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10 Best SERP API of 2024

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Chris Prosser
Top 10 SERP APIs

Are you looking for the best SERP API to power your next search engine marketing campaign? Then you are on the right page as I will recommend some of the best SERP APIs in the market.

Overview of Top SERP APIs in the Market

If you have been getting blocked while trying to scrape Google or Bing even when you have incorporated all of the techniques you know to avoid detection, it is because your activities are leaving traces for suspicion. Google and other search engines are becoming sophisticated with their bot detection systems and unless you are willing to invest in following all of the trends, you are better off just handing off and using solutions by those ready and dedicated to following the scraping trends and improving their techniques.

Web scraping APIs, or more specifically, SERP APIs are some of the best at this. With a SERP API, you do not need to worry about using proxies, anti-captcha, and all the other techniques to avoid detection. All you need is to integrate the API and send your web requests — you will get the content of the search engine result as JSON. These scrapers take care of all the detection techniques for you under the hood. In this article, I will be discussing some of the best SERP APIs in the market for you.

ScraperAPI — Overall Best SERP API

Supported Site: Google and Bing

Geo-targeting: 12 countries with 50 more on request

Free Trial: 1K free trial for  week

Pricing: Starts from $49 for 100K API credits

The ScraperAPI is a full-fledged web scraping API that simplifies your web data collection workflow. It takes care of proxies, captchas, and even JS rendering so you just worry more about what to use data for rather than how to collect the data. Being a general web scraping API, you can use it on all websites. However, it does have special support for search engines which you can use for search data collection.

With this, you are able to collect data from Google, Bing, and other search engines. It returns structured data and is highly customizable so you only collect specific data you want from a SERP. Some of the use cases of this tool include keyword, brand, and competitor monitoring, location and device-specific SERP scraping, as well as ad data and trends. The service uses a residential proxy network under the hood to ensure it is as legitimate as possible.

Currently, it has the best success rate in the market when it comes to scraping all kinds of websites. Pricing is based on API credits and you can get started for free. However, the minimum plan starts from $49 per month.

ScrapingBee — Specialized Google Search API

Supported Site: Google

Geo-targeting: A few countries – limited geo-targeting support

Free Trial: 1K free trial for  week

Pricing: Starts from $49 for 150K API credits

The ScrapingBee service is just like the ScraperAPI tool and can even be said to be one of the best alternatives to it. However, its support for SERP scraping is quite specialized. This is because it supports only Google. And for its Google support, what you get is the SERP converted into an API for you.

Some of the data points you can collect using the ScrapingBee API include organic search results, ads, local results, Google map results, related queries, and questions. If you need to scrape Bing, you will have to make use of their general web scraper and then use the extraction tool to specify the specific data point you want to collect. For this reason, ScrapingBee is not the best for scraping Bing. But for Google, it is a great alternative to the ScraperAPI.

To scrape Google SERP with this, all you have to do is send a simple API request and you get the whole content of the Google SERP based on the keyword you provide as a JSON. It is left to you to identify the specific data point you need from the returned JSON.

SerpApi — Specialized SERPs Scraper API

Supported Site: Google and Bing

Geo-targeting: 10 countries

Free Trial: 100 searches free monthly

Pricing: Starts from $47 for 5000 searches

The SerpAPI is another API for scraping search engines. One thing you will come to like about SerpAPI is that it is the most specialized SERP API in the market. It does have support for scraping more structured SERP data than any other product in the market. It provides you real-time results with location-aware support (geo-targeting). The result provided is structured and provided as a JSON response.

To use this, all you have to do is send a simple API request and you will get back the response without worrying about getting detected and blocked as it takes care of proxy management, captcha bypassing, and Javascript rendering. It currently supports Google, Bing, Yelp, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, Yahoo!, Yandex, Baidu, App Store, eBay, Walmart, and others. For each of the aforementioned, there is a search scraping API you can use. However, its best support is for Google Search scraping. For Google, it support the scraping of maps, jobs, finance, images, news, about this result, related questions, and autocomplete.

Bright Data SERP API — Best for Enterprise-Level Usage

Supported Site: Google, Yandex, Bing, Baidu, and others

Geo-targeting: all countries supported

Free Trial: Free trial available

Pricing: $3 per CPM (pay as you go)

The Bright Data service is known for its high-quality, top-on-the-line proxy service. Recently, it made its debut in the data collection industry and has already made its mark known there. One of its data collection products is the SERP API which you can use to collect data from search engine result pages without getting blocked. One thing you will come to like about this SERP API is how highly customizable it is, allowing you to scrape only the data you need.

The secret powers of this is its residential proxy network which is the fastest, gives better session management support, and has the best performance so far in terms of request success rate. It is a performance beast and can handle all of your requests at any scale with little to no impact on performance. Its support cuts across the major search engines including Google, Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, and Baidu.

This API helps you to handle proxy management, browser fingerprinting, captcha solving, and automatic replies. Currently, it has the best geo-targeting scraping support in the market as you can collect data from over 195 countries in the world. The service actually helps you save cost and you only get to pay for successful requests.

Smartproxy SERP API — Best Alternative to Bright Data

Supported Site: Google, Bing, and Baidu

Geo-targeting: all countries supported

Free Trial: 1K free trial for a week

Pricing: Starts from $3.85 per 1K requests

The Smartproxy service describes its own SERP API as a full-stack tool that comes with a scraper for scraping pages, a proxy network that the scraper uses under the hood to avoid detection, and a parser to parse out the important data points into JSON for you. On your own part, all you need to do is send an API request with your target search engine, query, and location requirement, and other search parameters as API request parameters. One thing you will come to like about this service is its free trial support, allowing you to test out the service before making a purchase decision.

Unlike in the case of Bright Data’s offering, where you get more search engines supported, the Smartproxy SERP API only supports Google, Bing, and Baidu. It does have geo-targeting support, making it possible for you to scrape localized SERPs. Generally, you will want to use this if you are interested in SEO research, competitor and brand monitoring on SERPs, as well as generating leads. Pricing for this is pocket-friendly.

DataForSEO — Specialized SERP API for SEO

Supported Site: Google, Baidu, Bing, YouTube, and Yahoo!

Geo-targeting: all countries supported

Free Trial: 1K free trial for a week

Pricing: Starts from $0.0006 per SERP request

All of the other tools above are great for collecting SEO data. However, if you are looking for an easy-to-use tool for that, then the DataForSEO is here for you. This service offers a SERP API with support for Google Search, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo Search, and YouTube. There is also an already-prepared Google Dataset available that you can just purchase. However, if what you are looking for is real-time data, I will advise you to skip the dataset and focus on their scraping API. The dataset works best for data that does not need to be real-time.

When it comes to the kind of data you can collect, you can collect auto-complete, related queries, and people as ask keyword data which is great for deciding on the kind of content to produce. It is also a good choice for scraping Google Maps, news, and ads. The cost per query here is $0.0006. the speed might not be one of the best out there, it it definitely serves its purpose.

Oxylabs SERP API — Best for High Performance

Supported Site: Google, Yandex, Bing, and Baidu

Geo-targeting: all countries supported

Free Trial: 5K requests for 1 week

Pricing: Starts from $47 for 17,500 requests

If you are looking for a SERP API that is a high performer and can handle a high number of concurrent requests, then the Oxylabs service is a good contender and can be said to be in the same league as Bright Data. Using its SERP API, you are able to get real-time search data without worrying about getting blocked. As with every other option mentioned above, it is not specific to any programming language as it is made available as an API. All you need to do is send an API request and customize it so you only get the data you need.

The data collected here is real-time and geo-targeted, depending on the location you configure. One thing you will come to like about is how precise the collected data is. It does have support for the largest search engines in the world including Google, Bing, Baidu, and Yandex. For these, there are a good number of search features you can collect. Some of these include search, ads, lens, images, flights, hotels, trends, suggestions, and jobs, among others.

Serpstack — Free SERP API for Small Users

Supported Site: Google

Geo-targeting: A few countries

Free Trial: 100 Free requests monthly

Pricing: Starts from $29 for 5K searches monthly

SERP APIs are already cheap and for those that need one for a serious project, I don’t expect you to seek for a free one to use — a paid one is the recommended option. However, for small users that only need to send a couple of requests monthly, then the Serpstack API is the best for you. You get 100 API requests for free. If you need more, then you will have to pay. It provides you with a REST API that you can use to scrape Google Search and convert the return into a JSON response ready for use. You can use it to scrape Google Search, images, videos, news, and products.

If you opt-in as a paid user, the pricing for this is cheaper and you get a scalable API that can send concurrent requests. It is, however, not meant for enterprise use as it is better suited for small to mid-scale scraping projects. For free users, the response is returned in JSON only but for paid users, there is also the option of CSV which makes it even more versatile.

Apify Google SERP Scraper — Best SDK-Based SERP API

Supported Site: Google

Geo-targeting: Depends on your proxy provider

Free Trial: 100 Free requests monthly

Pricing: Starts from $5 monthly – proxy cost not included

The Apify platform is a web automation platform where you can find scrapers and bots meant for specific websites and use cases. It offers a Google Scraper which you can use to scrape the content of a Google Result Page with ease. One unique difference between this tool and the other ones mentioned is that unlike the other ones here that are available in the form of a REST API, the scraper for Google Search provided by Apify requires you to have their SDK installed.

Currently, the SDK is available for both NodeJS and Python. You can collect all kinds of SEO data from the SERP including both standard organic and search results, related queries, people also asked, product ads, prices, and reviews. The scraper has been designed in such a way that it can return up to 300 results per query which is up to page 30 of the SERP for standard queries and SERPs. Interestingly, the pricing is not charged per request as others.

Instead, you pay for it monthly. This is especially useful for those who need to scrape often but don’t need the level of efficiency of SERP APIs. The only major problem here is that you will need to pay for proxies separately.

Scrapingdog — Best for Small-Scale SERP Scraping

Supported Site: Google

Geo-targeting: A few countries

Free Trial: 1000 Free API call

Pricing: Starts from $40 for 10K Google credits

The Scrapingdog service is another SERP API I will recommend but for small to mid-scale usage. It is not the kind of service you want to use for sending millions of requests as you will definitely notice a lag in performance. For a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of requests, it will handle them so well. The Scrapingdog SERP API does support only Google. If your target is another search engine, you will have to use their scraping API and do the parsing yourself.

This is not something I will advise you to do as there are options that will take care of that for you. For this reason, I recommend this for only Google SERP scraping. As with others, it does offer a free trial of up to 30 days which is actually a generous offer in terms of period. However, the actual number of requests allowed for trial is 1K.

Conclusion

The above are just a few of the SERP APIs in the market. The industry is growing and there are more providers coming into it that keeping a tab on each is virtually impossible. Making the choice yourself can be tasking. However, with the few above, you can narrow your research and make the right choice. This is because I have personally tested and used most of them and my research suggests they are quite good and perform well.

FAQs

There are a few providers in the market that want you to believe they offer free scraping support. In reality, if you look at their page, you will see the free usage is only for small API users. The average free plan allows you to send 100 - 1000 requests monthly. If you ask me, this shouldn’t be considered as a free plan but a free trial as any reasonable scale of web scraping will require you to send more than this number of requests.

SERP APIs were developed to help you handle proxies, Javascript rendering, captcha solving, and other forms of blocks. So yes, it needs proxies, but not from you. These APIs use proxies under the hood so you don’t need to add your own proxies. However, as the market for them develops, some providers allow users to add their own custom proxies but that is not the norm. The only scraper on the list that requires you to add your proxy is the Apify Google SERP scraper and it can’t be said to be a full API but a library.

SERP APIs are web scraping APIs designed specially for scraping Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) with their responses returned mostly in JSON format or other structured data formats. The power and importance of SERP APIs lie in their ability to scrape without detection and their parsing of data into a structured format. Most SERPs API support scraping Google and the features on its SERPs such as both organic and paid ads, related queries, and people also ask, among others. Aside from Google, other search engines are also supported by the popular SERPs APIs.

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