About
The topical authority system we built for ourselves.
Topical Authority Engine (TAE) is a hosted SaaS at topicalauthority.app priced at $99/month. It pairs a remote Model Context Protocol server connected to your AI IDE with a hosted dashboard that remembers every cluster planned, every post shipped, every keyword ranked for, and every AI citation earned. It is built for indie SEOs running niche or affiliate sites and solo SEO consultants serving a small book of clients.
It is the productized version of a content engine the team already runs daily. We dogfood it on AppScreenshotStudio, a live SaaS, and ship the same toolset to other indie SEOs.
What this is
A Model Context Protocol server you install into Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, or Windsurf, paired with a hosted dashboard at topicalauthority.app.
The MCP server connects to your IDE, and your IDE's own LLM does the drafting. The dashboard remembers every cluster you plan, every post you ship, every keyword you rank for, and every AI citation you earn over time.
Drafting happens in your IDE, so there is no separate AI fee on top of the $99/month. That price covers the MCP toolset, the dashboard memory, and weekly cron audits across rankings, backlinks, and Google Search Console for every connected project.
Why it exists
Existing topical-authority tools split into two camps. One side gives you a static one-shot map export for $60-100 and walks away. The other side charges enterprise rates for content intelligence platforms that nobody running a niche site can justify.
Neither one closes the loop. Neither one knows what you actually shipped last week, what ranked, what got cited by Perplexity, or what changed since the last audit. That is the gap TAE was built to fill: agentic execution plus compounding history at indie prices.
Who it's for
Primary
Indie SEOs
Running two to five niche or affiliate sites who already use Claude Code or Cursor for writing, and want a system that remembers what they shipped against the plan.
Secondary
Solo SEO consultants
Serving a small book of clients who want one system across all of them instead of juggling spreadsheets, Notion pages, and ad-hoc audit notes.
Not for: agencies running 50+ clients, marketing teams who want a polished SaaS replacement for their CMS, or anyone who would rather click through dashboards than type in their IDE.
How it works
Three layers, kept deliberately boring:
01 · Plan
Your topical map lives as plain markdown in your repo. SHA-256 sync keeps it in step with the dashboard. If-Match concurrency prevents two editors from clobbering each other.
02 · Execute
Run /tae next
in your IDE. The server hands you the next ticket pre-briefed with keyword, intent, internal
links, and primary sources.
03 · Measure
Weekly cron jobs scan rankings, AI citations, and backlinks while you sleep. A digest lands in your inbox Monday at 7am with what changed and what to do next.
The architecture mirrors Sentry and PostHog: a free local agent in your environment, a paid hosted layer for history and analysis. Open data formats. Plain markdown. You can leave any time and your topical map comes with you.
What it doesn't do
Write your posts for you with no input. The IDE is doing the writing; we hand it the brief.
Pretend to know your business better than you do. The map is yours to edit at any time.
Auto-publish content. Every ticket goes through your hands before it goes live.
Charge you for inference. The LLM runs inside your own IDE.
How to reach the team
Email [email protected] or reply to any onboarding email. Every message lands in a real inbox the team reads daily. There is no support ticket queue and no AI chatbot between you and the people building this.
For account, billing, or privacy requests, see /privacy and /subprocessors.
Ready to try it? $99/month. Three projects. 1,500 audit credits.
Start now