SerpApi

SerpApi provides structured, real-time search data from Google, Bing, Baidu and other search engines, helping AI agents access real-time information without managing web scraping infrastructure.

This page covers SerpApi setup and usage. See Web Search for general prerequisites, provider comparisons, and troubleshooting.

Get an API key

1. Open SerpApi and create an account or sign in.
2. Open the API key page and copy your key.
3. Check that your SerpApi account has search quota available. Refer to SerpApi's website and your account for current quotas, billing, and service access.

Configure AstrBot

Your conversation must use AstrBot Built-in AI, and both the chat model and its API must support tool calling. The server or container running AstrBot must be able to reach https://serpapi.com.

1. Open Config in the sidebar and select the profile your conversation actually uses.
2. Open AI → Capabilities → Web Search and turn on Enable Web Search.
3. Set Web Search Provider to serpapi.
4. Add your key to the SerpApi API Key list. One key enables all four capabilities below; you can also add multiple keys for rotation.
5. Click Save Configuration at the bottom right.

These settings apply only to the selected profile. Multiple keys rotate, and authentication or quota errors trigger a retry with the next key.

Supported capabilities

Capability	SerpApi endpoint	Content returned by AstrBot
Web search	Google Search API	Titles, source URLs, and snippets from the first page; up to 5 results by default, with a requested maximum of 10
Image search	Google Images Light API	Direct image URLs, thumbnails, source pages, and available dimensions; up to 5 images by default, with a requested maximum of 10
Finance queries	Google Finance API	Available quotes, currencies, timestamps, financial data, and news; a history window returns the quote summary and available price series
Academic search	Google Scholar API	Publication titles, snippets, publication details, citation counts, and available full-text links; up to 5 publications by default, with a requested maximum of 20

The actual number of results and available fields depend on the search response and may be fewer than requested. Web and image search support country and interface language settings. Web search also supports a search location, and academic search supports publication year filters. Include these requirements in your message so the model can pass them to the tool.

Use SerpApi in a conversation

After saving, send the bot or ChatUI an explicit search request. The model chooses the tool and its parameters. Ask it to “search first, then answer” when you want an answer based on search results.

Web search

Search for AstrBot's latest release. Give the version, summarize the main changes, and include source links.

Web search returns titles, links, and snippets without automatically reading full pages. AstrBot's SerpApi integration does not provide a page extraction tool. If you often need to summarize a specific URL, choose a service with page extraction from the provider comparison.

Image search

Find three images of coffee and include their source pages.

Image results include direct image URLs and source pages. Displaying or sending an image depends on the model's subsequent actions and the messaging platform.

Finance queries

Look up AAPL:NASDAQ on Google Finance and include the quote timestamp.

Finance accepts symbols such as AAPL:NASDAQ, .INX:INDEXSP, BTC-USD, and EUR-USD. Specify a time range when you need historical prices:

Look up the past month of price history for AAPL:NASDAQ on Google Finance and include the source.

Supported history windows are 1D, 5D, 1M, 6M, YTD, 1Y, 5Y, and MAX. With a history window, the API returns the quote summary and available price series instead of full financial data and news.

Academic search

Search Google Scholar for retrieval augmented generation papers published since 2023. Include citation counts and available PDF links.

You can specify a publication year range and request up to 20 publications. Snippets are not the full papers; PDF and other full-text links are returned only when available in the search response.

Troubleshooting

Invalid key, quota errors, or timeouts

Confirm that you entered a SerpApi key and check your remaining account quota. Inspect the error under Data & Logs → Logs. For timeouts, check whether the AstrBot environment can reach the SerpApi API. See Web Search troubleshooting for general checks.

The model does not use image, finance, or academic search

Confirm that Web Search is enabled for the active profile, the provider is serpapi, and the key has been saved. Try the corresponding example above and explicitly request image search, Google Finance, or Google Scholar. All four tools share the same configuration, with no extra switch required; the model still decides whether to call them.