Method entities.search

AI-generated Key Takeaways

• The Google Knowledge Graph Search API lets you search for entities (people, places, things) using a variety of search parameters like keywords, IDs, and entity types.

• The API returns structured data in JSON-LD format, following schema.org standards and Google extensions, providing detailed information about the matched entities.

• You can refine searches using language filters, substring matching, and limiting the number of results for efficiency.

• The response includes key entity details such as name, description, image, website URL, and a relevance score.

• You are responsible for adhering to applicable laws, especially regarding the use of images returned by the API.

Searches Knowledge Graph for entities that match the constraints.

HTTP request

GET https://kgsearch.googleapis.com/v1/entities:search

Query parameters

Parameter name	Type	Description
query	string	A literal string to search for in the Knowledge Graph.
ids	string	A list of entity IDs to search for in the Knowledge Graph. To specify multiple IDs in the HTTP request, repeat the parameter in the URL as in ...?ids=A&ids=B
languages	string	The list of language codes (defined in ISO 639) to run the query with, for instance `en`.
types	string	Restricts returned entities to those of the specified types. For example, you can specify `Person` (as defined in http://schema.org/Person) to restrict the results to entities representing people. If multiple types are specified, returned entities will contain one or more of these types.
indent	boolean	Enables indenting of JSON results.
prefix	boolean	Enables prefix (initial substring) match against names and aliases of entities. For example, a prefix `Jung` will match entities and aliases such as `Jung`, `Jungle`, and `Jung-ho Kang`.
limit	number	Limits the number of entities to be returned. Maximum is 500. Default is 20. Requests with high limits have a higher chance of timing out.

Request body

The request body must be empty.

Response body

A response message contains a list of entities, presented in JSON-LD format and compatible with schema.org schemas (with limited external extensions).

The following JSON-LD example shows how the response body is structured:

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "http://schema.org/",
    "goog": "http://schema.googleapis.com/",
    "resultScore": "goog:resultScore",
    "detailedDescription": "goog:detailedDescription",
    "EntitySearchResult": "goog:EntitySearchResult",
    "kg": "http://g.co/kg"
  },
  "@type": "ItemList",
  "itemListElement": [
    {
      "@type": "EntitySearchResult",
      "result": {
        "@id": "kg:/m/0dl567",
        "name": "Taylor Swift",
        "@type": [
          "Thing",
          "Person"
        ],
        "description": "Singer-songwriter",
        "image": {
          "contentUrl": "https://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQmVDAhjhWnN2OWys2ZMO3PGAhupp5tN2LwF_BJmiHgi19hf8Ku",
          "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift",
          "license": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0"
        },
        "detailedDescription": {
          "articleBody": "Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 14 to pursue a career in country music. ",
          "url": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift",
          "license": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License"
        },
        "url": "http://taylorswift.com/"
      },
      "resultScore": 4850
    }
  ]
}

Response fields

Field name	Type	Description
@id	string	The canonical URI for the entity.
name	string	The name of the entity.
@type	array	The list of supported schema.org types that match the entity.
description	string	A short description of the entity.
image	URL	An image to help identify the entity.
detailedDescription	string	A detailed description of the entity.
url	URL	The official website URL of the entity, if available.
resultScore	number	An indicator of how well the entity matched the request constraints.

Note: Image URLs are provided to help you confirm that you have selected the correct entity. As with all content you obtain through Google APIs, you are responsible for ensuring that your use of the images complies with applicable law.

JSON-LD keywords

For JSON-LD keywords such as @context , @vocab, @type, or @id, refer to the JSON-LD spec.

Schema.org compatibility

The response uses the vocabulary hosted at schema.org, with limited extensions (for example, resultScore) that are compatible with schema.org vocabulary. For more details about these extensions, see List of schema extensions.

For each of the Schema.org types (such as Person) and properties (such as name) there is a corresponding full URI, as in the following examples:

• Person -> http://schema.org/Person

• Thing -> http://schema.org/Thing

• name -> http://schema.org/name

• description -> http://schema.org/description

Types and properties defined as Google schema extensions can be expanded with http://schema.googleapis.com. For example,

• EntitySearchResult -> http://schema.googleapis.com/EntitySearchResult
• detailedDescription -> http://schema.googleapis.com/detailedDescription

The documentation for each type and property is available at the corresponding URI.

List of schema extensions

Schema extensions used in this API are hosted at http://schema.googleapis.com as external extensions.

The type extension to Schema.org is:

• EntitySearchResult

The property extensions to Schema.org are:

• detailedDescription
• resultScore