile file is yours alone.

Test Your Connection

Verify MCP server connectivity by requesting available tools from your AI assistant. Ask "What tools do you have access to?" or "Show me your current capabilities."

Successful connections display specific tool names and descriptions from your MCP server. Connection failures typically show generic AI responses without custom capabilities.

The LLM system will decide which tool to use and when, then provide you with permissions screen before calling the tools. This keeps you in control of what you connect to.

Start Your First Chat

Begin conversations by referencing specific data or actions your MCP server provides. Ask for database queries, file searches, or API calls using natural language.

SEOLinkMap users can request "Show me my website's current PageRank data" or "Analyze my competitor research projects." or "How many of my pages link to my homepage?" (or which pages do not link to the homepage).

The AI assistant accesses your live SEO data through the MCP connection and responds with the specific answer to your question.

It is common on the first lookup for the LLM to post a very "full" answer that it can refer back to through the conversation, so be sure to give it follow up questions or ask it to refine its answer to your liking.

Fix Common Problems

"Tool not found" means the connection never completed. Check the URL character for character, then confirm the connector is toggled on for that specific conversation -- connectors are per-chat, not global.

A server of your own on a private network is a separate problem. Claude connects from Anthropic's cloud rather than from your machine, so a server behind a VPN or corporate firewall needs Anthropic's IP ranges allowlisted even when the URL works in your own browser.

An authentication failure usually means an expired token. Remove the connector and add it again -- Claude has no edit, so re-adding is the documented fix.

A timeout is the server, not you. Retry once, then check the provider's status page.