Where to list your MCP server, from someone who just did it

Lucas Krawczak — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 20:11:30 +0000

Short answer: There are four places that matter for listing a remote MCP server, and only one of them is open to anyone today: the official MCP Registry. We published three servers there on 2026-10-31. The Claude Connectors Directory and the ChatGPT app directory are review-gated stores with long requirement lists, Google's Connected Apps Platform is a preview you apply to, and the rest of the sites that call themselves directories are mostly trackers you cannot list on by submitting. This is what each one needs, in the order we hit it, and the two things that stopped us.

Where are we actually listed?

Of the four places that matter, only the official MCP Registry, as of 2026-11-03. aeo-backlink has been in review at the Claude Connectors Directory since 2026-10-31, the ChatGPT submission is prepared but not sent, and we have not applied to Google's preview yet. Outside those four, Glama picked up all three servers from the registry and we have claimed them, which makes them easier to find but not installable from an assistant. We are saying this first because most guides on this topic blur the line between what the author did and what they read. Everything below about the Claude, ChatGPT and Google requirements comes from their published docs as of late October 2026, and those change, so check the linked pages before you rely on a detail.

Where	Our status	Open to anyone?
Official MCP Registry	Published, 3 servers, all active (checked 2026-11-03)	Yes
Claude Connectors Directory	aeo-backlink submitted 2026-10-31, still in review	Yes, any paid Claude plan, then review
ChatGPT app directory	Prepared, not submitted	Yes, after organization verification, then review
Google Connected Apps Platform	Not applied yet	By application, in phases

How do you publish to the official MCP Registry?

This is the one place with no review queue, and it is also what some third-party directories, PulseMCP among them, import from. Publishing is a command line job. You install mcp-publisher (it is on Homebrew), prove you control a domain, and publish a server.json.

Your namespace is the reverse of a domain you prove. Ours is advancelabs.dev, so our servers are dev.advancelabs/aeo-search, dev.advancelabs/aeo-visibility and dev.advancelabs/aeo-backlink. A remote hosted on a subdomain (ours are on aeo.advancelabs.dev) published fine under the apex namespace.

Serve a public key at a well-known path. Generate an Ed25519 key pair and serve the public half as one line, v=MCPv1; k=ed25519; p=, at https:///.well-known/mcp-registry-auth. It must return 200 with no redirect, because the registry fetches it itself. A redirect to www or a trailing-slash rewrite is enough to fail the check.
Log in with the private key. Run mcp-publisher login http --domain --private-key . This proves the namespace is yours.
Write a server.json with a remotes entry. Point its $schema at https://static.modelcontextprotocol.io/schemas/2025-12-11/server.schema.json and add a remotes entry of type streamable-http with your endpoint URL. Keep the description under the cap: it is limited to 100 characters, and one of ours was 101 and failed our own pre-check.
Publish. Run mcp-publisher publish server.json. The entry goes live as active, and you can fetch it back from the registry to confirm.

mcp-publisher login http --domain advancelabs.dev --private-key <hex>
mcp-publisher publish server.json

What does the Claude Connectors Directory require?

Submission is at claude.ai/directory/manage and needs any paid Claude plan. The server must be public HTTPS, use OAuth 2.0 if it fronts an authenticated service (or no auth at all for public data), and every tool needs a title plus a readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotation. You also supply a docs URL, a privacy policy URL, a support contact, an icon and a test account the reviewer can sign in with.

Two details are easy to miss. Hosted Claude apps authenticate through the callback https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback, while Claude Code uses a loopback redirect on any port. And the listing slug is permanent, so pick it deliberately. New listings are auto-scanned and shown as Community by default.

What does the ChatGPT app directory require?

You submit from the OpenAI Platform dashboard after testing the server in Developer Mode, and the bar is higher than for Claude. It needs organization verification, a public HTTPS MCP server, and website, support, privacy and terms URLs. You verify the domain by serving a token at /.well-known/openai-apps-challenge.

Review is evidence-based: five positive and three negative test cases, a reviewer video walkthrough, and a reviewer test account that has no MFA. The portal's auth options are none, OAuth, or mixed, so a flow built around pasted API keys does not fit. OAuth callbacks are https://chatgpt.com/connector/oauth/{callback_id} and the legacy https://chatgpt.com/connector_platform_oauth_redirect.

What about Google's Connected Apps Platform?

Google announced a preview on 2026-10-28. Apps can run in AI Mode in Search and in the Gemini app, remote MCP servers need OAuth 2.1, and apps are managed in the Google Connected Console. Access is by application at developers.google.com/connected-apps and is opening in phases, with one report saying US developers go first. We have not applied yet, so there is nothing first-hand to report.

What about Smithery, Glama, mcp.so and the rest?

They differ in kind. Smithery can publish by URL from its CLI. Glama listed our three remote servers on its own, as connectors imported from the registry, and we claimed the whole dev.advancelabs namespace with one DNS TXT record; its docs describe a glama.json in the repository for servers that live on GitHub. mcp.so is a web form. Some curated lists take pull requests: ours to Docker's MCP Catalog and to awesome-remote-mcp-servers are open and waiting on review. Treat these as discovery extras, and do them after the registry, since some import from it anyway.

Trackers are not stores

Many sites that look like directories only track servers that exist elsewhere. You cannot list anywhere by submitting to them, so do not count one as a listing. The places that make a server installable from inside an assistant are the registry and the two review-gated stores.

What blocked us?

Two things, both ours, and both would have failed review on the Claude and ChatGPT side.

Our OAuth server only accepted loopback redirects: That was deliberate. Every allowed redirect is a party trusted with your users' Google authorization codes, so we kept the list at loopback only. Hosted clients cannot use loopback, so we added exactly three callbacks: the Claude one and the two ChatGPT ones listed above, and nothing else. Tests refuse near-misses: http, subdomains, lookalike hosts, an extra path, a query string and a fragment.
None of our 32 tools carried annotations: Claude requires every tool to declare whether it is read-only or destructive, and ours said nothing. All 32 are read-only. We made the annotations field required in our shared tool type, so a new tool cannot ship without stating whether it writes.

The registry needed neither fix. If you only want the registry listing, you can ship today. The stores are where an OAuth policy and tool metadata you never thought about become gating.

Can you try the servers we published?

Yes. aeo-search has 20 tools over Google Search Console, GA4 and Bing Webmaster and signs in with Google. aeo-visibility has 5 tools that check whether AI answer engines cite a site, and you supply your own Perplexity key. aeo-backlink has 7 tools for mentions, link prospects, competitor link sources and outreach drafts. All 32 are read-only. To add the first one in Claude Code, run the line below and then /mcp to authenticate.

claude mcp add --transport http aeo-search https://aeo.advancelabs.dev/api/mcp/search/mcp

The install guide covers all three servers in Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor, with how sign-in works for each.

FAQ

Where can I list my MCP server?

The official MCP Registry is open to anyone and needs a domain you can prove. The Claude Connectors Directory and the ChatGPT app directory are review-gated stores. Google's Connected Apps Platform is a preview you apply to. Smithery, Glama and mcp.so are extra discovery surfaces.

How do I publish to the official MCP Registry?

Install mcp-publisher, serve an Ed25519 public key at /.well-known/mcp-registry-auth on your domain, log in with mcp-publisher login http using the private key, then run mcp-publisher publish on a server.json with a streamable-http remotes entry. Keep the description under 100 characters.

What does the Claude Connectors Directory require?

A public HTTPS server, OAuth 2.0 if it fronts an authenticated service, a title and a readOnlyHint or destructiveHint on every tool, plus docs, privacy policy, support contact, an icon and a reviewer test account. Submit at claude.ai/directory/manage on any paid Claude plan.

What does the ChatGPT app directory require?

Organization verification, a public HTTPS MCP server, website, support, privacy and terms URLs, domain verification at /.well-known/openai-apps-challenge, five positive and three negative test cases, a reviewer video, and a test account without MFA. Auth is none, OAuth or mixed.

Is submitting to an MCP tracker site the same as getting listed?

No. Trackers index servers that already exist elsewhere, so there is nothing to submit to. A real listing is the official registry or a store such as the Claude or ChatGPT directory.

Originally published at advancelabs.dev, where the status table is kept current.

How to check if ChatGPT recommends your business (free, 10 minutes)

Lucas Krawczak — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 20:20:48 +0000

Short answer: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude a buyer-intent question like "best [your service] in [your city]", then ask each one directly what it knows about your business. Note whether you're named, whether your own site is cited, and which competitors show up instead. If you're missing, it's almost always because AI engines can't confirm who you are or find anything quotable about you — which is fixable.

The test

Run each of these and write down what happens. It takes about ten minutes and costs nothing.

1. ChatGPT

Who are the best [your service] in [your city]? List specific companies, then tell me what you know about [Your Business Name].

Look for: Are you named in the list? If you ask directly, does it describe you accurately — or confuse you with a different company, or say it has no information?

2. Perplexity

Best [your service] in [your city] — who should I contact?

Look for: Perplexity cites its sources inline. Check whether your own domain appears as a citation, and which competitor or directory pages it pulled from instead.

3. Google AI Overviews

Search Google for: best [your service] in [your city]

Look for: If an AI Overview appears at the top, see whether your business is mentioned and which sites are cited as sources. No mention means the engine didn't consider you a confident answer.

4. Claude

I'm looking for [your service] in [your city]. Who would you suggest, and what do you know about [Your Business Name]?

Look for: With web search on, Claude will cite pages. Note whether it can confirm who you are from your own site, or only from third-party mentions.

For each engine, record four things: are you named, is your own site cited, which competitors appear, and which sources the engine trusted. That table is your starting scorecard.

Why you might be invisible

No clear entity. AI engines need to confirm which business you are. Without Organization structured data and links to authoritative records (your government registry, LinkedIn), they can't tell you apart from same-named businesses — so they stay silent.
Nothing extractable to quote. LLMs lift short, self-contained answer sentences. If your pages open with a slogan instead of a plain answer to the buyer's question, there's nothing safe to quote.
No citable proof. Vague claims ("fast", "trusted") don't get repeated. Specific, dated, verifiable facts do — and competitors who have them get cited instead.
No third-party footprint. Engines corroborate. If no directories, profiles, or independent pages mention you, a single website is thin evidence.

FAQ

How do I check if ChatGPT recommends my business?
Ask ChatGPT a buyer-intent question like "best [your service] in [your city]" and see whether you're named, then ask it directly what it knows about your business. Repeat the buyer query in Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude and note whether you're named, whether your own site is cited, and which competitors appear instead.

Why doesn't ChatGPT know my business exists?
Usually one of four reasons: no Organization structured data linking you to authoritative records; no short extractable answer to quote; no citable, dated proof; or little third-party mention to corroborate. Fixing these is what answer-engine optimization (AEO) does.

Is being in ChatGPT different from ranking on Google?
Yes. Classic SEO optimizes for ranking in blue links. Answer-engine optimization (AEO) optimizes for being named and cited inside AI answers, which increasingly sit above the links and answer the question directly.

Written by Advance Labs Inc., a Canadian software studio in London, Ontario. We run fixed-price AI-visibility audits — the 51-rule check plus live AI-answer tests, with a prioritized fix list.

DEV Community: Lucas Krawczak