Google Search MCP server

The MCP Server for Google Search provides web search capabilities using Google Custom Search API and webpage content extraction functionality. It allows AI assistants to perform web searches and extract content from webpages, making it a valuable tool for enhancing AI capabilities with real-time information.

Features

Search

The search tool enables web searches using Google Custom Search API with the following capabilities:

• Search the entire web or specific sites
• Control number of results (1-10)
• Get structured results with title, link, and snippet

Webpage Reader

The webpage reader tool extracts content from any webpage:

• Fetches and parses webpage content
• Extracts page title and main text
• Cleans content by removing scripts and styles
• Returns structured data with title, text, and URL

Installation

Getting Google API Credentials

Before setting up the MCP server, you need to obtain Google API credentials:

1. Create a Google Cloud Project:

   • Go to Google Cloud Console
   • Create a new project or select an existing one
   • Enable billing for your project

2. Enable Custom Search API:

   • Go to API Library
   • Search for "Custom Search API"
   • Click "Enable"

3. Get API Key:

   • Go to Credentials
   • Click "Create Credentials" > "API Key"
   • Copy your API key
   • (Optional) Restrict the API key to only Custom Search API

4. Create Custom Search Engine:

   • Go to Programmable Search Engine
   • Enter the sites you want to search (use www.google.com for general web search)
   • Click "Create"
   • On the next page, click "Customize"
   • In the settings, enable "Search the entire web"
   • Copy your Search Engine ID (cx)

Client Configuration

To use the MCP Server with Claude Desktop, add the server configuration with your Google API credentials:

On MacOS: Edit the file at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

On Windows: Edit the file at %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "google-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@demondehellis/mcp-google-search"],
      "env": {
        "GOOGLE_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
        "GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID": "your-search-engine-id-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace "your-api-key-here" and "your-search-engine-id-here" with your actual Google API key and Search Engine ID from the steps above.

Usage

Once configured, Claude will be able to access this MCP server to perform web searches and extract webpage content when prompted. The tools will appear in Claude's available tools list, and you can ask Claude to:

• Search for specific information on the web
• Read and summarize the content of a webpage
• Research topics by combining search and webpage reading

Example prompts:

• "Search the web for the latest news about AI regulations"
• "Find information about climate change from scientific sources"
• "Read and summarize the content from a specific URL"

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "google-search" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@demondehellis/mcp-google-search"],"env":{"GOOGLE_API_KEY":"your-api-key-here","GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID":"your-search-engine-id-here"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "google-search": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@demondehellis/mcp-google-search"
            ],
            "env": {
                "GOOGLE_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
                "GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID": "your-search-engine-id-here"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "google-search": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@demondehellis/mcp-google-search"
            ],
            "env": {
                "GOOGLE_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here",
                "GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID": "your-search-engine-id-here"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect