Easily Monitor Google Search Results Using Node.js

What is serpstack, and What Makes it Powerful?

serpstack is an API service built to deliver real-time SERP data from all major search engines worldwide, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu & Yandex. You can use the serpstack API to scrape SERP data at scale using options like location, browser, device, and more. Minimal implementation takes just a few seconds using the simple HTTP GET URL structure, and results are returned in JSON.

The serpstack API is a product built and maintained by Apilayer, an Austrian technology company aiming to build a variety of reliable programming interfaces (APIs) and make them affordable for developers and startups. Browse all available products here.

Serpstack was built out of an internal need to keep track of search engine positions in an automated fashion. Today, the product has grown to become one of the most trusted SERP APIs available on the market.

Why use a SERP API?

Regularly gathering SERP data for your products and websites and keeping track of it over time is essential to a healthy SEO strategy. Rankings fluctuate significantly and search keywords become more or less applicable and valuable over time — the only way of staying on top of these changes is to use a pre-built Software-as-a-Service solution or implement SERP data directly into your applications or websites using a SERP API like serpstack.

The serpstack API is used to scrape SERP data at scale by thousands of SEO agencies, marketing professionals, and companies of any size around the world.

What SERP Endpoints are Available via the API?

In total, the serpstack API offers 18 API endpoints, each with different powerful functionalities. Here are their short summaries:

1. Ad Results: If Google returns any sponsored ads for your search query, the API response will come with an ads object, which contains all ads in the order they are shown in the search result.
2. Organic Results: Organic search results are the main search results provided by Google and are determined by a series of factors, such as web traffic, backlinks, social media presence, and much more.
3. Image Results: Image search results provided by Google. There are two options for images that can be returned by the API: Inline Images and Image Search.
4. Video Results: Video search results provided by Google. There are two options videos can be returned by the API: Inline Videos and Video Search.
5. News Results: News results are returned as a news_results array only when the type parameter is set to the news.
6. Shopping Results: Shopping search results provided by Google. There are two options shopping results can be returned by the API: Inline Shopping and Shopping Search.
7. Local Results: For many searches, Google returns both a local map and a series of local results. These items are returned together in almost 100% of all cases. The API will return local map details as local_map and local results as local_results.
8. Answer Box: Google is capable of providing a large variety of direct answers to questions, from simple questions all the way to solutions of complicated mathematical formulas.
9. Weather Box: If your Google search query is related to the weather in a specific location, Google will return weather information as an object called weather_box.
10. Events: If there are any events relevant to your search query, Google will show a rich snippet containing event results. These results are returned by the serpstack API as an events array.
11. Top Carousel: For some search queries, Google shows a horizontal list of results with images and descriptions at the top of the page. This list is returned by the API as a top_carousel array.
12. Top Stories: If there are any trending news stories relevant to your search query, Google will return those in a section called “Top Stories”. This section is returned by the API as a top_stories array.
13. Knowledge Graph: A Knowledge Graph is returned by Google whenever there is enough information about the search query from Google directly or from informational sources, such as Wikipedia. Knowledge Graphs will be returned in a knowledge_graph object by the API.
14. Inline Tweets: If there are any Tweets relevant to your search query, Google will include them in your search result. The serpstack API will return inline Tweet results as an inline_tweets array.
15. Related Searches: At the bottom of each search result, Google usually suggests other search queries related to the current query. These suggestions are returned by the API as a related_searches array.
16. Related Questions: For many search queries Google provides an additional set of frequently asked questions related to the search term. These related questions are returned by the API as a related_questions array.
17. Related Places: If there are any places (e.g. restaurants) relevant to your search query, Google will return those as part of a “Discover more places” section. This section is returned by the API as a related_places array.
18. Pagination: The API does not stop at page 1 of Google, the upcoming nine pages are listed along with URLs in the API’s pagination response object.

How can I access the serpstack API?

First, get your API Credentials here, and set up your subscription plan:

And you can monitor your usage via this dashboard. 

API Access Key & Authentication

Next, to check if everything is working properly, just simply run this URL in your favorite web browser:

You will get this API response inside your browser:

Here is another example, for “rest api” query:

You will get this API response inside your browser:

Here are all available HTTP GET request parameters:

The following are the Basic Response Objects:

Common API errors:

How can I Perform any Search Queries like Google using Node.js and serpstack?

Use the following code to make an API request using Node.js, you can change the “apilayer” value to any query search you want:

Here is the API response inside your Node.js IDE (here, I’m using Atom for this example):

Here is the API response after I changed the query to “rest api”:

Bonus: API Request using other Platforms

How can I Make an API Request using Postman?

If this is your first time using Postman you can download it from postman.com.

Choose the GET method, and send the request to the following URL:

Here is another example, of “rest api” query search:

How can I Make an API Request using RAD Studio REST Debugger?

First, download Delphi REST Debugger here. The REST Debugger can help you quickly turn your debugging queries into native desktop applications.

Choose the GET method, and send the request to the following URL:

Here is another example, for “rest api” query search:

After getting the API responses you need, and you want to create Desktop apps based on it using Delphi, please refer to this article to get started:

Are you Ready to Integrate Powerful Search Engine Capability into Your Apps?

As you can see, there are many SERP endpoints provided by serpstack REST API which can be connected to any platform and any programming language you work with. In this article, we show you the basic demo of how you can use the serpstack REST API for performing any query search you want. 

Take advantage of the free tier on serpstack and we strongly recommend you to upgrade your subscription plan if you need more powerful features (CSV Output, No Rate Limit, HTTPS Encryption, and many more) or contact us for a custom solution. We can’t wait to see what you build with our REST API!

Head over and sign up for free to start integrating scalable SERP power to your apps today!