SERP API

The SERP API Built for
Accurate Data at Scale

Q: What data does the Nightwatch SERP API return?

Each API response includes organic ranking positions, SERP feature flags (local packs, featured snippets, AI Overviews, knowledge panels, video carousels), competitor positions, search volume, and historical ranking arrays — all as structured JSON. You get everything needed to build a full-featured rank tracker or SEO reporting pipeline.

Q: What search engines does the SERP API support?

The Nightwatch SERP API supports Google, Bing, and YouTube. You can query any combination across any country, region, city, or zip code, on desktop or mobile device types.

Q: How do I get an API key?

Sign up for any paid Nightwatch plan (or start a 14-day free trial) and generate a scoped API key from your account settings. The key is ready to use immediately — no approval queue or waiting period.

Q: Is there rate limiting?

Yes — rate limits are applied per minute and scale with your plan tier. To maximize throughput, the API supports bulk keyword batching so you can pack many keywords into a single request instead of one call per keyword. Enterprise customers can negotiate custom rate limit SLAs for high-volume pipelines processing millions of requests per month. See the API Reference for per-plan limits.

Q: Can I use the API to build my own rank tracker?

Yes — that's one of the most common use cases. The REST API returns clean JSON that maps directly to ranking positions, so you can power custom dashboards, white-label SEO tools, automated reporting pipelines, or data science workflows without building any scraping infrastructure.

Q: Do I need to handle proxies or CAPTCHAs?

No. Nightwatch manages the full proxy network, IP rotation, and CAPTCHA solving. You send a standard REST API request and receive structured JSON — we handle everything underneath.

Q: How quickly are Google layout changes reflected in the API?

Our team monitors SERP structure changes continuously. Parsers are typically updated within hours of any major Google layout change, so your data stays accurate without any action on your side.

Programmatic access to Google, Bing, and YouTube ranking data — any location, any device, any volume. Get structured JSON responses with positions, SERP features, competitor data, and historical trends. Build custom dashboards, SEO tools, or reporting pipelines in minutes.

Clean JSON Responses

107,000+ Locations

99.9% Uptime SLA

Track rankings across every platform

Monitor your visibility on traditional search engines and emerging AI platforms — all from one dashboard.

6 search enginesacross 190+ countries

6 AI platformswith citation tracking

Sentiment & share of voicefor AI results

Search Engines

Google

Bing

YouTube

Yahoo

DuckDuckGo

Google Places

AI Platforms

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini

Perplexity

AI Mode

AI Overview

Trusted by 10,000+ SEO teams

Quick Start

Your first API call in minutes.

A single REST endpoint returns structured JSON with ranking positions, SERP feature flags, and competitor data. No proxy setup, no CAPTCHA handling — just clean data your application can consume immediately.

REST APIClean JSON over HTTPS

Any languagecurl, Python, JS, Ruby, Go…

Instant accessAPI key from your dashboard

View API Reference →

# fetch SERP positions for any keyword

1# Fetch rankings for a keyword
2curl -s \
3  "https://api.nightwatch.io/api/v1/urls/{url_id}/search_keywords?query=serp+api&limit=5" \
4  -H "Authorization: Bearer nw_live_••••••••"

Infrastructure Built for Scale

We handle proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and parser maintenance. Scale from hundreds to millions of SERP requests per month — without touching a server.

Smart Segmentation

Instantly filter through massive datasets. Create dynamic segments based on performance, volume, or tags.

Active FiltersClear all

Search Volumeis greater than100

Rankis less than10

1,247 keywords match

Campaign Correlation

Visualize the impact of your work. Correlate site changes and updates directly with ranking improvements.

151020

30d ago20d10dToday

Avg. Position

Any Location.
Any Precision.

Query SERP data from any city, region, or zip code across 190+ countries. 10 years of pioneering experience ensures the highest level of granular accuracy for every API response.

Precision Levels107,000+ locations

GlobalWorldwide

190+ countries

CountryUnited States

190+

StateCalifornia

5,000+

CitySan Francisco

50,000+

Zip Code94105

107,000+

Rich SERP Feature Data

Every API response includes parsed data for organic results, local packs, featured snippets, knowledge panels, and AI Overview flags — not just a position number.

Mobile Rank Tracker

Our rank tracker monitors rankings across Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet devices accurately.

Local Rank Tracker

Track local rankings from 190,000+ locations with zip-code level precision.

SERP Feature Tracking

Track Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, and Local Packs with precision.

GET /search_keywords · 200 OK

application/json

1{
2  "keywords": [  // array of tracked keywords
3    {
4      "query":          "serp api",
5      "engine":         "google",
6      "google_gl":      "us",
7      "position":       6,              // current rank
8      "best_position":  2,
9      "position_changed_during_last_week": -2, // trending ↓
10      "available_serp_features": {
11        "organic":          true,
12        "featured_snippet":  false,
13        "ai_overview_snippet": true
14      }
15    }
16  ]
17}

Structured Data

Every field you need. Nothing you don't.

The API returns clean, typed JSON for each keyword — positions, trends, competitor comparisons, and SERP feature flags — ready to map directly into your database or dashboard.

Ranking positionCurrent, previous, best-ever, and historical positions

Position trendsDay/week/month change deltas for every keyword

SERP featuresFeatured snippet, AI Overview, local pack, knowledge panel flags

Engine + localeGoogle, Bing, YouTube — per country, city, or zip code

Competitor positionsSide-by-side ranks for each tracked competitor domain

Search volumeGlobal and local AdWords volume for each keyword

SERP Record

Archive: Nov 14, 2024

+ Feature Snippet

- Rank Drop

Historical SERP Data

Full SERP Archives
on Demand

Access historical ranking data going back years. Every API response includes historic position arrays so you can analyze trends, diagnose drops, and benchmark your keywords without a separate time-series store.

Full SERP Archives

We store the raw HTML and parsed results for every check.

Pixel-perfect Comparisons

Compare snapshots side-by-side to spot layout shifts.

Infrastructure

Production-grade reliability.
Build with confidence.

We manage proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and parser updates so your pipelines stay live even when Google changes its layout.

99.9%

Uptime SLA

guaranteed

<2s

Avg. response time

per API call

50K+

Proxy access points

for accurate SERP data

13 yrs

SERP history archive

since 2012

Workflows

What teams build with the SERP API.

Rank tracking

Build your own rank tracker

Pull positions for any keyword, location, or device and power a fully custom dashboard — without building any scraping infrastructure.

White-label

Launch a white-label SEO tool

Resell SERP data under your own brand. The API handles the data layer so you focus on product and clients.

Reporting

Automate SEO reporting pipelines

Schedule API calls to push daily keyword data into your data warehouse, Looker Studio, or client reports.

Competitor monitoring

Track rivals programmatically

Monitor thousands of competitor positions at scale and trigger alerts when they steal rankings from your key pages.

Alerting

Rank drop alerts

Integrate the API into your alerting stack. Fire Slack or PagerDuty alerts the moment a key term falls off page one.

AI & data science

Feed ranking signals into AI

Pipe SERP positions into ML models, LLM context windows, or analytics pipelines as structured, time-series ranking features.

SERP API FAQ

Common questions about integrating real-time SERP data via the Nightwatch API.