Connect an AI assistant (MCP)
Connect ChatGPT, Claude or another AI assistant to your store, then work on your SEO by chatting instead of clicking through the app.
What is MCP?
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard AI assistants use to talk to an outside app. Connecting Avada SEO Suite over MCP gives your assistant a set of tools scoped to one store — the one you connect it to. It can look at your SEO data and, if you allow it, change it.
Once connected you can ask things like:
- "Which products are missing a meta description?"
- "What's wrong with this page?" — paste a storefront link
- "Fix the meta title and description on these three pages"
- "Create a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one"
- "Start an alt text run for images that don't have one"
You'll find it in the app under MCP.
Two ways to connect
Which one you use depends on the assistant, not on your preference.
| Sign in with Shopify | Access token | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it's for | ChatGPT, Claude | Editors and terminal assistants |
| How it works | You sign in through your browser and pick what the assistant may do | You paste a token into the client's config file |
| What it can do | Read, and change things if you allow it | Read and change things |
| Set up from | The Connect buttons on the MCP page | The Access tokens card on the MCP page |
The difference is where the limit lives. Signing in lets you decide, per assistant, whether it may change anything. A token has no such screen — whoever holds it can read and change your SEO data. Keep tokens out of shared folders and repositories.
Pick your assistant
| Assistant | Connects with | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Sign-in | Connect ChatGPT |
| Claude (web, desktop, mobile) | Sign-in | Connect Claude |
| Claude Code | Token | Connect Claude Code |
| Cursor | Token | Connect Cursor |
| Gemini CLI | Token | Connect Gemini CLI |
| Codex CLI | Token | Connect Codex CLI |
| Anything else | Token | Other clients |
Where to find your server URL
Every guide starts here.
Open the MCP page
In the Avada SEO Suite app, click MCP in the left menu.
Copy the server URL
Scroll to Setup guide and copy the MCP server URL. It ends with your store domain:
https://…/mcp/s/your-store.myshopify.comThe URL is tied to one store. If you run several stores, each has its own URL and its own connection.
Access tokens
ChatGPT and Claude sign in with your Shopify account. Editors and terminal assistants can't — they have no browser to send you to — so they use an access token instead: a long string you paste into the client's config once.
Which assistants need one
A token is required for — Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Codex CLI, and any other MCP client.
No token needed for — ChatGPT and Claude. They sign in with your Shopify account instead, which is also the only way to decide what they may change.
A token carries full access: a client holding it can read your SEO data and change it — edit meta tags, create redirects, include or exclude sitemap URLs, start optimization runs. There is no permission screen in the way, so treat a token like a password.
Create an access token
Click Create token
On the MCP page, find the Access tokens card and click Create token.
Name it
Give it a Name you'll recognise later — the name is how you find the right token to revoke, so Claude on my laptop beats token 1. A Description is optional and shows in the list.
Copy the token
The token appears once. Copy it now and paste it into your client's config, following the guide for that client from the list above.
Once you close this dialog the token is never shown again. If you lose it, revoke it and create a new one — there is no way to look it up.
Manage your tokens
Where tokens live
The Access tokens card lists every token you've created, with its Name, a masked Value so you can tell them apart, its Access level and when it was Created. Use the search box if the list gets long.
Revoke a token
Click the delete icon on the token's row and confirm. Any client using it loses access to your store straight away, and revoking cannot be undone.
Revoke a token when:
- you no longer use the client it was for
- it was on a computer you no longer have
- you pasted it somewhere it shouldn't be — a shared config file, a screenshot, a chat message
Keeping a token safe
- One token per client, per machine. Sharing one token across several places means revoking it cuts off all of them.
- Don't commit it. A token in a config file in a git repository is a token everyone with repo access has.
- Don't paste it into a chat. Paste it into the client's config file, not into a conversation with the assistant.
What your assistant can do
Reading is always allowed. For ChatGPT and Claude, making changes is a separate permission you tick at sign-in; a token has both from the start.
| What the assistant can reach | |
|---|---|
| Always allowed — reading | Your SEO settings and store overview · pages and products with missing meta tags · sitemap status · broken (404) URLs · speed score · the status of any run it started |
| Changing things | Edit meta titles and descriptions · fix page issues with AI · create 301 redirects · include or exclude sitemap URLs · start an image compression run · start an image alt text run |
Changes go live on your storefront as soon as the assistant makes them, and there is no undo button. Ask the assistant to show you what it plans to change before it saves, and leave the changes permission off if you only want answers.
It doesn't cost you AI credits
Some of this work uses AI — writing alt text for an image, fixing an issue on a page. Done from inside the app, that spends your AI credits. Done through an assistant, it doesn't: AI work you ask an assistant to do is not charged to your AI credit balance.
Your credit balance is only for the AI features you run from the app itself, and an assistant never touches it.
The permission screen
Signing in with ChatGPT or Claude ends on the same screen. It lists what reading covers, then offers one checkbox — Allow ChatGPT to make changes to my store, with the name of whichever assistant you're connecting.
- Leave it unticked — the assistant can answer questions about your SEO but cannot touch anything.
- Tick it — the assistant can also edit meta tags, create redirects, include or exclude sitemap URLs and start optimization runs.
Click Allow to finish.
Manage or disconnect an assistant
Under AI assistants on the MCP page:
- See what's connected — ChatGPT and Claude show a Connected badge and whether they have Read only or Read and write access.
- Change the permission — click Reconnect and run through the sign-in again, ticking or unticking the changes permission.
- Disconnect — click the delete icon next to it. It loses access to your store straight away.
For tokens, see Manage your tokens above.
Disconnect any assistant and revoke any token you no longer use. Both stay valid until you remove them.
Troubleshooting
The MCP page shows "MCP is available on Pro" and no server URL
Your store is on the Free plan. Click the Pro plan link at the top of the page to see what's included, or upgrade from Settings → Subscription. Come back and connect once the upgrade is through.
Nothing happens when I click Connect
Your browser blocked the pop-up. Allow pop-ups for the Shopify admin and click Connect again.
You can also skip the button: copy the MCP server URL from Setup guide and add the connector in your assistant yourself.
ChatGPT or Claude says it can't sign in, or the connector is broken
Two things to check:
- Your assistant's plan. Custom connectors need a paid plan on ChatGPT and on Claude. ChatGPT also needs Developer mode turned on.
- A stale connector. Remove the connector on the assistant's side and add it again — one created against an older setup keeps failing until it is recreated.
My editor or terminal client is refused
Almost always the token. Work through these in order:
- Did you replace
YOUR_TOKEN? The config you copy from Setup guide is a template — the placeholder has to become the real token. - Is the token still there? Check the Access tokens card. A revoked token is gone from the list, and anything using it stops working immediately.
- Did you copy the whole thing? The token is shown once and is long. If it was truncated, revoke it and create a new one.
- Codex CLI only — the token comes from the
AVADA_SEO_MCP_TOKENenvironment variable. Open a new terminal after adding theexportline to your shell profile.
I lost a token
There's no way to look one up — the app stores only a fingerprint. Revoke it on the MCP page and create a new one, then update the client's config.
The assistant answers questions but refuses to change anything
The changes permission wasn't ticked at sign-in. Click Reconnect on the MCP page and tick Allow … to make changes to my store this time.
This applies to ChatGPT and Claude only — a token carries both permissions, so a client using one is never refused for this reason.
The assistant says it can't find a page I pasted
Paste the full storefront URL of the page rather than describing it. If the page was created very recently it may not be synced into the app yet — open it once in SEO Audit, then try again.
The assistant calls a tool that no longer exists
Reconnect it. A client keeps using the tool list it received when it connected, so it can keep calling something that has since been removed until it reconnects and picks up the current list.
I connected the wrong store
Each connection is bound to one store and there's no way to move it. Disconnect it on the MCP page of that store, then connect again from the store you meant.
If you run several stores, give each connector and each token a name that includes the store — neither shows which store it belongs to once it's in your assistant.
Still stuck? Contact support from the app: open MCP → Setup guide → Other clients → Contact us, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of the app.