Search Api For Developers -- Common Questions Answered

Choosing a search API for your application is a decision that affects your product's capabilities, your infrastructure costs, and your development speed. Whether you're building an AI agent, a price comparison tool, a research platform, or a data pipeline, the search API you pick determines what your users (or your models) can access.

This FAQ covers the most common questions developers ask when evaluating search APIs -- from pricing and rate limits to features and implementation patterns.

Key Takeaways

• Search APIs range from $0.001 to $0.025 per query depending on the provider and data source
• Key differentiators are data source (Google vs independent index), structured output, and additional features like scraping
• Free tiers vary widely -- some give 250 queries/month (SerpApi) while others offer 1,000+ (Tavily, Exa)
• Most teams end up needing search + scraping, which is why unified APIs like SearchHive are growing in popularity

What is a search API?

A search API lets your application programmatically retrieve search engine results as structured data (typically free JSON formatter). Instead of a user typing a query into Google, your code sends an HTTP request and gets back titles, URLs, snippets, and metadata.

This is different from site search (Algolia, Meilisearch) which indexes your own content. Search APIs provide access to the open web -- useful for AI agents, research tools, competitive analysis, and any application that needs real-time web data.

How much does a search API cost?

Pricing varies significantly between providers:

SearchHive uses a unified credit system where 1 credit = $0.0001, and different operations cost different amounts. A search query costs roughly 5 credits ($0.0005), making it one of the cheapest options at scale.

What's the difference between Google SERP APIs and independent search APIs?

Google SERP APIs (SerpApi, Serper.dev) parse Google's actual search results. You get the same results a user would see on google.com, including knowledge panels, local results, featured snippets, and ads. The downside: Google changes its HTML frequently, which can cause parsing issues, and these APIs can be expensive.

Independent search APIs (Brave, Exa, SearchHive) use their own indexes. Brave has 30B+ pages in its independent index. Exa uses neural search for semantic understanding. SearchHive aggregates multiple sources.

Independent indexes avoid the legal and technical risks of scraping Google directly. They're also more stable -- you won't wake up to broken parsers because Google changed a CSS class.

Do I need JavaScript rendering in my search API?

For basic search queries, no. Search APIs return structured metadata (titles, URLs, snippets) without needing to render JavaScript.

However, if you need to extract full page content from search results (common in AI/RAG workflows), JavaScript rendering matters. Many modern pages load content dynamically -- the raw HTML from a search result's URL won't contain the actual article text without JavaScript execution.

SearchHive's ScrapeForge handles this automatically. Other providers like Jina Reader and Firecrawl also offer JavaScript rendering as a separate API.

How do I handle rate limits?

Most search APIs impose rate limits measured in requests per second (RPS) or requests per minute:

• SerpApi: 200-3,000/hour depending on plan
• Brave: 50 RPS default
• SearchHive: Configurable limits based on plan
• Tavily: Varies by plan tier

Strategies for managing rate limits:

• Batch your queries and process them sequentially with delays
• Use exponential backoff for retries
• Cache results -- if you're searching the same terms repeatedly, store results locally
• Upgrade your plan rather than trying to circumvent limits

Can I use a search API for AI agents?

Yes, and this is one of the fastest-growing use cases. AI agents need real-time web access to provide accurate, grounded responses. Without a search API, agents are limited to their training data.

For agent use cases, consider:

• Response format: Some APIs return content pre-formatted for LLM context (Tavily)
• Citation support: Grounded responses need source URLs (Brave Answers, SearchHive DeepDive)
• Latency: Sub-second responses matter for interactive agents
• Cost at scale: Agents make many search calls -- per-query cost compounds quickly

import requests

# SearchHive for AI agent web access
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/swiftsearch",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    params={
        "query": "latest Python 3.13 features",
        "count": 5
    }
)

results = response.json()["results"]
context = "\n\n".join([f"Title: {r['title']}\nContent: {r.get('snippet', '')}" for r in results])
# Pass context to your LLM

What's the best search API for web scraping?

Search and scraping are complementary. You search to discover URLs, then scrape those URLs for full content. Some platforms combine both:

• SearchHive: SwiftSearch finds URLs, ScrapeForge extracts content -- same API key, same dashboard
• Firecrawl: Has a search endpoint (2 credits/10 results) plus scraping/crawling
• Jina AI: Reader extracts content, s.jina.ai provides basic search

Using separate tools (e.g., SerpApi for search + Firecrawl for scraping) works but adds integration complexity. Unified platforms reduce the number of API keys, SDKs, and billing relationships you need to manage.

How do search APIs handle geographic targeting?

Most search APIs support country and language parameters:

# Geo-targeted search
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/swiftsearch",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    params={
        "query": "best coffee shops",
        "country": "gb",      # United Kingdom
        "language": "en",     # English
        "count": 10
    }
)

This returns results as if the search originated from the specified country. Useful for local SEO monitoring, market research, and geo-specific content discovery.

Are search APIs legal?

Yes, using search APIs is legal. They provide programmatic access to web data through legitimate channels. The legal considerations are around how the API provider obtains their data:

• APIs with their own web index (Brave, Exa) operate on publicly crawled data
• Google SERP APIs parse publicly available Google results
• Scraping APIs fetch publicly accessible web pages

What matters is respecting terms of service, rate limits, and robots.txt generator. Search APIs handle this on their end.

How do I get started?

1. Sign up for a search API provider. SearchHive, Brave, and Tavily all offer free tiers with no credit card required.

2. Get your API key from the provider's dashboard.

3. Make your first request:

curl -s "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/swiftsearch" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d "query=test search&count=3"

1. Integrate into your application using the Python SDK or direct HTTP calls.

2. Scale as your usage grows. Most providers offer straightforward plan upgrades.

Summary

The right search API depends on your use case:

• AI agents and RAG: SearchHive or Tavily (unified search + extraction)
• Google-specific data: SerpApi (most comprehensive Google SERP parsing)
• Semantic research: Exa (neural search for complex queries)
• Independent index: Brave (large index, no Google dependency)
• Budget-friendly: SearchHive (cheapest at scale with credit system)

Most developers end up needing search plus some form of content extraction. Rather than managing multiple API subscriptions, a unified platform like SearchHive covers both use cases with predictable pricing. Start with 500 free credits and see what works for your application.

---

See also: SearchHive vs SerpApi | SearchHive vs Brave Search | SearchHive vs Tavily | Best AI Agent Tools