Question 1

Is MisarSEO really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The free tier is built entirely on open, verifiable data sources — bring your own DataForSEO or Google Ads key to unlock more. Prefer zero setup? The managed app starts at $10/month.

Question 2

What can MisarSEO do?

Accepted Answer

Keyword research, backlink analysis, competitor insights, rank tracking, site audits, and AI visibility — tracking how AI answer engines describe and cite your brand — plus a native Google Search Console integration.

Question 3

Can I connect MisarSEO to AI agents?

Accepted Answer

Yes. MisarSEO ships an MCP server so Claude, Codex, and other agents can run keyword research, audits, and Search Console lookups directly. See the MCP setup docs to connect your client.

Question 4

How is MisarSEO different from Semrush or Ahrefs?

Accepted Answer

MisarSEO is built on an open, verifiable data stack — every free-tier metric traces back to a source you can check yourself, instead of a closed, per-seat SEO suite's black-box numbers.

Question 5

Why is the search volume showing blank for some keywords in Keyword Research?

Accepted Answer

Keyword ideas on the free tier come from real Google and Bing autocomplete strings, which don't carry volume, CPC, or competition data on their own. Those columns only populate once the operator has connected a Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising account to enrich the ideas — without one connected, MisarSEO leaves the metric blank instead of guessing a number.

Question 6

Why does Domain Overview say a domain's authority is unavailable?

Accepted Answer

Domain authority comes from Open PageRank when configured, or otherwise from Tranco's keyless popularity ranking of the top 1 million domains. Most small, new, or low-traffic sites — including many real businesses — simply aren't in that top 1 million, so MisarSEO reports authority as unavailable rather than fabricating a score for them.

Question 7

How accurate is MisarSEO's free-tier keyword difficulty score?

Accepted Answer

It's an honest estimate, not a vendor's proprietary KD metric: MisarSEO averages the domain authority of the top-ranking pages on that keyword's live SERP. If none of those domains resolve an authority score, the difficulty is left blank instead of forced to a number — so it's only ever as complete as the underlying authority data.

Question 8

Is AI Brand Radar's mention count for ChatGPT and Gemini an exact number?

Accepted Answer

No — it's an estimate, not a count from a vendor mentions database (none exists for AI chat answers). AI Brand Radar runs live prompts through the assisters.dev model gateway and reports what those runs return; a different run of the same prompt can surface a mention it missed before. Treat the numbers as a directional visibility signal, the same way you would with any AI-search tracking tool.

Question 9

Why doesn't my rank tracking position match what I see when I Google it myself?

Accepted Answer

Rank tracking runs a single, unpersonalized SERP snapshot from MisarSEO's configured SERP source (self-hosted SearXNG or openserp) at check time. Your own manual search is personalized by your account, location, device, and search history, and Google's results shift over hours — so some drift between the two is normal, not a bug.

Question 10

Does MisarSEO's site audit run a real Lighthouse test, or a simulated score?

Accepted Answer

It runs the real open-source Lighthouse library against a headless Chrome instance MisarSEO launches itself for every crawled page — not a canned or fabricated score. If that local run fails for some reason, MisarSEO falls back to Google PageSpeed Insights so the audit still completes.

Question 11

Why did my site audit performance score change between two runs of the same page?

Accepted Answer

Lighthouse's performance score is sensitive to whatever the test machine and network conditions look like at that moment — a few points of run-to-run variance is expected of any Lighthouse-based tool, not just MisarSEO's. Compare trends across several audits rather than treating any single run as exact.

Question 12

Why does my backlink report show data unavailable instead of zero backlinks?

Accepted Answer

Backlink and referring-domain data is only available on the managed plan, backed by DataForSEO's link index. On the free tier, MisarSEO reports backlinks as unavailable rather than showing an empty or zero result that could be mistaken for "this domain has no backlinks."

Question 13

How much does rank tracking cost per keyword in MisarSEO?

Accepted Answer

There's no flat per-keyword subscription tier. Free-tier rank checks run on self-hosted SearXNG or openserp at no cost. On the managed $10/month plan, checks that draw on DataForSEO's SERP data use your monthly Usage Credits and any top-ups — the same usage-based model as the rest of MisarSEO.

Question 14

Do I need my own Google Ads account to see keyword search volume?

Accepted Answer

To see real search volume, CPC, and competition numbers on the free tier, yes — the operator connects their own Google Ads account (via five GOOGLE_ADS_* credentials) to Keyword Planner. Without one, keyword discovery still works through Google and Bing autocomplete; you just get real keyword strings with the volume/CPC columns left blank instead of guessed.

Question 15

Can I use Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) instead of Google Ads for keyword metrics?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Bing Ads (Microsoft Advertising) credentials work as a free enrichment source and fallback when Google Ads isn't configured or fails, filling in volume, CPC, and competition the same way. Microsoft even publishes a sandbox universal developer token for testing without live production credentials.

Question 16

What happens if SearXNG, openserp, Google Ads, and Bing Ads are all left unconfigured?

Accepted Answer

MisarSEO still works — keyword ideas keep coming from Google/Bing autocomplete, and site audits keep running on local Lighthouse. What you lose is search volume/CPC/competition on keyword ideas and live SERP-based rank checks; those honestly return a blank value or SEO_DATA_UNAVAILABLE rather than a fabricated number.

Question 17

Can I connect more than one Google Search Console property to a single MisarSEO project?

Accepted Answer

Not in the current version — each project holds one connected Search Console property at a time. Connecting a different property to the same project replaces the existing connection; create a separate project if you want to track more than one property side by side.

Question 18

Is my Search Console or SEO data used to train any AI model?

Accepted Answer

No. Search Console data is read through Google's read-only webmasters.readonly scope purely to display it back to you, and AI Brand Radar / Prompt Explorer send prompts to the assisters.dev gateway to research public AI-answer behavior — your project data isn't submitted for model training.

Question 19

How often does MisarSEO automatically re-crawl my site for Site Audit?

Accepted Answer

An hourly scheduler checks every active project and enqueues a new crawl once 7 days have passed since its last completed audit (or if it's never been audited). You can also trigger a manual crawl any time without waiting for that weekly cycle.

Question 20

Is there a limit to how many keywords I can track with Rank Tracking?

Accepted Answer

Each add or bulk-import call is capped at 100 keywords at a time, but you can add multiple batches over time — there's no separate flat "total keywords" ceiling in the product. Ongoing tracking is governed by your plan's Usage Credits rather than a hard keyword count.

Question 21

What's actually different between the free tier and the $10/month managed plan?

Accepted Answer

The free tier runs entirely on open, keyless, or operator-configured data sources (autocomplete, local Lighthouse, SearXNG/openserp, Tranco) with a few metrics — like backlinks — unavailable. The $10/month managed plan adds DataForSEO-backed backlinks and richer keyword/domain data, and includes Usage Credits to pay for those lookups. Same workspace, same features — more sources lit up.

Question 22

Do I need my own DataForSEO account to use MisarSEO at all?

Accepted Answer

No. DataForSEO is only required for the paid provider mode (SEO_DATA_PROVIDER=dataforseo with a DATAFORSEO_API_KEY). The default free provider runs on autocomplete, local Lighthouse, SearXNG/openserp, and Open PageRank/Tranco instead, with no DataForSEO key needed.

Question 23

Is AI Brand Visibility or AI Search Prompts available on the free tier, or only paid?

Accepted Answer

Both are available regardless of tier. They're backed by the assisters.dev AI gateway, not DataForSEO, so they run the same whether you're on the free tier or the managed plan — unlike backlinks, which are managed-plan only.

Question 24

Why does keyword difficulty sometimes show no score at all?

Accepted Answer

Difficulty is derived from a live SERP plus the domain authority of the ranking pages. If the SERP fetch fails, returns no organic results, or none of the top domains resolve an authority score, MisarSEO leaves the difficulty blank rather than guessing — this is more likely for very new or very niche keywords.

Question 25

How is rank tracking in MisarSEO different from checking rankings in Google Search Console?

Accepted Answer

Google Search Console shows an averaged position across every real impression it logged for a query — blending devices, locations, and personalization states. MisarSEO's rank tracker instead takes a single, repeatable SERP snapshot for the exact keyword, location, and device you configured, so it's better for monitoring one specific ranking over time, while Search Console is better for understanding your real-world blended visibility.

Question 26

Does MisarSEO run its own web crawler, or rely on third-party crawl data for Site Audit?

Accepted Answer

MisarSEO runs its own crawl — a background worker fetches pages from your site directly and, when Lighthouse is enabled, launches a real headless Chrome per page. It doesn't pull page data from a third-party crawl index like Common Crawl.

Question 27

Can self-hosting my own SearXNG instance improve MisarSEO's free-tier accuracy?

Accepted Answer

Yes. SearXNG (preferred over openserp) is what powers free-tier rank tracking and SERP-derived keyword difficulty. Pointing your own SEARXNG_URL at a deployment with the JSON output format enabled gives MisarSEO a faster, more reliable SERP source than depending on the shared openserp fallback.

Question 28

How do I get an API key to call api.misar.io/seo directly?

Accepted Answer

MisarSEO's public API currently authenticates with a single operator-configured API key (bound to one account) rather than a self-serve key you generate from account settings. The same key powers the official TypeScript SDK and MCP server — see the API docs for the exact request shape.

Question 29

Why does AI Brand Radar return zero mentions for a real, well-known brand sometimes?

Accepted Answer

Because each check is a small sample of live prompts to AI models, not an exhaustive index — a brand can genuinely go unmentioned in one run and appear in the next, especially for prompts where the model doesn't reliably associate the brand with the topic. Re-running the same prompt, or testing a few close variations, gives a more reliable read than any single check.

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