Google Surf MCP: Free Google Search MCP with PDF Handling and Tiered Extraction
Google Surf MCP is a free MCP server for Google search and URL extraction that actually works — the author reports testing 6 free MCPs, all of which failed. It replaces the usual search MCP + fetch MCP combo with a single tool set that also auto-handles academic PDFs (arXiv, bioRxiv, Nature, OpenReview, NeurIPS, JMLR, PMLR, Springer, PubMed→PMC).
Key Features
- 4 tools:
search(SERP only),search_parallel(N concurrent queries),extract(url, mode?)(full/abstract/metadata),search_extract(query, mode?)(defaults to abstract) - Tiered extraction:
mode: "abstract"returns ~1500 chars per result for cheap relevance triage before paying for full bodies. A 5-result survey costs ~7.5k chars instead of 40k. - PDF detection: via Content-Type, %PDF magic, citation_pdf_url meta, and per-domain rules.
- Reliability: multi-strategy SERP parser with geometric verification (drops sponsored/knowledge panel/sidebar), SSRF guard (env-locked private/loopback block, DNS rebinding defense, per-hop redirect validation), 25MB fetch ceiling, malformed PDFs contained as error.
- Auto CAPTCHA recovery: when CAPTCHA fires, a visible Chrome window opens for human solving, then retries. The profile's reputation with Google is preserved.
- No API key, no proxies, no solver.
Stack and Speed
- Stack: TypeScript, Playwright + stealth, Readability, Turndown, unpdf. ~900 LOC.
- Speed (1Gbps): sequential ~1.5s/q (warm), 4 parallel ~2s wall, 10 parallel ~5s wall.
Example Usage
search_extract("latest AI research papers", mode: "abstract")
Returns abstracts of top results, letting an agent triage relevance before calling extract(url, mode: "full") on the winner.
Who it's for: Developers building AI agents that need reliable, free web search and extraction without external API keys or paid services.
📖 Read the full source: r/ClaudeAI
👀 See Also
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