claude-code-seo

An executable SEO system for Claude Code: a 26-section knowledge base distilled from the most credible practitioners — plus 9 slash commands that turn it into live audits against your real Google Search Console and DataForSEO data.

A while ago I posted in r/SEO about following u/WebLinkr's advice and watching it work on my own site. A bunch of people asked me to share my notes. This is those notes — the full markdown file — plus the part that actually does the work: the Claude Code commands my SEO runs on.

⚠️ Work in progress — read this first

I'm not an SEO professional and I don't claim to be one. This is the working system of someone who reads, tries things on his own sites, keeps what survives contact with GSC, and deletes what doesn't. There is almost certainly still some dumb-ass shit in here.

If you actually know SEO: please tear it apart. Open an issue telling me which section is wrong and why, or send a PR that fixes it. Corrections with evidence (a test, a SERP, a primary source) beat opinions — but I'll take opinions too. That's the whole point of making this public.

What's different about this

Most SEO content tells you what to think. This repo is built to run:

/seo-analyze yourdomain.com

…pulls your last 90 days of GSC data, computes your proven ranking ceiling (the highest keyword difficulty you already rank top-7 for — instead of gating everything on DR), clusters your real authority, validates candidates against live SERPs, and hands you 3-5 concrete picks with titles, slugs, and an internal-link wiring plan.

No dashboard, no subscription, no "content score". Claude Code + two MCP servers + a methodology that fits in one markdown file.

What's inside

knowledge-base/
└── seo-knowledge-base.md   The full methodology. 26 sections: Topical Authority,
                            PageRank mechanics, the biggest SEO myths, link building,
                            LLM/AI-search visibility (Query Fan-Out), BoF strategy,
                            Thin Starter Pages, Authority Shaping, the Re-Evaluation
                            republish hack, pSEO, CTR-as-signal, backlink quality —
                            down to the T*/Q*/P* ranking architecture confirmed by
                            the May 2024 Google leak and DOJ trial testimony — plus
                            field notes from experiments on my own sites, with the
                            actual numbers (Section 27).
commands/                   9 slash commands for Claude Code:
├── seo-analyze.md          The front door: proven authority map + next 3-5 topics
├── seo-quick-wins.md       Pos 4-15 keywords one push from page one (+ country-split truth)
├── seo-next-content.md     Publish-ready briefs: slug, title, outline, link wiring in+out
├── seo-product-facts.md    Live code-extraction of product facts so briefs never invent features
├── seo-cluster-expand.md   Semantic neighborhood scouting around a seed keyword
├── seo-re-eval.md          Old pages worth republishing (NavBoost 13-month window)
├── seo-cannibal.md         Pages competing against each other, with merge/differentiate calls
├── seo-llm-audit.md        Where LLMs cite you invisibly (Pos 1-10, zero clicks)
└── seo-link-vet.md         Vet a backlink/exchange offer: real traffic, niche fit, or link farm?
docs/
├── setup.md                MCP setup (GSC free, DataForSEO pay-per-call) — 15 minutes
└── workflow.md             How the commands chain into one loop, with cadence

Quickstart

1. Install the commands — copy commands/*.md to ~/.claude/commands/
2. Connect the data — two MCP servers, see docs/setup.md (GSC is free; DataForSEO is prepaid pay-per-call, each command run costs $0–0.18 — no subscription, and no Backlinks API needed)
3. Run it — /seo-analyze yourdomain.com

Then follow the loop in docs/workflow.md: publish into proven authority, push what's almost there, republish what got stuck.

The ideas that carry the system

1. Authority is page-level and proven, not a domain score. "DA/DR is a homepage assumption, not inherited by every page." Your difficulty bar is what you already rank for — measured, not estimated. (Sections 1, 25)
2. Bottom-of-funnel first. "X vs Y", "best X for Y", 400-800 words. Top-of-funnel CTR has cratered in the AI-Overview era; BoF converts. (Section 9)
3. Internal links are plumbing. Authority flows from high-click hubs to Pos-4-20 pages, mid-paragraph, descriptive anchors — never to pages that already won, never to pages that aren't ready. (Sections 5, 17)
4. Publish thin, expand on proof. 200-400 word starter pages; GSC tells you within weeks what deserves depth. (Section 18)
5. LLM visibility is a GSC pattern, not a new discipline. LLMs Google your niche and cite whoever ranks for the fan-out queries — Pos 1-10 with zero clicks is the signature. (Sections 7, 8B)
6. Never invent product facts. Briefs ground every claim in a live read of your product's code, with file:line provenance. Honest limitations beat fake features — especially once LLMs start repeating you. (/seo-product-facts)

Sources & credit

More people deserve credit for this than I can trace — that's the honest version. I got to essentially all of it through u/WebLinkr, who has been generous enough to share everything freely across years of r/SEO comments, posts, and links. This file would not exist without that. Through him I found the rest of the sources distilled here: David Quaid's Topical Authority / Query Fan-Out frameworks, Bill Hartzer, SEO Pub, Google's own statements (Matt Cutts, official docs), sworn DOJ-trial testimony (Pandu Nayak, HJ Kim, Eric Lehman), and the May 2024 Google Content-Warehouse leak. Errors of distillation are mine. None of this is affiliated with or endorsed by them — and if you see your idea here uncredited, open an issue and I'll fix the attribution.

Battle-tested on my own bootstrapped projects, including queryglow.com — where this exact loop took a zero-authority domain to page-one rankings in its niche.

FAQ

Do I need Claude Code specifically? The commands are written for it (slash commands + MCP). The knowledge base is plain markdown — useful with any agent or none.

What does it cost to run? GSC API: free. DataForSEO: prepaid credit, $0.02–0.18 per command run (each command lists its cost). A month of weekly audits costs less than a coffee.

Is this "AI SEO slop"? The opposite. The commands force honesty: country-split truth before celebrating rankings, "0 quick wins exist" when none do, and product claims only from code. The methodology section on AI slop is one of the longer ones.

Can I use this for my company's sites / my freelance work? Yes — use it to do SEO for any site you work on. The license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) draws the line at selling the material itself: no repackaging it into a paid product, course, ebook, or service, no building a business on distributing it. Share improvements under the same license.

License? CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — free to use, share, and adapt. Not free to sell.