crawlgraph-mcp

MCP server for the CrawlGraph backlink-intelligence API. Gives any MCP client — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Zed, Windsurf — backlink lookups and competitor gap analysis built on the public Common Crawl webgraph (4.4B edges, 120M domains).

Backlink data without the $129/month subscription. CrawlGraph is $99 lifetime; API access is included on the lifetime tier.

What you can do

• backlinks — every referring domain for a target, with authority scores
• gap_analysis — domains linking to your competitors but not to you
• gap_outreach_targets — the warm-outreach play: the domains that link to all of your competitors but not to you, ranked and de-noised. These are publishers who cover your whole space and have simply never heard of you — the warmest backlink targets you will ever pitch.
• releases — list the Common Crawl snapshots you can query

The outreach play, in one prompt

Once it's connected, you don't call the tools by hand — you describe the goal:

"Use gap_outreach_targets for mydomain.com against competitor-a.com and competitor-b.com, then draft a short, specific outreach email to each priority target."

Behind the scenes the server submits the gap job, polls until it completes, filters the results down to the domains that link to every competitor but not to you, strips out platform/CDN noise (amazonaws, github, facebook, ...), and hands your agent a clean ranked list to write outreach against.

Why 2-3 competitors, not one: a site linking to one competitor might be a fluke or a paid placement. A site linking to three of your competitors is a publisher who covers your whole category. That overlap is the qualifier.

Tools reference

Lifetime quota: 1,000 backlinks calls + 50 gap jobs per calendar month. Full API reference: crawlgraph.com/docs/api.

Develop

npm install
npm run build
CRAWLGRAPH_API_KEY=cg_live_... npm start

Install

You need a CrawlGraph API key (cg_live_...). Free tier: 15 backlink calls/month, no card - get a key emailed to you at crawlgraph.com/docs/api. The gap_analysis and gap_outreach_targets tools need the $99 lifetime tier (1,000 calls + 50 gap analyses/month, no subscription).

Claude Desktop / Claude Code

Add to your MCP config (claude_desktop_config.json, or .mcp.json for Claude Code):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "crawlgraph": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "crawlgraph-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "CRAWLGRAPH_API_KEY": "cg_live_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor / Windsurf / Cline / Zed

Same shape — point the client's MCP config at npx -y crawlgraph-mcp with CRAWLGRAPH_API_KEY in the env. Restart the client and the four tools appear.

Configuration

Limitations

CrawlGraph is a quarterly Common Crawl snapshot, not a live crawler. It's built for one-off competitor prospecting, not live backlink monitoring — for change-tracking within days, a continuous-crawl tool like Ahrefs is the right choice. The gap result carries which competitors each domain links to (found_on) but not per-domain authority; use the backlinks tool if you need to score an individual target.

License

MIT