Google Search Results in PHP

This Php API is meant to scrape and parse Google, Bing or Baidu results using SerpApi.

The full documentation is available here.

The following services are provided:

SerpApi provides a script builder to get you started quickly.

Installation

Php 7+ must be already installed and composer dependency management tool.

Package available from packagist.

Quick start

if you're using composer, you can add this package (link to packagist).

$ composer require serpapi/google-search-results-php

Then you need to load the dependency in your script.

<?php
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
 ?>

if not, you must clone this repository and link the class.

require 'path/to/google-search-results';
require 'path/to/restclient';

Get "your secret key" from https://serpapi.com/dashboard

Then you can start coding something like:

$client = new GoogleSearch("your secret key");
$query = ["q" => "coffee","location"=>"Austin,Texas"];
$response = $client->get_json($query);
print_r($json_results)

This example runs a search about "coffee" using your secret api key.

The SerpApi service (backend)

searches on Google using the query: q = "coffee"
parses the messy HTML responses
return a standardizes JSON response The Php class GoogleSearch
Format the request to SerpApi server
Execute GET http request
Parse JSON into Ruby Hash using JSON standard library provided by Ruby Et voila..

Alternatively, you can search:

Bing using BingSearch class
Baidu using BaiduSearch class
Ebay using EbaySearch class
Yahoo using YahooSearch class
Yandex using YandexSearch class
Walmart using WalmartSearch class
Youtube using YoutubeSearch class

See the playground to generate your code. https://serpapi.com/playground

How to set SERP API key

The SerpApi api_key can be set globally using a singleton pattern.

$client = new GoogleSearch();
$client->set_serp_api_key("Your Private Key");

$client = new GoogleSearch("Your Private Key");

Search API capability

$query = [
  "q" =>  "query",
  "google_domain" =>  "Google Domain", 
  "location" =>  "Location Requested", 
  "device" =>  "device",
  "hl" =>  "Google UI Language",
  "gl" =>  "Google Country",
  "safe" =>  "Safe Search Flag",
  "num" =>  "Number of Results",
  "start" =>  "Pagination Offset",
  "serp_api_key" =>  "Your SERP API Key",
  "tbm" => "nws|isch|shop"
  "tbs" => "custom to be search criteria"
  "async" => true|false # allow async 
];

$client = new GoogleSearch("private key");

$html_results = $client->get_html($query);
$json_results = $client->get_json($query);

Location API

$client = new GoogleSearch($this->API_KEY);
$location_list = $client->get_location('Austin', 3);
print_r($location_list);

it prints the first 3 location matching Austin (Texas, Texas, Rochester)

[{:id=>"585069bdee19ad271e9bc072",
  :google_id=>200635,
  :google_parent_id=>21176,
  :name=>"Austin, TX",
  :canonical_name=>"Austin,TX,Texas,United States",
  :country_code=>"US",
  :target_type=>"DMA Region",
  :reach=>5560000,
  :gps=>[-97.7430608, 30.267153],
  :keys=>["austin", "tx", "texas", "united", "states"]},
  ...]

Search Archive API

Let's run a search to get a search_id.

$client = new GoogleSearch($this->API_KEY);
$result = $client->get_json($this->QUERY);
$search_id = $result->search_metadata->id

Now let's retrieve the previous search from the archive.

$archived_result = $client->get_search_archive($search_id);
print_r($archived_result);

it prints the search from the archive.

Account API

$client = new GoogleSearch($this->API_KEY);
$info = $client->get_account();
print_r($info);

it prints your account information.

Search Google Images

$client = new GoogleSearch($this->API_KEY);
$data = $client->get_json([
  'q' => "Coffee", 
  'tbm' => 'isch'
]);

foreach($data->images_results as $image_result) {
  print_r($image_result->original);
  //to download the image:
  // `wget #{image_result[:original]}`
}

this code prints all the images links, and download image if you un-comment the line with wget (linux/osx tool to download image).

Example by specification

The code described above is tested in the file test.php and example.php. To run the test locally.

export API_KEY='your secret key'
make test example

Composer example

see: https://github.com/serpapi/google-search-results-php/example_composer/

To run the code.

git clone https://github.com/serpapi/google-search-results-php
cd google-search-results-php/example_composer/
make API_KEY= all

Change log

2.0
- Code refractoring SearchResult -> Search
- Add walmart and youtube search engine
1.2.0
- Add more search engine
1.0
- First stable version

Conclusion

SerpApi supports all the major search engines. Google has the more advance support with all the major services available: Images, News, Shopping and more.. To enable a type of search, the field tbm (to be matched) must be set to:

isch: Google Images API.
nws: Google News API.
shop: Google Shopping API.
any other Google service should work out of the box.
(no tbm parameter): regular Google search. The field tbs allows to customize the search even more.