When you search on Google, you’ll often see a “Related searches” or “People also search for” section at the bottom of the results page.

Unlike “People Also Ask,” the People Also Search For section reflects follow-up queries that users actually perform, making it valuable for understanding user intent, search behavior, and query expansion.

From SEO analysis and market research to trend monitoring and data collection, SerpApi makes it easy to extract structured, reliable data from even the most dynamic search results. Whether you’re exploring human curiosity through Related Searches or building systems powered by real-time search data, SerpApi gives you the data you need.

While these results look simple in the browser, they’re dynamically generated, frequently updated, and difficult to extract reliably at scale. In this post, we’ll show how to programmatically collect Google Related Searches using SerpApi, then explore real-world examples, including some that are unintentionally funny.

Results Structure

Let's first go over what the JSON results from calling SerpApi's Google Search endpoint looks like. There are a lot more fields included, however I have shortened the results so we can primarily focus on the related_searches and what is included. 

{
  "search_metadata": {
      "id": "",
      "status": "Success",
      "json_endpoint": "",
      "created_at": "",
      "processed_at": "",
      "google_url": "",
      "raw_html_file": "",
      "total_time_taken": 
  },
  "search_parameters": {
    "engine": "google",
    "q": "",
    "location_requested": "",
    "location_used": "",
    "google_domain": "google.com"
  },
  "search_information": {
    "query_displayed": "",
    "total_results": ,
    "time_taken_displayed": ,
    "organic_results_state": ""
  },
  "inline_videos": [
    {
    }
  ],
  "organic_results": [
    {
    ....
  },
  ...
  "related_searches": [
    {
      "block_position": "Integer - Index of related search container",
      "query": "String - Query of the related search",
      "image": "String - Image of the related search",
      "link":  "String - Link to the Google search",
      "serpapi_link":  "String - SerpApi Link of the Google search",
      "items": [
        {
          "name": "String - Name of the item",
          "image": "String - Image of the item",
          "reviews": "Integer - Number of reviews. Available for some searches, e.g. restaurants",
          "rating": "Float - Rating of the item. Available for some searches, e.g. restaurants",
          "duration": "String - Duration of a video",
          "extensions": "Array - Extensions of the item",
          "link":  "String - Link to the Google search",
          "serpapi_link":  "String - SerpApi Link of the Google search",
        }
      ],
    },
    ...
  ],
  ...
}

Now that we've seen how we'll be receiving results from the API, let's look at how to collect the data using the Google Search API.

How to Collect Data - Google Search API

Instead of building and maintaining a custom scraper, we’ll use SerpApi’s Google Search API, which returns search results in a structured JSON format, even as Google’s UI changes.

To get started with SerpApi's Google Search API, review this blog post:

How to scrape Google search results with Python (2025 Tutorial)
Learn how to quickly and effortlessly scrape Google search results using the SerpApi Python library. Bonus: export the data to a CSV file or a Database.
SerpApiHilman Ramadhan

For more information on the Google Search Parameters available, read this blog post:

Google Search Parameters (2025 Guide)
In this blog post, we will explore some of the Google search parameters with their corresponding attributions in SerpApi Documentation.
SerpApiEmirhan Akdeniz

Now that we are set up, let's move into a specific example.

For this example, we are going to query the APIs to find the funniest People Also Search For. While the example is for fun, this will show us how to collect Related searches, as well as the results across different query types.

Here is the code I will be running to query the API. Aside from the required fields (api_key, q, and engine), we have also set the optional parameters: domain, location, json_restrictor, hl (language), and gl (country). 

import serpapi

result =  serpapi.search(
  api_key="YOUR_SECRET_API_KEY_HERE",
  q="are cats plotting",
  engine="google",
  domain="google.com",
  json_restrictor="related_searches[].query",
  location="Austin, Texas, United States",
  hl="en",
  gl="us",
)

In this case we aren't interested in the organic_results, local_results, etc, So we are using the json_restrictor to only receive the applicable fields in the results. We set the json_restrictor to only receive the related_searches field (related_searches[]) and the query (title) field within the related_searches. You can read more about the json_restrictor with examples here:

SerpApi: JSON Restrictor
Restrict the SERP JSON to the fields you need.
SerpApi

Now that we are set up for our specific example, let's run the code with some examples and look at their outputs.

Example: Queries and Outputs

To illustrate how Google Related searches vary by topic, we ran the same request across several different query categories. We've picked 4 different subjects including animals, food, health & symptoms, and life. The value of the q parameter will represent each of these subjects, as shown in the example above.

We will be looking at the related_searches field specifically. With our json_restrictor set, we have only the fields we require in the results without having to do any additional parsing.

Animals

  • q = "Are cats plotting"

Results: 

"related_searches": [
    {
      "query": "Are cats plotting reddit",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is my cat plotting to kill me quiz",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is your cat Plotting to Kill you",
    },
    {
      "query": "How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you meme",
    },
    {
      "query": "How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You PDF",
    },
    {
      "query": "Cat plotting Meme",
    },
    {
      "query": "Cat World Domination Day",
    },
    {
      "query": "How to Tell If Your Cat is trying to Kill You book",
    }
  ],

Food

  • q = "Why do I crave"

Results:

"related_searches": [
    {
      "query": "Sudden craving meaning"
    },
    {
      "query": "How to stop food cravings when not hungry"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do I crave gravy"
    },
    {
      "query": "Food cravings in early pregnancy"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do I crave cream"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do i crave chewy things"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do I crave rice"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do I crave sweets"
    }
  ]

Health & Symptoms:

  • q = "Is it normal to"

Results:

  "related_searches": [
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to meaning",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to feel",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to lyrics",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to song",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to movie",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is It Normal podcast",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to have a period",
    },
    {
      "query": "Is it normal to have diarrhea",
    }
  ],

Life:

  • q = "Why do humans"
{
  "related_searches": [
    {
      "query": "Why do humans talk"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans die"
    },
    {
      "query": "What makes us human philosophy"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans age"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans dream"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans have toenails"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans have hair"
    },
    {
      "query": "Why do humans have eyebrows"
    }
  ]
}

Example: Result - Funniest Queries

While most Related searches are useful for analysis and query expansion, some reflect the Internet's more unexpected curiosities. In this example we are looking for the funniest queries. Using our results from above, we have ranked the funniest People Also Search For.

#1 Is my cat plotting to kill me quiz (Animals)

Coming in at #1 is a quiz for deciding if your cat is plotting to kill you. We all know cats have some funny behaviors and sometimes look at you like they have deeper thoughts. Who knew this was a popular question having appeared 5 times in our results? In this case even including a quiz to find out if your cat is plotting to kill you!

If your cat looks like this, maybe Google and take the quiz if your cat is plotting to kill you.

#2 Why do I crave gravy? (Food)

We all have some cravings ranging from Taco Bell to pickles. However, I have never heard of craving gravy specifically. You think about gravy for Thanksgiving or poutine, but not to the level you need to google why you are craving gravy!

I hope whoever is craving gravy gets all the gravy they want!

#3 Is it normal to have diarrhea (Health & Symptoms)

Hey no judgement, who hasn't had diarrhea at some time in your life? Usually more of WebMD if it's going on for a long time or how to fix it. However, just Googling "is it normal to have diarrhea" is something we can all enjoy.

If this is you, I recommend making sure the bathroom is close by!

#4 Cat World Domination Day (Animals)

Of course we had to feature another cat search, this time for world domination. Cats are smarter than we know! However, are they plotting world domination? Apparently there is an informal holiday on June 24th to recognize cats' subtle control over humans and the world.

Now you know on June 24, post your cats and celebrate Cat World Domination Day!

#5 Why do humans have eyebrows

This one is a valid question, where in evolution was it decided that humans need eyebrows? What purpose are they serving? Other than looks.

Apparently they protect the eyes by diverting sweat and water! They also of course help us show expressions. The more you know, they are not just a decoration on your face.

Conclusion

Google’s Related Searches aren’t just interesting, they’re a powerful signal of real user behavior. By programmatically extracting this data with SerpApi, you can move beyond manual browsing and turn search intent into structured, scalable insights for SEO, product research, trend monitoring, or analytics workflows.

In this post, we focused on Related searches, but the same approach works to retrieve organic results and local results to AI overviews, knowledge graphs, and more. With SerpApi, you get reliable, structured JSON from constantly changing search pages without maintaining scrapers or dealing with breakages.

We also offer many other search engines you can query the Related searches, like DuckDuckGo Search API and Naver Search API. As well as more specific APIs like Amazon Search API and Walmart Search API. To see the full list of APIs review our Search Engine APIs page here, where you can access the full documentation for each.

Whether you’re prototyping a quick analysis or building production systems powered by real-time search data, SerpApi helps you collect exactly the data you need, when you need it. Explore the full set of Search Engine APIs and start turning search results into actionable data today.

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