The short version
MCP — Model Context Protocol — is an open standard that defines how AI agents discover and interact with tools on your site. It was introduced by Anthropic and has since been adopted by OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft.
When someone asks Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor a question about your product, the agent looks for an MCP server at your domain. If it finds one, it gets structured, accurate answers. If it doesn't, it guesses — or skips you entirely.
What an MCP server does
An MCP server exposes a set of tools that agents can discover and call. Instead of scraping your HTML, an agent connects to your MCP endpoint and gets structured access to your content.
Typical tools include:
- search — agents query your docs, knowledge base, and content using hybrid search
- get_page — agents retrieve a specific page in a format optimized for LLM consumption
- list_topics — agents discover what content categories you offer
The key difference from a regular API: MCP tools are self-describing. An agent can connect to your server, call tools/list, and immediately understand what capabilities are available — no documentation required.
Why it matters now
MCP adoption is accelerating. The SDK sees roughly 97 million monthly downloads. IETF standardization is in progress. Every major AI platform supports it. This isn't a proposal — it's shipping infrastructure.
The sites that have MCP servers today are building usage history, registry presence, and agent trust. The sites that don't are invisible to the fastest-growing discovery channel on the internet.
How to get one
The simplest way: point a CNAME record at your domain to an MCP hosting provider. Your site gets a production MCP server at mcp.your-domain in under five minutes. No code changes. No infrastructure to manage.