Web Search Service API: Introduction
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This document introduces the Web Search Service API and its usage.
Prerequisites
Before making queries, configure the client application as follows:
Authentication
The Web Search Service API requires an API key to identify the Google Cloud
project.
All requests must be accompanied by a valid API key using the
X-Goog-Api-Key HTTP header.
Identify your application to Google
Requests are tied to the partner agreement using the ClientContext message.
Supply the designated client_id with every request
(e.g., example-client-id).
API overview
The API is built on a single high-performance RPC endpoint perfectly suited for
search.
API operations
There is only one primary RPC method to invoke in the Web Search
Service API:
Search: https://websearchservice.googleapis.com/v1:search
This unified endpoint handles web search requests based on the parameters
supplied in the request.
Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2026-09-09 UTC.
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