# Search (Light)

Lightweight web search endpoint. Returns structured JSON search results. Max 200 results per query (10 pages × 20 results). Supports query modifiers like filetype:pdf, site:reddit.com, or "exact phrase". YouTube results include views, view_count, date, and publication_age when the active provider supplies that metadata. The people_also_search_for field is a best-effort autocomplete enrichment and may be empty; use Search Autocomplete when suggestions are required.

- **Documentation:** [https://scrappa.co/docs/google-search-api/google_search_light](https://scrappa.co/docs/google-search-api/google_search_light)
- **API group:** Google Search API
- **Endpoint:** `GET https://scrappa.co/api/search-light`

## Authentication

Send your Scrappa API key in the `X-API-KEY` request header. Paid endpoints also support accountless x402 payments when called without an API key.

## Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `query` | string | Yes | Search query with optional modifiers |
| `num` | integer | No | Number of results per page (1-20, default: 10) |
| `page` | integer | No | Page number for pagination (1-10, default: 1). Mutually exclusive with "start". Internally converted to a start offset after validation. |
| `start` | integer | No | Starting index for offset-based pagination (0-170). Mutually exclusive with "page". |
| `hl` | string | No | Interface language code (default: en) |
| `safe` | string | No | Safe search: off or active (default: off) |
| `lr` | string | No | Restrict results to language (e.g., lang_en) |
| `gl` | string | No | Country code for results (e.g., us, de) |
| `cr` | string | No | Restrict to country (e.g., countryUS) |
| `dateRestrict` | string | No | Date filter (e.g., d7 for last 7 days) |
| `sort` | string | No | Sort order (e.g., date) |
| `filter` | integer | No | Enable/disable duplicate filtering (0 or 1) |
| `rights` | string | No | Filter by usage rights (cc_publicdomain, cc_attribute, cc_sharealike, cc_noncommercial, cc_nonderived) |

## Example request

```bash
#!/bin/bash

curl -X GET \
    -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" \
    "https://scrappa.co/api/search-light?query=artificial+intelligence&num=10"
```

## Example response

```json
{
    "organic_results": [
        {
            "position": 1,
            "title": "Example Search Result",
            "link": "https://example.com/article",
            "displayed_link": "example.com/article",
            "snippet": "This is an example search result snippet that describes the content...",
            "snippet_highlighted_words": [
                "example",
                "search"
            ],
            "thumbnail": "https://example.com/thumbnail.jpg",
            "rich_snippet": {
                "image": "https://example.com/image.jpg",
                "thumbnail": "https://example.com/thumb.jpg"
            }
        },
        {
            "position": 2,
            "title": "Adobe Express Brand Kit Tutorial 2026",
            "link": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=example123",
            "displayed_link": "youtube.com/watch?v=example123",
            "snippet": "A step-by-step Adobe Express brand kit tutorial.",
            "views": "720+ views",
            "view_count": 720,
            "date": "4 months ago",
            "publication_age": "4 months ago"
        }
    ],
    "people_also_search_for": [],
    "search_information": {
        "query_displayed": "example search query",
        "total_results": 1500000,
        "time_taken": 0.42
    },
    "pagination": {
        "current_page": 1,
        "pages": [
            {
                "page": 1,
                "start": 0
            },
            {
                "page": 2,
                "start": 10
            },
            {
                "page": 3,
                "start": 20
            }
        ]
    },
    "total_results": 1500000
}
```

## Errors

| Status | Error | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 422 | Validation Error | The query, pagination, localization, safe search, date, sort, duplicate filter, or rights parameters failed validation. |
| 401 | Authentication Required | The request is missing a valid Scrappa API key in the X-API-KEY header. |
| 403 | Credits Or Account Access Blocked | The API key is valid, but the account cannot use Search Light because email verification, free request, subscription, or credit-pack access is blocked. |
| 503 | Search Upstream Unavailable | The upstream service is temporarily unavailable. Please retry shortly. |
| 503 | Search Configuration Unavailable | Search Light could not load the upstream configuration required to build the search request. |
| 500 | Search Parse Failed | Search Light fetched a response but could not parse it into the documented JSON result structure. |

## More Scrappa resources

- [API documentation](https://scrappa.co/docs)
- [Full LLM-readable API reference](https://scrappa.co/llms-full.txt)
- [OpenAPI specification](https://scrappa.co/docs/api.json)
- [Pricing](https://scrappa.co/pricing)