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What is MCP? The Model Context Protocol explained

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standard, introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, for connecting AI applications to external systems. An MCP server exposes tools, resources and prompts that an AI app can discover and use.

Also called: MCP, MCP server, Model Context Protocol server

Why it matters for AI search

MCP is how AI assistants reach beyond their training data to live tools and data. A business that offers an MCP server lets agents in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and similar apps query its product or service directly, instead of guessing from web pages. As more buying and research runs through agents, being reachable by them becomes part of being picked.

How the Model Context Protocol works

MCP follows a client and server design. The host is the AI application, such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code or Visual Studio Code. For each server it connects to, the host creates a client that keeps a dedicated connection. A server is any program that provides context, and it can run on the same machine or remotely.

Messages use JSON-RPC 2.0. There are two transports: standard input and output for local servers, and Streamable HTTP for remote ones, where the docs recommend OAuth for authentication.

Servers offer three core primitives:

  • Tools: functions the AI can call to take an action, such as a database query or an API call.
  • Resources: data that gives context, such as file contents or records.
  • Prompts: reusable templates for working with the model.

A client lists what a server offers (for example with tools/list), and the model calls a tool when it decides one fits the request. Each tool carries a name, a description and an input schema, so clear descriptions directly affect whether a model uses it.

Why MCP matters for being picked by AI

Anthropic introduced MCP to replace one-off integrations: AI models were cut off from data held in separate systems. With a shared protocol, an assistant can check stock, look up a price or run a report in a third-party service in the middle of a conversation.

For site owners this adds a second channel next to the web. Crawlers and agentic search read your pages; MCP lets agents use your product. Buying flows such as agentic commerce build on the same idea of agents acting for people.

How to get started

  1. Decide what an agent would need from you: product data, availability, account actions or reports.
  2. Build a small server with an official SDK, starting with one or two read-only tools.
  3. Write tool descriptions as if for a new colleague: what it does, when to use it, what it returns.
  4. Follow the protocol's security guidance before exposing anything that changes data.

GetPicked offers its own MCP server for Claude, Claude Code and Cursor, documented on the developers page, so you can ask whether a robots.txt change hid your site from AI crawlers without leaving the editor.

MCP sits alongside retrieval-augmented generation, which feeds web content to a large language model, and llms.txt, a proposal for describing a site to AI readers.

Questions

What is MCP in simple terms?
It is a shared plug format for AI apps. The official docs compare it to a USB-C port: instead of a custom integration for every tool, an AI app that speaks MCP can connect to any MCP server, and a server built once works with every compatible app.
Who created MCP and who supports it?
Anthropic announced and open-sourced MCP on November 25, 2024. The project lists support in Claude and ChatGPT, and in developer tools such as Visual Studio Code and Cursor, among many others.
What is the difference between an MCP server and an API?
An MCP server usually wraps an API. The difference is that it describes its tools in a standard way, with names, descriptions and input schemas, so an AI app can discover them and decide when to call them without custom code.
Does MCP affect SEO or AI search rankings?
Not directly. MCP does not change how pages rank in Google or which pages ChatGPT search cites. It matters for agent use: when an assistant needs to act or look something up in your product, an MCP server gives it a reliable way to do so.

Related terms

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