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Let's start with the obvious: APIs are the open doors of the web. Their main function is to bridge different web applications and make the exchange of data possible. When crafted with care, an API allows two distinct applications, even those built with different tech stacks, to interact seamlessly without any need for makeshift solutions.
However, despite the essential role of APIs, not every website chooses to make theirs publicly accessible. Thankfully, the world's largest website is an exception, providing numerous APIs for extracting data from Google SERPs (Search Page Results), along with comprehensive usage documentation. Or perhaps not? It's not quite obvious from a surface-level Google search 🤔 Let's first look at the solutions (the SERP API alternatives) and then clear the confusion around the official Google Search API.
⭐️ Top Google SERP APIs in 2024
1. SerpAPI SERP API
This Google SERP API offers straightforward web scraping, including regular search results in an easy-to-use JSON format. It ensures accurate searches with secure settings, bypasses CAPTCHAs smoothly, and promises fast access without waiting in line. You can start for free with 100 searches a month. Pricing begins at $50/month for up to 5,000 searches, all the while providing what they call "the Legal US Shield" for added peace of mind.
2. Serper Google Search API
This Google SERP scraping API merges traditional Google Search scraping with specialized searches for images, videos, locations, and news. This SERP API offers an efficient solution, especially for collecting search results data from Google. Pricing ranges from $50 to $3,750, covering 50K to 12.5M queries, with the flexibility to tailor query location and language. Speed is the platform's highlight, though the JSON format is the sole option for data export.
3. Apify Google SERP Scraper
This Google SERP bot will get your search request, conduct the search on google.com, and extract raw data from the result pages. You can specify language preferences (e.g., English or Spanish), result geolocation (e.g., US or Mexico), the number of pages to scrape (e.g., the first 10), and various other parameters.
4. ZenSERP complete Google Search API
With this Google SERP API, you can access a wide range of SERP data including organic and paid results, images, videos, news, local results, knowledge graphs, related questions, answer boxes, and maps results. Pricing plans start from a free option with 50 searches to a Very Large plan at $499.99/month for 120,000 searches, catering to various needs from basic to large SERP projects.
5. ScaleSERP Google Search Results API
Our last Google SERP pick offers a free, real-time Google Search Results API that allows for easy integration and scaling of SEO apps and services starting from $1 per 1k pages. It supports multiple programming languages, including HTTP, Curl, Node.js, Python, and PHP, making it simple to integrate with just an HTTP GET request.
🔎 Is there an official Google SERP API?
At first glance, Google has an "army" of public APIs for its various services, typically structured around JSON and RESTful requests. These APIs are openly accessible via Google's API GitHub repository. But you won't find a SERP API among them.
After a little bit of digging, you'll find out that when it comes to an API for Google SERPs in particular, Google itself doesn't offer one, at least not directly. The closest to an official solution would be Google's Custom Search API. While available, Google's official API does not deliver a JSON of Google SERP results. Rather, it enables a sort of condensed version of Google SERP for individual websites. So essentially, if you don't want to reinvent the wheel and build a search engine for your website from scratch, you can use one structured like Google. That's what the Custom Search API (or "the official Google SERP API") is for.
So is there a direct Google SERP API?
Currently, no. Custom Search API serves a different purpose. Though provided by Google, Custom Search API won't crawl Google and return a comprehensive list of SERP results in JSON format, as you might expect. Instead, it can help you to create a mini search engine for your site by applying the logic of Google SERPs.
Moreover, this alternative, often confused with Google SERP API, introduces two significant restrictions: a limit on search queries and the scope of searchable websites. It allows a limited number of searches daily (10K), with a fee of $5 per 1K queries for broader searches through the official Google API (see SERP API pricing page).
🦿 Creating your own Google SERP API
So what's the way out – creating your own Google SERP API? This might seem rightfully complex with the need for API keys and technical setups, but there's a simpler way to monitor your page's performance on Google search results: web scraping tools. Web scrapers came about as simpler alternatives to public APIs. Google SERP scrapers essentially allow you to gather data about your website's search ranking without deep programming knowledge or skills (unless you want to apply them).
These tools are a straightforward solution for tracking how your page ranks in Google search results. When teamed up with SERP proxies, web scrapers can bypass the limitations of official APIs like query limits. Web scrapers are your best allies if all you need is to see where your page stands in search results. Besides, there's something very meta about scraping the biggest scraping company in the world 😉
📙 What is SERP data good for?
SERP data (or Search Engine Results Pages data) has many use and reuse cases:
- SEO improvement. By studying SERP data, website owners can understand how well their site ranks on search engines and make improvements to appear higher in search results, attracting more visitors.
- Market research. Businesses use SERP data to learn about market trends, see what competitors are up to, and find out what customers are searching for. This helps them make better products and marketing strategies.
- Advertising and marketing. Advertisers use SERP data to see where their ads might show up and how they can make them more effective. By understanding what people are searching for, they can create ads that are more likely to be engaged with.
- Reputation management. Similar to the case above, brands monitor SERP data to keep track of what's being said about them online. This way, they can quickly respond to any negative feedback or misinformation.
- Product development. Companies can use SERP data to find gaps in the market or to understand customer needs better.
❓FAQ
Is Google's SERP API free?
Google offers numerous APIs, all freely accessible but with certain limitations. For instance, the Google Custom Search API allows up to 100 free search queries daily. Exceeding this free quota or the 10,000 daily query cap means additional costs. The only way to surpass that 10K daily limit is if your searches don't exceed more than 10 websites.
How to scrape Google SERP pages via an API?
Although Google provides a form of Search API, using it to query the entire web and receive a machine-readable document is not feasible, making an "official Google SERP API" in the conventional sense non-existent. Nevertheless, the developer community has identified this gap and developed alternative solutions. These alternatives, essentially scrapers like Google SERP Scraper, are the sole viable method for extracting data from Google through an API.
Do I need proxies to scrape Google SERPs?
Yes. To effectively scrape Google SERPs without facing IP bans or rate limits, using SERP proxies is highly recommended. These proxies are specially designed to facilitate reliable and efficient Google SERP scraping, ensuring your operations run smoothly and remain undetected. With Google SERP proxies, you can access accurate, location-specific search results data with minimal risk.
Note: This evaluation is based on our understanding of information available to us as of March 2024. Readers should conduct their own research for detailed comparisons. Product names, logos, and brands are used for identification only and remain the property of their respective owners. Their use does not imply affiliation or endorsement.
