The Best SERP APIs

Introduction: Different Ways of Acquiring Google Data

In today’s internet, businesses use multiple methods to extract data from Search Engine Result Pages – SERPs, in short.

However, search engines have implemented various security techniques to prevent malicious bots from harvesting their pages. Even if someone wants to extract the data without breaking any laws, they may still face these technical difficulties.

This raises a question: what is the best way to get large-scale Google search results? To find out, let’s first take a brief look at a few different methods.

Building a Custom SERP Scraper

Some companies choose to build a Google Search scraper themselves. It’s a complex process, but it helps them adjust the scraper to their needs or targets. To develop a scraper, engineers typically use Python with Beautiful Soup, a library that allows you to extract information from multiple markup languages, including HTML and XML.

On the downside, a custom scraper requires constant maintenance since Google regularly changes its SERP structure and overall algorithm.

Using a Third-Party Web Scraper

Another method is to use a third-party web scraper. Usually, these tools are designed to extract different web search data types, not just Google SERPs. Unless you use a scraper with high-quality residential proxies, you may end up having to deal with IP bans and CAPTCHAs.

The issue is that leading providers are starting to limit access to Google via their proxy networks, which brings us to the third option:

Using a Google Scraping API

SERP APIs are the hero of this story. They’re basically remote web scrapers tailored for search engines and packaged as an API. You send a request with some parameters (search query, device, location), and the API returns results for you. The biggest advantage here is that software providers take care of IP rotation, CAPTCHAs, JavaScript rendering, and even data parsing, ensuring you 100% successful delivery.

Is There an Official API for Google Search?

Google offers Custom Search JSON API, which allows software developers to add a search box to an application. As a part of this service, you also get Google Search API, which helps you to retrieve SERP data according to your preferred country, language, and other parameters.

However, Google Search API is pricey: although it allows you to make 100 search queries for free daily, you’ll have to pay an additional 5 USD per 1,000 requests. Not to mention, it’s limited to 10,000 requests per day.

What to Consider When Choosing a SERP Scraping API?

• Response time. SERP APIs strive to ensure 100% data delivery. Outside of highest-load periods, they generally succeed at it. However, response time is an area where these tools can differ significantly (several times or more). It depends on their underlying web scraping capabilities, proxy infrastructure, and other factors.
• Location options. Normally, it’s enough to verify that the service allows targeting the country you need. But if you’re doing local SEO, make sure that you can pick a particular city or even co-ordinates.
• Parser quality and variety. Unlike general-purpose web scrapers, SERP APIs not only download the search page but also structure the data for further use. Most people find organic and paid results enough, but you may benefit from other search properties, too. What’s more, APIs follow different parsing schemas, some of which may be better structured than others. 
• Integration methods. SERP APIs can integrate in several ways: as an API over open connection, using webhooks, or as a proxy server. You should consider which format works best for you. Large-scale operations tend to prefer webhooks, as they allow sending many requests asynchronously, saving resources. 
• Output formats. The two most common formats are raw HTML or parsed JSON. That said, some tools support CSV output or even sending data directly to Google Sheets.
• Price. All SERP APIs use the same pricing model – they charge for successful requests – but the pricing can differ starkly. Cheap services cost less in exchange for fewer features and worse performance. The premium options sell for 1.5-2x more at the beginning, gradually reducing the difference as you scale up.

The Best SERP APIs

If you’ve decided to go with an API for Google search scraping, here’s an overview of four robust tools to help you pick the best one.

1. Bright Data’s SERP API Fast API that supports all major search engines.

Bright Data is one of the largest proxy service and data collection providers. Its SERP API allows getting structured data from most Google products, including Search, Images, Maps, and more. It can scrape other search engines as well, such as Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

SERP API supports all of the features you’d expect: country and city, browser, and device selection. The documentation is biased towards proxy-like integration, but you can also send queries in an API format and receive data in batches. Bright Data provides an interactive playground that greatly simplifies the setup procedure.

In terms of performance, this is the fastest search API we’ve tried. It completed requests in 6.03 seconds, which was slightly faster than the competition. The main concern is price.

While you can pay as you go, that costs $3/1,000 requests, the cheapest plan starts from $500 ($2.25/1,000 requests), which is better but still expensive. So, it’s safe to say that the service is geared towards medium to large-sized companies. If you work with small-scale projects, it may not be for you.

• Avg. response time: 6.03 seconds
• Locations: 195 with country and city targeting
• Parser variety: All SERP features, News, Shopping, Maps, Hotels
• Integration methods: Proxy-like & API (webhook)
• Output formats: Raw HTML, parsed JSON
• Price: starts at $500 ($2.25/CPM). Pay as you go $3/CPM.

Read the Bright Data review for more information and performance tests.

2. Oxylabs SERP Scraper API A scalable & feature-rich option for enterprise clients.

Oxylabs is another major proxy provider with the largest (and often best-peforming) proxy network. Its SERP Scraper API supports Google, together with other major search engines. It collects and structures all web search features and many other Google properties like Shopping.

SERP Scraper API is probably the most feature-complete tool on this list. It lets you target any location up to a very granular level, desktop and mobile devices, retrieve data directly or in batches via webhook. It’s also the only option to support CSV output, even if it covers limited search types (mostly Google web search).

In our tests, SERP Scraper API was also fast(6.15 seconds avg. response time). It scales very well and completed all requests without fail. There’s no playground to test your configurations, but Oxylabs has detailed docs, competent customer service, and you can download a Postman collection.

In terms of price, the tool costs less than Bright Data’s API, but it still targets premium clients that can afford shelling out hundreds of dollars. So, it can be considered a very competent alternative to Bright Data’s SERP API.

• Avg. response time: 6.15 seconds
• Locations: 195 with country, city, and coordinate targeting
• Parser variety: All SERP features, News, Shopping, and more
• Integration methods: Proxy-like, API (open connection & webhook)
• Output formats: Raw HTML, parsed JSON, CSV
• Price: From $99 for 29,000 results ($3.41/1,000 requests)

Read the Oxylabs review for more information and performance tests.

3. Smartproxy’s SERP Scraping API A strong mid-ranger for value seekers.

Smartproxy’s SERP Scraping API resembles any of the first two options in features. It allows targeting countries and cities, selecting a browser, device, and getting parsed data from various Google properties. Like Bright Data and Oxylabs, it supports several more search engines, such as Baidu and Bing.

The only feature that separates Smartproxy’s SERP Scraping API from the premium competitors is that it fails to support asynchronous requests. In other words, you’ll be collecting data over an open connection, with no option to batch search queries. Otherwise, this decent service has few caveats: it returns data in 6.04 seconds, offers a playground and polished user experience.

Price-wise, Smartproxy’s plans have a lower entry price than either of the premium options. This makes it a good choice if you don’t absolutely need request batching via the API, or if you’re looking for a very easy-to-use tool.

• Avg. response time: 6.04 seconds
• Locations: 195 with country, city, and coordinate targeting
• Parser variety: All SERP features, News, Shopping, Images & more
• Integration methods: Proxy-like, API (open connection)
• Output formats: Raw HTML, parsed JSON
• Price: From $50 for 13,000 results ($3.85/1,000 requests)

Read the Smartproxy review for more information and performance tests.

4. Rayobyte’s Scraping Robot The cheapest option for basic Google SERP scraping.

Rayobyte’s Scraping Robot focuses on the basics. It returns only desktop results, supports country-level targeting, integrates as an API via open connection, and parses just the main aspects of web search (organic, paid, people also ask, related queries).

The tool also doesn’t have the best performance. In our tests, an average request took over 19 seconds to complete, and nearly 5% failed despite a generous timeout of 150 seconds.

So, why should you even consider it? Scraping Robot raises three strong arguments:

1. There’s a free plan with 5,000 monthly results.
2. The pricing starts from $0.0018/request. There’s no monthly commitment – you simply buy the amount of requests you need.
3. The credits you buy never expire.

Thus, if you don’t mind the limitations, Scraping Robot can help you complete small to mid-size projects for less than any of the alternatives on our list.

• Avg. response time: 10.03 seconds
• Locations: Over 100 countries
• Parser variety: Major web search features
• Integration methods: API (open connection)
• Output formats: Raw HTML, parsed JSON
• Price: starts from $0.0018/request, no monthly commitment

Read the Rayobyte review for more information and performance tests.

Search Engine Scraper or SERP API – Which One Should You Choose?

An alternative way to gather Google search results on a large scale is using a web scraper. Let’s do a quick run-through of two popular web scrapers – Octoparse and ScrapeBox.

Octoparse

Octoparse is a web scraping software that’s known for its easy-to-navigate user interface. It offers a free plan, limiting users to 10,000 records per export. Since the free plan doesn’t provide any advanced features, it’s more suitable for small-scale projects.

Octoparse also offers plans for medium-sized companies and enterprises. These plans cost 75-250 USD and deliver unlimited data exporting capabilities, automatic IP rotation, scheduled result extractions, and other extra features.

Many appreciate how easy-to-use Octoparse is and that it doesn’t require any coding skills. On the other hand, only its Premium plan includes priority support. So, if you have the standard or free one, it may take quite a while to get issues resolved. Also, Octoparse doesn’t guarantee 100% success in data delivery, possibly resulting in request errors.

ScrapeBox

ScrapeBox is an all-in-one web scraper designed for SEO specialists and agencies for 97 USD a month. It offers various services helping you ensure all your SEO bases are covered: a keyword and metadata scraper, backlink checker, search engine harvester, and more.

Although ScrapeBox mainly focuses on SEO, it allows you to acquire all sorts of web data: emails, phone numbers, or comments. It also offers additional services such as Contact Form Submitter for posting information to website contact forms automatically; or Name and Email Generator, which creates fake names for accounts or blog comments.

ScrapeBox is a powerful, obfuscated search engine optimization tool; however, its interface is not the most user-friendly one. You may need some technical guidance to get used to it. Also, the service doesn’t guarantee 100% success in data delivery, meaning you may get invalid requests.

As you can see, there’s this tendency with web scrapers: they may not return Google with a 100% success rate. To get a successful response, you’ll have to deal with these issues, requiring some technical knowledge or help from customer support.

Proxy Management

If you decide to go with a web scraper to harvest Google search results, make sure you’re using high-quality residential proxies; otherwise, you’ll encounter various technical problems. If Google determines that you’ve been checking rankings or tracking specific keywords too often, it may permanently ban your IP address or bombard you with CAPTCHA tests.

However, if you use residential proxies, the provider ensures that the IP addresses rotate regularly. This way, you can control your sessions, prevent CAPTCHAs and avoid IP bans. To find a high-quality residential proxy provider, ensure their proxies have high uptime and are sourced ethically from legitimate sources. We’ve made a list of the best residential proxies to help you.

Bypassing CAPTCHAs

CAPTCHAs are one of the greatest difficulties of web scraping. To confirm a visitor is a human, websites ask them to complete various tests, i.e., select all images showing boats. The images are usually blurry and low-quality, making it nearly impossible for bots to complete the test.

The best way to deal with CAPTCHA is to avoid it in the first place: i.e., don’t scrape the entire website, rotate proxies, or try to mimic organic human behavior. However, not all CAPTCHAs are avoidable, so you should either use specific CAPTCHA-solving services or crawling tools that are designed to handle them.