DataForSEO Account Setup

Step-by-step guide to getting DataForSEO API credentials for the Claude SEO extension.

1. Create Account

Go to app.dataforseo.com/register
Sign up with your email address
Verify your email

New accounts include a free trial balance for testing.

2. Find API Credentials

Log in to app.dataforseo.com
Go to API Access in the left sidebar
Your credentials are:
Username: Your registered email address
Password: Your API password (set during registration)

These are the values you'll enter when running the extension installer.

3. Understanding Credits

DataForSEO uses a credit-based system:

Each API call costs a small number of credits
Different endpoints have different costs
Credits are purchased in advance
Monitor usage at app.dataforseo.com/dashboard

Typical costs per call, verified as of 2026-07-10:

Endpoint Type	Approximate Cost
SERP (single query)	$0.001-0.003
Keyword volume (per keyword)	$0.0005-0.002
Backlink summary	$0.002-0.005
Backlink list	$0.005-0.01
On-page crawl (per page)	$0.01-0.05
AI optimization (per call)	$0.05

4. Manual MCP Configuration

If the installer's auto-configuration fails, add this to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dataforseo": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "dataforseo-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "DATAFORSEO_USERNAME": "<account-username>",
        "DATAFORSEO_PASSWORD": "your-api-password",
        "ENABLED_MODULES": "SERP,KEYWORDS_DATA,ONPAGE,DATAFORSEO_LABS,BACKLINKS,DOMAIN_ANALYTICS,BUSINESS_DATA,CONTENT_ANALYSIS,AI_OPTIMIZATION",
        "FIELD_CONFIG_PATH": "/path/to/dataforseo-field-config.json"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace the username, password, and FIELD_CONFIG_PATH with your actual values.

5. Verify Installation

After installing, start Claude Code and run:

/seo dataforseo serp test query

If you see search results, the extension is working correctly.