Claude SEO: SEO Skill for Claude Code

Claude SEO is an open-source SEO analysis plugin for Claude Code. It runs 25 sub-skills and 18 specialist agents in parallel across technical SEO, content quality (E-E-A-T), Schema.org markup, AI search optimization (GEO), local SEO, e-commerce, and international SEO. Every audit produces a prioritized action plan with testable recommendations grounded in primary-source guidance from Google.

<img src="https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg" alt="CI" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Claude%20Code-Skill-blue" alt="Claude Code Skill" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg" alt="License: MIT" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />
<img src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo" alt="Version" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/tests-410%20passing-brightgreen" alt="Tests" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/AI%20Marketing%20Hub-Pro%20community-purple" alt="Community" class="ra0-md-img" loading="lazy" />

> Two versions of this skill.
> - 🌐 Public open-source → <code class="ra0-md-code">AgriciDaniel/claude-seo</code>: MIT, public releases, no membership. Use this if you want stable + downloadable.
> - 🔒 Community private mirror → <code class="ra0-md-code">AI-Marketing-Hub/claude-seo</code>: early access to upcoming features and direct collaboration with the AI Marketing Hub Pro community. Requires membership.

Why Claude SEO

• AI-search first. Aligned with Google's AI Optimization Guide. Question-based citability scoring, primary-source evidence on llms.txt, IPTC TrainedAlgorithmicMedia for AI-generated product images, agent-friendly page checks per web.dev.
• Parallel execution. Full site audits spawn up to 15 specialist agents simultaneously. Site-level audits complete in minutes rather than hours.
• Falsifiable, not promotional. Every recommendation carries the first-principle observation it rests on, its dependency relationships, an explicit "how would we know this failed?" check, and a leading indicator. See Methodology.

Real results

Google Search Console for a site started 23 March 2026 and run on this workflow: total clicks and impressions across its first three months, through 12 June 2026.

> Using Codex instead of Claude Code? Use Codex SEO, the Codex-first port with TOML agents, plugin packaging, deterministic runners, and the same SEO workflow surface.

Who this is for

• SEO agencies running 5+ client sites. Replace quarterly deep audits with weekly automated runs. Same team capacity, 4× audit cadence, every recommendation comes with a falsifiability check the client can verify.
• In-house SEO leads at SaaS / publisher / e-commerce companies. Second-pair-of-eyes before executive reviews. Catches what GSC and Lighthouse hide: schema deprecation, AI-citability gaps, expired-domain heritage risk, parasite-SEO exposure, machine-translation drift.
• Freelance SEO consultants. Anchor day-one client scope with a 15-minute audit and a real 0-100 score. Win the engagement with concrete proof of value before you spend an hour writing the proposal.

Run a full audit and watch parallel agents fan out across the site:

Watch the full demo on YouTube

Table of Contents

• Who this is for
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Commands
• Features
• Compared to manual / agency / commercial tools
• Use cases
• Sample Output
• Architecture
• Methodology
• What's New in v2
• Limitations
• Requirements
• Uninstall
• Extensions
• Ecosystem
• Documentation
• FAQ
• Community Contributors
• License
• Contributing
• Author

Installation

> ℹ️ Which version are you installing?
>
> - Public open-source (default). The commands below install from <code class="ra0-md-code">AgriciDaniel/claude-seo</code> — MIT, public releases, no membership required.
> - AI Marketing Hub Pro member? Install the community version with early access instead: swap AgriciDaniel/claude-seo for AI-Marketing-Hub/claude-seo and the plugin slug claude-seo@agricidaniel-claude-seo for claude-seo@ai-marketing-hub-claude-seo. Requires gh auth login (or PAT) with access to the AI-Marketing-Hub org. If /plugin marketplace add 404s, DM in the Skool community to get added.

Plugin Install (Claude Code 1.0.33+)

The fastest path. One-time marketplace add, then plugin install:

/plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-seo
/plugin install claude-seo@agricidaniel-claude-seo
/seo setup

The explicit setup step creates an isolated Python environment in Claude's
persistent plugin data and installs Playwright Chromium. Check it at any time
with /seo doctor. No global Python packages or PATH shims are created.

Manual Install (Unix / macOS / Linux)

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo.git
bash claude-seo/install.sh

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/main/install.sh > install.sh
cat install.sh        # review before running
bash install.sh
rm install.sh

Windows (PowerShell)

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo.git
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File claude-seoinstall.ps1

> Why git clone instead of irm | iex? Claude Code's own security guardrails flag irm ... | iex as a supply chain risk: downloading and executing remote code without verification. The git clone approach lets you inspect claude-seoinstall.ps1 before running it.

Quick Start

# Start Claude Code
claude

# Full site audit: parallel sub-agents produce a prioritized action plan
/seo audit https://example.com

# Deep single-page analysis: on-page elements, content quality, schema
/seo page https://example.com/about

# Schema markup audit: detect, validate, generate
/seo schema https://example.com

# AI search optimization: passage citability + primary-source-aligned recommendations
/seo geo https://example.com

# Generate a sitemap with industry templates
/seo sitemap generate

Commands

32 user-invocable /seo commands across the orchestrator, its sub-skills, and 8 MCP extensions. Full reference in docs/COMMANDS.md.

Features

What Core Web Vitals does Claude SEO check?

Claude SEO measures the current three Core Web Vitals: LCP (Largest Contentful Paint, target under 2.5s), INP (Interaction to Next Paint, target under 200ms), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift, target under 0.1). INP replaced FID on March 12, 2024; FID was removed from Chrome's field-data tools (CrUX API, PageSpeed Insights) on September 9, 2024 (Lighthouse is a lab tool and never reported FID), and Claude SEO never references FID. Field data comes from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) when available; lab data falls back to Lighthouse via PageSpeed Insights. LCP can be decomposed into subparts (TTFB, load delay, load duration, render delay) via the /seo google CrUX integration to localize bottlenecks. Mobile and desktop are measured separately. CrUX History (25-week trend) is included in the Tier 0 free credential set.

How does Claude SEO assess E-E-A-T?

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is evaluated against the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, last updated September 2025 with YMYL expanded to include political and social topics. Experience signals: original research, case studies, first-hand photos. Expertise: author credentials and topical depth. Authoritativeness: external citations and brand mentions. Trustworthiness, the most heavily weighted of the four: contact info, secure HTTPS, transparent corrections, date stamps. Before scoring sub-factors, Claude SEO applies Google's own Who / How / Why heuristic from the helpful-content guide. Generative AI content is fine if it meets Search Essentials; it crosses into spam when used to scale low-value pages, which seo-content humanize and seo-content verify are designed to detect.

What Schema.org types does Claude SEO support?

JSON-LD is the preferred format (Google's stated preference). Claude SEO detects, validates, and generates the active Schema.org types documented in skills/seo/references/schema-types.md, including organization, article, product, local, event, job, course, software/application, service, Q&A, and video patterns. FAQPage: Google stopped showing FAQ rich results for all sites on May 7, 2026; it has no Google rich-result benefit. Keep it only for non-Google or internal semantics if needed. Deprecated and never recommended: HowTo (rich results removed September 2023), SpecialAnnouncement (July 2025), ClaimReview, VehicleListing, EstimatedSalary, LearningVideo, CourseInfo carousel (all retired June 2025). Replacement guidance: skills/seo-schema/references/deprecated-types-2024-2026.md.

How does Claude SEO optimize for AI search?

Aligned with Google's AI Optimization Guide, which states that "AEO" and "GEO" are rebranded labels for SEO. AI Overviews and AI Mode are grounded in the same ranking systems as classic Search; pages must be indexed and eligible for snippet display to appear in any AI feature. Claude SEO scores passage citability (optimal 134-167 word self-contained answer blocks), question-based heading hierarchy, attribution density, structured data coverage, and entity presence across Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The seo-geo skill includes evidence-based reframes of three popular myths: llms.txt is not currently a citation lever (primary-source evidence), content chunking is not required, and AI-specific keyword rewriting is unnecessary because synonym understanding is sufficient.

Which Google SEO APIs does Claude SEO integrate with?

A 4-tier credential system lets you start with zero keys and add data as needed. Every tier delivers real value at its level:

PDF reports are generated via WeasyPrint (A4 layout) with matplotlib charts at 200 DPI. Run /seo google setup for the credential wizard. All credentials live under ~/.config/claude-seo/ with 0o600 permissions; nothing is checked into the repo.

How does Claude SEO handle local SEO?

Three layers. Google Business Profile signals: categories, hours, photos, posts, products, attributes. NAP consistency across citations: name, address, phone matched against major directories with deviation flagging. Review intelligence: rating trends, sentiment, response coverage. For multi-location businesses, Claude SEO enforces a 30-page warning threshold and a 50-page hard stop to prevent doorway-page violations (configurable). The /seo maps workflow adds geo-grid rank tracking, GBP profile auditing, and competitor radius mapping. Local schema generation covers LocalBusiness with all required and recommended properties (geo coordinates, opening hours, areaServed). Phase F (v2) added a GBP deprecation linter that detects retired chat-field references and .business.site URLs.

Compared to manual / agency / commercial tools

> Cost benchmarks: manual audit assumes a senior SEO consultant at typical agency billable rates; agency engagement based on common discovery/audit deliverable scopes; commercial-tool subscriptions reflect published mid-tier pricing across the SEO audit category (Ahrefs, Semrush, Sitebulb, Screaming Frog). Your numbers may differ.

Use cases

SEO agency lead running 10 client sites. Replaces the quarterly "deep audit" ritual with a weekly Monday-morning /seo audit run per site. Time to deliver a client health-score email drops from 4 hours to 12 minutes; coverage goes from quarterly to weekly without billing more hours. The drift baseline catches regressions between audits so the client conversation moves from "look at this snapshot" to "here is what changed this week."

In-house SEO lead at a 50-person SaaS company. Runs /seo audit 24 hours before each quarterly business review. Catches the items the platform UI buries (broken canonical chains on programmatic pages, schema deprecation after Google's June 2025 retirement wave, AI-citability gaps that erode SERP-to-AI-Overview pickup, expired-domain heritage on acquired blog assets) before the CMO asks why organic traffic is down in front of the board.

Freelance SEO consultant onboarding a new client. Runs /seo audit on the discovery call. Anchors the engagement scope with a real 0-100 score, 3 prioritized critical findings, and a falsifiability check on each recommendation, instead of a vague "I'll take a look and get back to you." Closes more retainers because the proof of value happens during the call, not after the proposal.

Sample Output

Claude SEO writes real markdown reports as its primary deliverable. Below is the first ~50 lines of a /seo schema https://rankenstein.pro/about audit verbatim. The actual structure, headers, and grading format the plugin produces follows.

# Schema Markup Report: rankenstein.pro/about

**URL:** https://rankenstein.pro/about
**Date:** 2026-02-09
**Format Detected:** JSON-LD (3 blocks) | No Microdata | No RDFa

---

## Summary

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| **JSON-LD Blocks** | 3 |
| **Schema Types** | Organization, WebSite, SoftwareApplication |
| **Critical Issues** | 2 |
| **Warnings** | 5 |
| **Passed Checks** | 18 |
| **Overall Grade** | B+ (solid foundation, actionable gaps) |

---

## Existing Schema Validation

### 1. Organization (`@id: #organization`)

| Property | Value | Status | Notes |
|----------|-------|--------|-------|
| `@context` | https://schema.org | Valid | |
| `@type` | Organization | Valid | Active type |
| `@id` | https://rankenstein.pro#organization | Good | Enables cross-referencing |
| `name` | Rankenstein | Valid | |
| `description` | Present, 200+ chars | Good | Descriptive and keyword-rich |
| `url` | https://rankenstein.pro | Valid | Absolute URL |
| `logo` | ImageObject with @id, url, width, height, caption | Excellent | Well-structured |
| `foundingDate` | "2024" | Imprecise | Year-only accepted but ISO 8601 preferred |
| `areaServed` | "Worldwide" | Text | Works but `GeoShape` is more semantic |
| `contactPoint` | email + contactType | Valid | Consider adding `telephone` |
| `founder` | 1 Person (Daniel Agrici) | Incomplete | Page describes two co-founders; second missing |
| `sameAs` | 5 social profiles | Good | GitHub, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit |
| `knowsAbout` | 6 topics | Good | Relevant topical signals |

**Critical Issue:** The `founder` property only includes Daniel Agrici. Benjamin Samar (Co-Founder & Technical Director) is displayed on the page but absent from the schema. This creates a content-schema mismatch that can confuse search engines.

Other audit outputs follow the same shape: FULL-AUDIT-REPORT.md (umbrella audit), GEO-ANALYSIS.md (AI-search readiness), LOCAL-SEO-ANALYSIS.md (GBP and citations), and a production PDF via WeasyPrint + matplotlib (cover, TOC, executive summary, data sections, recommendations, methodology, roughly 32 A4 pages for a full site audit).

Architecture

The plugin follows the Agent Skills standard with a 3-layer architecture (directive, orchestration, execution). Skills and agents are auto-discovered from skills/seo-/ and agents/seo-.md. The orchestrator (skills/seo/SKILL.md) handles industry detection (SaaS, local, ecommerce, publisher, agency), parallel sub-agent dispatch up to 15 simultaneously, and synthesis through the 10-principle framework before emitting the action plan. Full architecture: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Methodology

Every audit walks 10 principles grouped into four phases. Each emitted recommendation carries four fields: the first-principle observation it rests on, its dependency relationship to other recommendations, a "how would we know this failed?" check, and a leading indicator to monitor.

Full methodology: skills/seo/references/thinking-framework.md.

What's New in v2

v2.0.0 is the largest release in the plugin's history. Six build phases, all shipped:

• Phase A: Headless rendering everywhere. Shared scripts/render_page.py with Playwright Chromium plus trafilatura and htmldate. Every audit subagent gets SPA-aware fetching via --render auto (auto-detected on Next.js, React, Vue, Nuxt, Astro islands). Closes the SPA limitation that capped v1.x.
• Phase B: QRG-aligned content quality gates. Filler detector and AI-pattern humanizer keyed to QRG §4.6.5 and §4.6.6, claim-verification scanner, expired-domain heritage check via WHOIS, primary-source Google updates changelog.
• Phase C: Technical and CWV depth. LCP subparts via CrUX (TTFB, load delay, load duration, render delay), Speculation Rules and bfcache detection, IndexNow submitter for Bing / Yandex / Seznam / Naver, Unlighthouse multi-page Lighthouse wrapper.
• Phase D: Schema completeness. Four explicit generators (Reservation, OrderAction, DiscussionForumPosting, ProfilePage), e-commerce schema validator (hasMerchantReturnPolicy, shippingDetails, MemberProgram, EU energyEfficiencyClass, ProductGroup variants), dual validator (Rich Results Test plus Schema Markup Validator).
• Phase E: AI search reframing and 5 new MCP extensions. Ahrefs, SE Ranking (AI Share-of-Voice), Profound (LLM citation tracker), Bing Webmaster plus IndexNow, Unlighthouse. Plus the parasite-SEO risk scanner per Google's November 2024 site reputation abuse policy.
• Phase F: Local, international, and privacy polish. Google Business Profile deprecation linter (chat field and .business.site URLs, with Q&A treated as category/region-limited), DMA consent-mode-v2 click-through diagnostic, machine-translation QA flag per January 2025 QRG.

Test coverage grew from 39 (v1.9.9) to 410 across the v2 line; the url_safety suite alone runs 91 SSRF and DNS-rebinding bypass cases, closing the obfuscated-IPv4, FQDN-trailing-dot, and redirect-rebinding bypass classes. Full migration notes and breaking changes: docs/MIGRATION-v1-to-v2.md.

Since v2.0.0

• v2.1.0 (May 2026): currency refresh. May 2026 core update, Google I/O 2026 (custom version of Gemini 2.5 powers AI Mode), FAQ rich results retired 2026-05-07 (QAPage remains the type for genuine Q&A pages, FAQ markup itself just no longer yields rich results).
• v2.2.0 (June 2026): security + portability. Installer credential-injection fix, SSRF authority-confusion bypass closed, Google API keys moved to the X-Goog-Api-Key header, secret-scan CI gate, Windows/macOS fixes; suite at 326.
• v2.2.1 (June 2026): Google-currency reconfirmation + full command audit. Lighthouse 13.4.0 with the new Agentic Browsing category, Google Search ignores llms.txt, an internally-reweighted E-E-A-T scorecard (Trust highest, per Google's 'trust is most important'); every /seo command and subcommand audited and COMMANDS.md brought to 100% coverage.
• v2.2.2 (July 2026): full-review maintenance. Corrected GBP Q&A handling, AI Mode model naming, image-model IDs, hook input behavior, and added a strict reference-graph consistency gate.
• v2.2.3 (July 2026): prompt-hygiene alignment. Normalized emphasis and punctuation across the prompt surface without changing behavior, routing, or output contracts.
• v2.2.4 (July 2026): community maintenance. Added the managed cross-platform runtime and safe sitemap discovery, repaired GSC pagination and totals, replaced removed Bing endpoints, fixed extension and Windows portability gaps, and reconciled every open issue and pull request.

Limitations

Two real boundaries worth being upfront about.

Heavy client-side hydration timing. Phase A's headless renderer handles most SPAs out of the box (--render auto detects empty

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo.git
bash claude-seo/uninstall.sh

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo/main/uninstall.sh | bash

./extensions/dataforseo/install.sh   # requires DataForSEO account
/seo dataforseo serp best coffee shops
/seo dataforseo ai-mentions your brand

./extensions/firecrawl/install.sh
/seo firecrawl crawl https://example.com

./extensions/banana/install.sh
/seo image-gen og "Professional SaaS dashboard"