How to Connect Semrush to Gemini via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → Semrush, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

Semrush + Gemini

Give your AI Semrush SEO data: domain overview and history, organic and paid keywords, competitors, keyword gap, keyword volume, difficulty and ideas, URL rankings and backlinks, with the API unit cost of every report.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

SEMRUSH_API_KEY

Step 1 — Get credentials

1. API access needs a Semrush SEO Business subscription plus an API units package, bought under Subscription info → API units (https://www.semrush.com/accounts/subscription-info/api-units/). A new Business plan starts with zero units.
2. Open https://www.semrush.com/accounts/api-keys/active and copy an active v3 API key.
3. Paste it into SEMRUSH_API_KEY and install the connector. The key is stored encrypted, added to each request by the connector and sent only to semrush.com.
4. Start with semrush_get_api_units: it is free and shows how many API units the key has left.

Paid from your own Semrush API units: every report spends API units from your Semrush account, per line returned. It costs 10 units per line for the domain overview and its history, organic keywords, ranking pages, the keywords of a URL and the Google top 100 of a keyword (10 per keyword in a batch overview); 20 per line for paid keywords and broad-match ideas; 40 per line for organic competitors, related keywords, question keywords, backlinks and referring domains (40 per request for the backlinks overview); 50 per keyword for Keyword Difficulty; and 80 per line for Keyword Gap. Historical data with display_date costs five times as much. Reports return 10 lines unless you ask for more, and the AI raises that only when you need it. Fewer columns make a shorter answer but do not lower the price. When units run short, Semrush returns only the lines that were paid for.

Watch the all-country keyword report: semrush_keyword_overview_all_databases returns one line per country and cannot be limited: about 140 lines, up to 1,400 units. For one market, semrush_keyword_overview costs 10.

What it does: Domain Overview and its monthly history, in one country or in all of them; Organic and Advertising Research (the keywords a domain ranks for or buys Google Ads on); organic competitors and the pages that rank; Keyword Gap across up to five domains (shared, missing, unique and untapped keywords); volume, CPC, competition, intent, trend and Keyword Difficulty of one keyword or up to 100 at once; related, broad-match and question keywords; the Google top 100 Semrush recorded for a keyword; the keywords of a single URL; and Backlink Analytics with Authority Score, backlinks and referring domains. Every tool only reads.

Databases and filters: database is a two-letter country code (us, uk, de, it, fr, es and more). Mobile (mobile-us) and extended (us-ext) databases exist for domain reports only. Filters such as "volume above 1,000" or "positions 1 to 10" are sent in Semrush's own filter syntax, encoded by the connector.

Reading the answers: Semrush answers in semicolon-separated CSV with a header line and its column codes (Ph keyword, Po position, Nq search volume, Cp CPC in USD, Kd Keyword Difficulty, In intent and so on). The AI reads the codes for you.

Common errors: ERROR 50 :: NOTHING FOUND means Semrush has no data for this domain, keyword or database; check the spelling and the database rather than retrying. ERROR 120, 122 or 402: the API key is wrong; copy it again. ERROR 130 :: API DISABLED: the subscription has no API access. ERROR 132: no API units left (the backlinks reports also answer it for a key Semrush does not know). ERROR 133: the plan does not include this database. ERROR 429: too many requests at once; wait a moment.

The connector does not cover Projects, Position Tracking or Site Audit, the Trends (traffic) API, the Local and Listing Management APIs, or subdomain and subfolder reports.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Gemini

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Gemini CLI reads MCP servers from ~/.gemini/settings.json (on Windows %USERPROFILE%\.gemini\settings.json). Add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "anythingmcp": {
      "httpUrl": "https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID",
      "headers": { "X-API-Key": "YOUR_MCP_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

1. Create an MCP API key in AnythingMCP under MCP Servers → your server → API keys, and paste it in place of YOUR_MCP_API_KEY.
2. Save the file and restart gemini.
3. Run /mcp inside Gemini CLI (or gemini mcp list in your shell): anythingmcp should show as connected.
4. Start prompting: Gemini CLI can now call the Semrush tools.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Give me the Semrush domain overview of example.com in the German database and how its organic traffic changed month by month this year."
• "Run a keyword gap between example.com, competitor-a.com and competitor-b.com in the US database: which keywords do they rank for in the top 10 that we miss? 20 lines."
• "Find question keywords around 'heat pump' with more than 500 searches a month, then check their keyword difficulty."
• "Show the backlinks overview and Authority Score of competitor-a.com and its 20 strongest referring domains."
• "How many Semrush API units do we have left?"

FAQ

Where does Gemini CLI look for MCP servers? In ~/.gemini/settings.json for your user, or in .gemini/settings.json inside a project. gemini mcp list shows each server and whether it connects.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT