Understanding Search Results

The Search API returns a SearchResponse containing the submitted query, the returned result page, search results, and additional search information.

Search Response

A successful Search request returns the following top-level fields:

The OpenAPI defines job_id, query, page, attempts, results, and suggestions as required response fields. spelling_correction can be a string or null.

Example Response

The following is a real response from the Search API:

{
  "job_id": "a478199c-54d2-4884-ba8d-d6d7568614e9",
  "query": "web scraping best practice",
  "page": 1,
  "attempts": 2,
  "results": [
    {
      "position": 1,
      "title": "Web Scraping Best Practices in 2026",
      "url": "https://www.scrapingbee.com/blog/web-scraping-best-practices/",
      "snippet": "Web scraping is the automated process of retrieving data from websites and transforming raw HTML or other web data into structured formats for analysis or use. Whether you are working on a small web scraping project or managing large-scale data collection activities, choosing the right web scraping tool and following best practices is essential. In this article, I'll walk you through the best ...",
      "thumbnail": null,
      "displayed_url": "www.scrapingbee.com",
      "source_host": "www.scrapingbee.com"
    }
  ],
  "suggestions": [],
  "spelling_correction": null
}

The response above uses the fields defined by the SearchResponse and SearchHitModel schemas.

Search Results

The results field is an array of SearchHitModel objects.

Each search result contains three required fields:

• position
• title
• url

It can also contain:

• snippet
• thumbnail
• displayed_url
• source_host

Result Fields

The OpenAPI defines position, title, and url as the required fields for each result. thumbnail, displayed_url, and source_host can be null.

Working With a Result

A result can be accessed from the results array.

For example, the first result in the response is:

{
  "position": 1,
  "title": "Web Scraping Best Practices in 2026",
  "url": "https://www.scrapingbee.com/blog/web-scraping-best-practices/",
  "snippet": "Web scraping is the automated process of retrieving data from websites and transforming raw HTML or other web data into structured formats for analysis or use.",
  "thumbnail": null,
  "displayed_url": "www.scrapingbee.com",
  "source_host": "www.scrapingbee.com"
}

The position identifies the result's 1-based rank on the returned page.

The title and url identify the result, while the remaining fields provide additional result information when available.

Suggestions

The suggestions field contains query suggestions returned by the engine.

In the example response, no suggestions were returned:

{
  "suggestions": []
}

The OpenAPI defines suggestions as an array of strings.

Spelling Correction

The spelling_correction field contains the spelling correction applied to the query.

It can contain a string or null.

In the example response:

{
  "spelling_correction": null
}

The OpenAPI defines this field as either a string or null.

Complete Response Structure

The Search response can be represented by the following structure:

SearchResponse
├── job_id
├── query
├── page
├── attempts
├── results[]
│   ├── position
│   ├── title
│   ├── url
│   ├── snippet
│   ├── thumbnail
│   ├── displayed_url
│   └── source_host
├── suggestions[]
└── spelling_correction

This structure follows the SearchResponse and SearchHitModel schemas defined in the OpenAPI specification.

What's Next?

You now understand the structure of a Search API response.

Continue with Pagination and Filters to learn how to work with result pages and the available Search request filters.