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Search Errors

All of our Search APIs use the same error response structure. This includes all of our APIs except for the Extra APIs (Location API, Account API, Search Archive API etc.).

A search status is accessible through the search_metadata.status key. A search status begins as Processing, then resolves to either Success or Error. If a search has failed or contains empty results, the top level error key will contain an error message.

Note that if a search returns empty results due to no results returned by the search engine, it is still considered succesful from SerpApi's perspective and will have a status value of Success.

Search Status Description
Success Search request is successfully processed (It might include empty results).
Processing Search request is processing.
Queued Search request is queued for process.
Error Search process encountered an error before it could be completed (e.g. Proxy timeout, internal errors, etc).

JSON structure overview 

{
  "search_information": {
    "organic_results_state": "String - The result state for organic results (e.g. Fully Empty, Results for exact spelling). The key may not always be present if the search returns results. The key name varies by engine to reflect result type, i.e  'local_results_state', or 'finance_results_state', but always ending in '_state'",
  },
  "error": "String - A human-readable message about the error."
}

Examples

Status: Error

HTTP Status: 503 (Service Unavailable)


JSON Example

{
  "search_metadata": {
    "id": "64c32cfeb68f8bc186aaa013",
    "status": "Error",
    "json_endpoint": "https://serpapi.com/searches/d46c933a4a843289/64c32cfeb68f8bc186aaa013.json",
    ...
  },
  ...
  "error": "We couldn't get valid results for this search. Please try again later.",
}

Status: Success with empty organic results in Google Search API

HTTP Status: 200 (OK)


JSON Example

{
  "search_metadata": {
    "id": "6540ac26b68f8b2910019dd5",
    "status": "Success",
    "json_endpoint": "https://serpapi.com/searches/d1add70d119063c8/6540ac26b68f8b2910019dd5.json",
    ...
  },
  ...
  "search_information": {
    "organic_results_state": "Fully empty"
  },
  "error": "Google hasn't returned any results for this query."
}

Status: Success with spelling fixes in Google Search API

HTTP Status: 200 (OK).

error key is not present in this case because valid results are returned.


JSON Example

{
  "search_metadata": {
    "id": "6540ac26b68d3b2910019dd5",
    "status": "Success",
    "json_endpoint": "https://serpapi.com/searches/d3add74d149063c9/6540ac26b68d3b2910019dd5.json",
    ...
  },
  ...
  "search_information": {
    "query_displayed": "Coffe",
    "organic_results_state": "Some results for exact spelling but showing fixed spelling",
    "spelling_fix": "Coffee"
  },
  ...
}

Status: Success with empty local results in Google Maps API

HTTP Status: 200 (OK)


JSON Example

{
  "search_metadata": {
    "id": "6540af0b66440aef3efcbdd0",
    "status": "Success",
    "json_endpoint": "https://serpapi.com/searches/268f774b7d0b7072/6540af0b66440aef3efcbdd0.json",
    ...
  },
  ...
  "search_information": {
    "local_results_state": "Fully empty"
  },
  "error": "Google hasn't returned any results for this query."
}