mcpcn-web-search-mcp 0.1.2

Multi-source web search MCP server with automatic failover

Web Search MCP Server

A multi-source web search MCP server with automatic failover support.

Features

• Multiple Search Providers: SerpAPI, DuckDuckGo Lite, Google News RSS, Wikipedia, Exa MCP
• Automatic Failover: If one provider fails, automatically tries the next
• Language Detection: Automatically adjusts search parameters for CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) queries
• Flexible Output: Text (human-readable) or JSON (structured) formats
• Webpage Fetching: Extract readable content from URLs

Installation

# From source
pip install -e .

# Or with uv
uv pip install -e .

Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Required
WEB_SEARCH_SOURCES	Comma-separated provider priority (e.g., serpapi,ddg_lite,wikipedia)	No
WEB_SEARCH_PROVIDER	Single provider override	No
SERPAPI_API_KEY	API key for SerpAPI	For SerpAPI
EXA_API_KEY	API key for Exa	For Exa
EXA_MCP_URL	Exa MCP endpoint (default: https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp)	No

Available Sources

Source	Description	API Key Required
serpapi	Multi-engine search (Google, Bing, Baidu, etc.)	Yes (SERPAPI_API_KEY)
serpapi_google	SerpAPI with Google engine	Yes
serpapi_bing	SerpAPI with Bing engine	Yes
serpapi_baidu	SerpAPI with Baidu engine	Yes
ddg_lite	DuckDuckGo Lite (free)	No
google_news_rss	Google News RSS feed	No
wikipedia	Wikipedia OpenSearch	No
exa_mcp	Exa AI-powered search	Yes (EXA_API_KEY)

Default Priority

• If SERPAPI_API_KEY is set: serpapi → ddg_lite → google_news_rss
• If EXA_API_KEY is set: exa_mcp → ddg_lite → google_news_rss → wikipedia
• Otherwise: ddg_lite → google_news_rss → wikipedia

Usage

Running the Server

# Direct execution
web-search-mcp

# Or via Python
python -m web_search_mcp.server

Claude Desktop Configuration

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-search": {
      "command": "web-search-mcp",
      "env": {
        "SERPAPI_API_KEY": "your-serpapi-key",
        "WEB_SEARCH_SOURCES": "serpapi,ddg_lite,wikipedia"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with uv:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-search": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/path/to/web-search-mcp",
        "run",
        "web-search-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "WEB_SEARCH_SOURCES": "ddg_lite,google_news_rss,wikipedia"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tools

web_search

Search the internet using multiple providers with automatic failover.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default	Description
query	string	required	The search query
max_results	int	10	Maximum results (1-20)
format	string	"text"	Output format: "text" or "json"
sources	string	""	Comma-separated source list
engine	string	""	SerpAPI engine (google, bing, baidu, etc.)

Example:

# Text format (default)
web_search(query="Python tutorials", max_results=5)

# JSON format
web_search(query="latest AI news", format="json")

# Specific sources
web_search(query="machine learning", sources="wikipedia,ddg_lite")

# Baidu search via SerpAPI
web_search(query="人工智能", sources="serpapi", engine="baidu")

fetch_webpage

Fetch and extract readable content from a URL.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default	Description
url	string	required	The URL to fetch
max_length	int	8000	Maximum content length

Example:

fetch_webpage(url="https://example.com/article")

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    MCP Server (FastMCP)                      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  web_search()                    fetch_webpage()             │
│      │                                 │                     │
│      ▼                                 ▼                     │
│  MultiSourceSearcher              requests + BeautifulSoup   │
│      │                                                       │
│      ├──► SerpAPIProvider (paid, multi-engine)              │
│      ├──► ExaMCPProvider (paid, AI-powered)                 │
│      ├──► DuckDuckGoLiteProvider (free)                     │
│      ├──► GoogleNewsRSSProvider (free, news-focused)        │
│      └──► WikipediaProvider (free, encyclopedia)            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Development

# Install dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Lint
ruff check .

License

MIT