Using Scraper to Collect Google Search Data

Collecting Google search data may be necessary in various situations. For example, this may include searching for the major competitors, analyzing ranking positions for your own websites, checking the inclusion of search phrases for upcoming promotions, preparing a database for larger scraping procedures, etc. Below, we will focus not only on the reasons but also on the mechanics of the process.

We will discuss how to scrape Google without writing code and what tools to use for this task.

What Data You Can Scrape from Google Search

The page with search results is briefly referred to by the abbreviation SERP (which stands for Search Engine Results Page).

Let’s assume that you, your bot, or your scraper send a search query to Google. In response, the search engine returns a page with search results. This page has a specific format and arrangement of elements.

If we remove advertising blocks, the layout of the elements is approximately as follows:

1. A line with options for content type and search settings.
2. The most relevant answer (which may have an extended description and additional links to thematic sections from the same site).
3. A "People also ask" block.
4. Other answers from organic search (usually 10 items).
5. A block with relevant videos.
6. A "Related searches" block.
7. Pagination for navigating to the next pages with search results.
8. A wiki block may be located to the right of the stream (a brief description of an object, phenomenon, brand, service, etc.).

In some cases, the set of elements and their order may vary. For example, when searching for hotels, flights, job vacancies, or products, special snippets will be displayed. If there are offers from companies near the user, a "Places" block with an interactive map and a list of addresses will be displayed.

In some countries, special blocks from Google's neural network (Gemini) have already appeared.

The principles for generating results have not changed since the search engine was created—this is known as organic search results (without advertisements, which are marked in a special way). Only minor details and formatting have changed.

A classic snippet of a search result includes:

• The website’s favicon.
• Its name or domain.
• Title/anchor (the page title is clickable and includes a link to the search result – URL).
• Description (a brief description of the page or a “snippet” of text that Google considers most important).

Sometimes, Google adds a star rating to the snippet (if the content is rated by users and has the appropriate markup) and a set of additional links to important website pages (similar to breadcrumbs).

Mobile search is almost a complete copy of the desktop version. The only difference is that the results include websites adapted for small screens (smartphones and tablets).

Google Scraping Problems

At the moment, the search engine does not have an API that allows you to load results directly with XML/JSON markup (such an interface existed until 2021, but it is now significantly outdated). Therefore, the only working method of extracting data from Google Search remains scraping. By the way, many other Google services have APIs like Maps, Translator, Sheets, etc., but not Google Search.

Google periodically changes the layout of its search results, tests new concepts, and introduces unique blocks for niche queries. As a result, the approach described above may change over time and lose its relevance.

This is the main problem with independent Google scraping — you need to know all the nuances and regularly adapt your parser. If you don't, it will stop working after a short period.

Additionally, Google likes optimizing server load and actively detects and blocks automated traffic. The most likely form of sanction is the CAPTCHA display.

You can find more detailed information about what Google considers suspicious traffic in the search engine’s help section.

Google does not have blacklists, and it never permanently bans IP addresses.

However, if you don’t want to pay for solving CAPTCHAs or deal with them manually, a proper solution would be to either use rotating proxies or parse Google search results through specialized services that handle all the technical issues.

We will review such a service below.

Using Froxy SERP Scraper to Collect Data From Google

Froxy SERP Scraper is a ready-made parser for popular search engines that works as an online service with an API and web interface. Supported platforms include Google, Bing, AOL, Ask, and DuckDuckGo (not to mention eCommerce sites, social networks, mapping services, and others).

Here is what Froxy SERP Scraper offers:

• No need to write your own parser or monitor its functionality.
• There is no need to find and set up proxies, test them, or control the rotation — this is an all-inclusive service. You only need to select the country for the Google scraping process.
• Convenient web interface — you can set up scraping tasks directly from the browser.
• Well-documented API — if needed, the scraper can be integrated with your own programs and websites.
• Cleaned data provided in table format — ready for further work, with results available in CSV and JSON formats.
• Possibility of automated web scraping Google search results — using a simple built-in scheduler. You’ll only need to regularly download the results.
• A free request package is available for thorough testing.
• Detailed parsing customization — parameters like depth (in pages), adult content filtering, publication/upload date, domain, mobile results, etc., can be set.
• Webhooks upon task completion — these can be used as triggers for further automation steps.
• Pay only for results, not for errors.

Let’s now discuss how to launch web scraping Google search results — a step-by-step guide is provided below.

Step 1. Register the Account

Click the "Get Started" button in the website header and select the "Scrapers" section from the list of plans. If you already have an account, simply login to the control panel and add any scraping package.

Packages are calculated based on the number of requests (tokens). One request equals one page from which data can be scraped. The more tokens in the package, the lower the cost per token. Note that tokens are valid for one month only.

Step 2. Create a New Task for Scraping

To do this, select your scraping package from the "Subscriptions" section in the control panel and click on its name (or on the "Settings" button in the card).

Each subscription shows the total number of tokens, the number used, and the upcoming charge date.

If there are already tasks in the package, they will be displayed in a list. You can track the status of each task:

• Pending – if the task has been started;
• Completed – if the task is finished;
• Stopped – if the package has run out of requests;
• Error – if the task encountered an error and scraping failed.

Tasks scheduled in the planner appear in a separate tab. They have a special status: Active. This means the task is in the execution queue.

If needed, you can filter tasks by status, type, or date (within a specific date range).

Launch the task creation wizard by clicking the "Create New Task" button.

Select the "Google Search" task type.

Step 3. Enter the Search Query

This can be a phrase or a set of keywords for which the search will be performed.

Note:

• The phrase language may vary.
• The length of the phrase should not exceed 200 characters (including spaces).
• Only one search query can be entered per parsing task. Attempts to enter queries separated by commas or other delimiters will result in them merging into one large query.
• Special characters and syntax supported by Google can be used inside the query.

Examples of Google search syntax:

• Search on a specific site

Site:target-site.com followed by your search phrase

In our example, Google will search for content only on the "target-site.com" site.

• Exact phrase match (word combination)

“your phrase here”

The search engine will try to find materials in which the exact phrase appears or in which all the specified words are present.

• Word alternation

word1 OR word2

The OR operator is understood as the word "OR". That is, Google will search for either "word1" or "word2".

• Word exclusion (negative keywords)

-word1 -word2

A minus sign placed before a word tells the search engine to exclude results that contain the specified words.

There are also other operators. You can find them in Google's documentation.

Step 4. Scrape Task Configuration

• Country from which the connection will be made.
• General or specific regional Google domain (e.g., google.com, google.it, google.de, etc.).
• Number of pages (depth of scraping for one search query). Note that the more pages, the more tokens will be consumed.
• Results per page (Google displays 10 rows/snippets by default).
• Search type (for example, you can select a search in books, videos, or news instead of a general search).
• Content upload/creation date (the time range during which the page was published: an hour ago, a day, a week, a month, or a year ago). The parameter "for all time" is used by default.
• Mobile version (for targeted search on mobile devices only).
• Safe search (to hide adult content from the results).

These are the main Google settings.

Additionally, you can specify a webhook URL, which will be sent upon task completion.

Step 5. Set Up Task Repetition Parameters

If the task has to be performed regularly, for instance, in the case of position monitoring, it makes sense to specify the frequency of its repetition when creating it.

When setting up a new scraping task in the "Task Scheduler" block, simply choose the repetition period, which can be anywhere from hourly to daily.

The value is set to "Do not repeat" by default.

Step 6. Launch the Task

Once you've defined all the scraping parameters, simply click the "Create Task" button, and it will be sent for processing.

While the task is still in progress, it will display the "Pending" status. When the scraping is complete, the system will show the status "Completed" and send a notification to the webhook (if one was specified in the settings).

Step 7. View or Download the Results

You can view the Google search scraping results directly in your dashboard. They are displayed in a table format. For each task, the search parameters and the query itself are saved, so you can always refer back to see exactly what you searched for and where.

The data can be downloaded as either a CSV or JSON file. The former provides a tabular format, while the latter is a structured markup format.

In the Froxy SERP Scraper results, you receive:

• A link to the page from the search results.
• Anchor text (the title of the material).
• Snippet (a brief description under the title).
• Indicators of additional flags (if available - like a preview image, ad block marker, or AMP page version).
• Publication date (if available).

Instead of the web interface, you can use the API.

Here's an example of a CURL request:

curl -X POST https://froxy.com/api/subscription/YOUR-KEY-API/task \-H "X-Authorization: Your Authorization Token" \-d "location[country]"="EU" \-d "filters[upload_date]"="any_time" \-d domain="us" \-d page=14 \-d per_page=10 \-d query="search phrase" \-d type="google"

You can find more details in our API documentation.

Potential Uses of Data

Scraping data from Google search results can be used for various purposes. Some of the most popular include:

• Market Research: Tracking trends and tendencies, compiling competitor lists, studying their mechanics, product range, pricing policies, accumulating general knowledge, etc.
• Implementation of Dynamic Web Services: For example, populating widgets on news websites, in stock market summaries etc.
• SEO Analysis: Monitoring your rankings for search phrases in different regions, tracking changes after website updates, and studying competitor websites.
• Comprehensive Competitor Analysis: Analyzing prices, content strategies, advertising purchases based on thematic queries, monitoring rankings, studying real market reach, etc.

By the way, we have a separate tool for monitoring rankings for specific sites – the Google Position Scraper:

• When creating a new task, simply select the "Google Position" type.
• Enter the search phrase (or SEO keyword) in the settings.
• Specify the domain (your site or a competitor's site).
• Adjust other parameters (country, parsing depth, mobile version activation, etc.).
• Set the repetition frequency (or run the task once if needed).
• Wait for the results.

Conclusion and Recommendations

If you don’t want to write your own parser, struggle with solving CAPTCHAs, route requests through proxies (for location virtualization and/or mobile emulation), worry about data storage formats, or have other technical issues, we recommend using a ready-made service: Froxy SERP Scraper.

The service charges are based on query packages while parsing results can be downloaded in CSV or JSON format. Upon task completion, the service sends notifications via webhooks. A well-documented API interface is also available.

Even if you choose a more complex route (for example, developing your own scraping script), we have something to offer as well: rotating residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies. Payment is based only on traffic packages, while all proxies are at your disposal. Up to 1,000 parallel ports are supported, with a pool of over 10 million IPs and targeting up to the city and mobile operator level.