SerpApi: A Complete API For Fetching Search Engine Data
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This article has been kindly supported by our dear friends at SerpApi, who make search result extraction easy with their real-time API. Thank you!
SerpApi leverages the power of search engine giants, like Google, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, and more, to put together the most pertinent and accurate search result data for your users from the comfort of your app or website. It’s customizable, adaptable, and offers an easy integration into any project.
What do you want to put together?
- Search information on a brand or business for SEO purposes;
- Input data to train AI models, such as the Large Language Model, for a customer service chatbot;
- Top news and websites to pick from for a subscriber newsletter;
- Google Flights API for an online scheduler or calendar;
- Price comparisons for the same product across different platforms;
- Extra definitions and examples for words that can be offered along a language learning app.
The list goes on.
In other words, you get to leverage the most comprehensive source of data on the internet for any number of needs, from competitive SEO research and tracking news to parsing local geographic data and even completing personal background checks for employment.
Start With A Simple GET Request
The results from the search API are only a URL request away for those who want a super quick start. Just add your search details in the URL parameters. Say you need the search result for “Stone Henge” from the location “Westminster, England, United Kingdom” in language “en-GB”, and country of search origin “uk” from the domain “google.co.uk”. Here’s how simple it is to put the GET request together:
https://serpapi.com/search.json?q=Stone+Henge&location=Westminster,+England,+United+Kingdom&hl=en-GB&gl=uk&google_domain=google.co.uk&api_key=your_api_key
Then there’s the impressive list of libraries that seamlessly integrate the APIs into mainstream programming languages and frameworks such as JavaScript, Ruby, .NET, and more.
Give It A Quick Try
Want to give it a spin? Sign up and start for free, or tinker with the SerpApi’s live playground without signing up. The playground allows you to choose which search engine to target, and you can fill in the values for all the basic parameters available in the chosen API to customize your search. On clicking “Search”, you get the search result page and its extracted JSON data.
If you need to get a feel for the full API first, you can explore their easy-to-grasp web documentation before making any decision. You have the chance to work with all of the APIs to your satisfaction before committing to it, and when that time comes, SerpApi’s multiple price plans tackle anywhere between an economic few hundred searches a month and bulk queries fit for large corporations.
What Data Do You Need?
Beyond the rudimentary search scraping, SerpApi provides a range of configurations, features, and additional APIs worth considering.
Geolocation
Capture the global trends, or refine down to more localized particulars by names of locations or Google’s place identifiers. SerpApi’s optimized routing of requests ensures accurate retrieval of search result data from any location worldwide. If locations themselves are the answers to your queries — say, a cycle trail to be suggested in a fitness app — those can be extracted and presented as maps using SerpApi’s Google Maps API.
Structured JSON
Although search engines reveal results in a tidy user interface, deriving data into your application could cause you to end up with a large data dump to be sifted through — but not if you’re using SerpApi.
SerpApi pulls data in a well-structured JSON format, even for the popular kinds of enriched search results, such as knowledge graphs, review snippets, sports league stats, ratings, product listings, AI overview, and more.
Speedy Results
SerpApi’s baseline performance can take care of timely search data for real-time requirements. But what if you need more? SerpApi’s Ludicrous Speed option, easily enabled from the dashboard with an upgrade, provides a super-fast response time. More than twice as fast as usual, thanks to twice the server power.
There’s also Ludicrous Speed Max, which allocates four times more server resources for your data retrieval. Data that is time-sensitive and for monitoring things in real-time, such as sports scores and tracking product prices, will lose its value if it is not handled in a timely manner. Ludicrous Speed Max guarantees no delays, even for a large-scale enterprise haul.
You can also use a relevant SerpApi API to hone in on your relevant category, like Google Flights API, Amazon API, Google News API, etc., to get fresh and apt results.
If you don’t need the full depth of the search API, there’s a Light version available for Google Search, Google Images, Google Videos, Google News, and DuckDuckGo Search APIs.
Search Controls & Privacy
Need the results asynchronously picked up? Want a refined output using advanced search API parameters and a JSON Restrictor? Looking for search outcomes for specific devices? Don’t want auto-corrected query results? There’s no shortage of ways to configure SerpApi to get exactly what you need.
Additionally, if you prefer not to have your search metadata on their servers, simply turn on the “ZeroTrace” mode that’s available for selected plans.
The X-Ray
Save yourself a headache, literally, trying to play match between what you see on a search result page and its extracted data in JSON. SerpApi’s X-Ray tool shows you where what comes from. It’s available and free in all plans.
Inclusive Support
If you don’t have the expertise or resources for tackling the validity of scraping search results, here’s what SerpApi says:
“SerpApi, LLC assumes scraping and parsing liabilities for both domestic and foreign companies unless your usage is otherwise illegal”.
You can reach out and have a conversation with them regarding the legal protections they offer, as well as inquire about anything else you might want to know about, including SerpApi in your project, such as pricing, performance expected, on-demand options, and technical support. Just drop a message at their contact page.
In other words, the SerpApi team has your back with the support and expertise to get the most from your fetched data.
Try SerpApi Free
That’s right, you can get your hands on SerpApi today and start fetching data with absolutely no commitment, thanks to a free starter plan that gives you up to 250 free search queries. Give it a try and then bump up to one of the reasonably-priced monthly subscription plans with generous search limits.
(gg, yk)