Just several years ago, pulling ranking and AI visibility data for a client meant logging in to my SEO and AI tracking tools and exporting the reports myself.
Today, I can just ask Claude Code to do it.
That’s possible because AI agents can now interact directly with APIs—either natively or through a MCP—to request structured data and return the results in seconds.
It’s a fundamental shift in how SEO work gets done.
Instead of opening multiple SEO and GEO tools and switching between dashboards, you can now connect Claude Code to the APIs for those tools and ask it to retrieve the data, analyze it, and even automate processes—all from a single interface.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the best SEO and GEO APIs that fuel your agentic workflows.
Best SEO and GEO API Providers in 2026
| Provider | Main selling point | Platforms supported | Pricing |
| cloro | One API to scrape Google and major AI search engines | Google Search, Google's AI, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot | Free plan with 50 monthly credits; paid plans $30 to $500-plus/month |
| DataForSEO | Comprehensive SEO and AI visibility data | Google Search, Google's AI, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity | Live at $0.002/query, Priority at $0.0012/query, Standard at $0.0006/query |
| Ahrefs API | Largest index of live backlinks and search data | Google Search, Google's AI, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot | Bundled into platform plans, $129 to $1,449/month |
| SerpAPI | Richest structured SERP data and broadest search engine coverage | Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon, YouTube, and more | Free tier at 250 searches/month; paid plans from $25/month for 1,000 searches |
cloro
- Best for: Developers who want raw search and AI visibility data piped into their own warehouse, rather than a hosted UI
- Platforms supported: Google Search, Google News, AI Overview, AI Mode, Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot
- Pricing: Free plan with 50 monthly credits; paid plans between $30 to $500+ per month
Managing multiple AI model API integrations (like the OpenAI API and Google Gemini API) can quickly become expensive and difficult to maintain.
cloro solves this by providing a unified API that aggregates structured data from Google Search and major AI platforms, including AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
This allows you to monitor both traditional search results and AI-generated responses through a single integration.
Key features
- One API, all AI engines. Pull structured data from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overview/Mode, and Google Search/News in one integration.
- Clean structured output. Returns JSON with text/markdown/HTML plus parsed sources, citations, and shopping data — not raw model responses.
- Global + local targeting. Query by country, with added US state-level targeting for major providers.
- Fast and reliable. ~30-45 second responses, automatic retries, 99.99% uptime at scale (1B+ monthly calls).
- Scalable credit-based pricing: Free tier plus paid tiers where cost per credit drops as usage grows.
Drawbacks
cloro doesn’t give you classic SEO metrics like search volume, domain rating or authority, and backlink data.
Also, there’s currently no MCP server available (they’re launching it soon). So, connecting to Claude Code and other AI agents is a bit complicated. It’s more suitable for tech-savvy users.
How to connect cloro to Claude Code
You’ll have to use the API key to integrate with Claude Code. Simply create an account and go to API keys → Create API key.
Then give Claude your API key, along with a link to cloro’s API endpoint documentation, and ask it to connect with cloro.
Since cloro has no MCP server, Claude Code can’t discover its endpoints on its own, so pointing it to the docs upfront means it can write the correct request format for whichever engine you’re querying, rather than guessing at parameters.
DataForSEO
- Best for: SEO agencies and in-house teams running SEO and GEO workflows daily through Claude Code
- Platforms supported: Google Search, AI Overview, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity
- Pricing: Live mode at $0.002/query for real-time results, Priority at $0.0012/query, and Standard at $0.0006/query for queued requests. $50 minimum payment, $1 free trial credit to start
DataForSEO is an API provider we use at Position Digital. It offers affordable, pay-as-you-go pricing, plugs seamlessly into Claude Code, and provides a wide range of APIs for different use cases.
Simply connect the MCP server to Claude Code, and you can pull almost any SEO and AI search data you need:
- SERP data across Google Search, AI Overview, and AI Mode
- Keyword research and search volume, pulled from Google Ads data
- Backlink analysis, including new and lost link tracking
- On-page technical audits
- Business and local SEO data, including Google Business Profile and reviews
- Merchant and shopping data
- An AI Optimization API tracking citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity
It’s now wired into pretty much every SEO and AI search workflow we run, from pulling SERP and AI Overview data for client visibility reports to scraping YouTube SERPs and analyzing the transcripts for content ideas.
Key features
- Pay-as-you-go pricing. Most AI visibility tracking tools I’ve come across charge enterprise prices for AI visibility tracking and still don’t cover all the major models. DataForSEO does, at a fraction of the cost, and it feeds straight into our GEO work.
- Comprehensive SEO metrics. SERP, keyword volume, backlinks, on-page audits, and business data all live under one account, so you’re not stitching together five vendors for five data types.
- AI Optimization API. Tracks brand and competitor mentions inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, plus AI Overview and AI Mode through the SERP API, so classic rankings and AI citations come from the same provider.
- Official MCP server. Unlike cloro, DataForSEO ships a first-party MCP server, so Claude Code discovers and calls its tools natively instead of running a script you wrote yourself.
Drawbacks
DataForSEO’s backlink index (up to 2 trillion live backlinks) is much smaller than Ahrefs (around 35 trillion backlinks). This is a real limitation for agencies where backlink analysis is the primary use case.
How to connect DataForSEO to Claude Code
- Open Claude Code and go to Customize → Connectors → Add → Add custom connector.
- Give the server a name, then paste this URL into the “Remote MCP Server URL” field: https://mcp.dataforseo.com/mcp.
- Click Add and connect.
Ahrefs API
- Best for: SEO agencies whose core deliverable is backlink and competitive link analysis
- Platforms supported: Google Search, AI Overview, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot
- Pricing: Ahrefs API access is bundled into regular plans: from $129/month to $1,449/month
Ahrefs is an established name in the SEO software industry, known for its large search data.
It has the largest index of live backlinks and the most active SEO crawler, visiting over 8 billion web pages every 24 hours.
And now, marketers can gain access to that data through the Ahrefs MCP.
Instead of logging into the dashboard every time you need a competitor’s backlink profile or a domain rating trend, you can just ask Claude Code directly.
That said, Ahrefs is still built as a full SaaS platform first, with the API and MCP layered on top.
So, it’s definitely more expensive than API-first providers like DataForSEO or cloro, where the raw data is the entire product.
Key features
- Largest mainstream backlink index. Referring domains, anchor text distribution, and historical link data at a depth few competitors match.
- Domain Rating and URL Rating. Widely recognized authority metrics that clients and prospects already trust, so reports built on them need less explaining.
- Brand Radar. AI citation tracking bolted onto the classic SEO suite, though it’s an add-on layer rather than a purpose-built GEO API like cloro.
- Official MCP server. A hosted, OAuth-based connector, no local install or API key juggling required to query it from Claude Code.
Drawbacks
Expensive relative to the rest of this list. So unless you need deep backlink data, it’s better to go with other cheaper API providers.
How to connect Ahrefs API to Claude Code
The Ahrefs MCP is available in Claude’s Connectors directory.
You just need to open Customize → Connectors → Add → Browse connectors and search for Ahrefs.
SerpAPI
- Best for: Marketing teams that need broad coverage across dozens of search engines
- Platforms supported: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Amazon, YouTube, eBay, Instagram, Facebook, Trip Advisor, and more
- Pricing: Free tier at 250 searches/month; paid plans start at $25/month for 1,000 searches, scaling up through higher-volume tiers
SerpAPI returned the highest structured-data richness score of any provider tested, according to an independent benchmark.
Sitelinks, publication dates, People Also Ask, video results, all parsed and ready to use with no post-processing required.
It also had the highest AI Overview detection rate in that same test, catching AI Overview data on 68% of queries where a competitor’s API missed it.
But that completeness comes at a price. Per-search costs run meaningfully higher than DataForSEO’s pay-as-you-go rates.
Key features
- Richest structured SERP output in independent testing. Sitelinks, dates, PAA, video results, and AI Overview data all parsed in one response.
- Broadest non-Google engine coverage on this list. Bing, Amazon, YouTube, Yelp, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and dozens more, useful if your monitoring needs go beyond Google.
- Fast response times. Roughly 1.96 seconds average in the same benchmark, close to real-time.
- A genuine Claude Code plugin, not just MCP. SerpApi ships both a hosted MCP server and a lighter, native Claude Code plugin with no server process to run, the only provider on this list offering that second option.
Drawbacks
No dedicated AI-engine visibility tracking besides AI Overview and AI Mode.
How to connect SerpApi to Claude Code
SerpApi offers two paths, and which one to use depends on your setup:
- Option 1: MCP server (better if you also use Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code alongside Claude Code)
- Option 2: Claude Code plugin (simpler if Claude Code is your only environment, no server to run or manage)
Turn Insights into Results With Position Digital
SEO APIs give you valuable data. But turning that data into higher search rankings, AI citations, and revenue is what matters most.
That’s exactly what we do at Position Digital. We use these SEO and GEO APIs every day to identify opportunities, track performance, and optimize our clients’ visibility across both traditional search and AI-powered search experiences.
If you’d rather have an experienced team manage your SEO and AI search strategy, get in touch with our team today. We’d be happy to discuss how we can help your brand grow its organic visibility and AI search presence.
