Dedicated DuckDuckGo APIDuckDuckGo Scraper API — Search, News & Instant Answers
The fastest way to get DuckDuckGo data at scale. Structured JSON for web, image, news and video search, autocomplete suggestions and Instant Answers — from the privacy-first search engine whose unpersonalized rankings make the cleanest SERP data there is. No DuckDuckGo account, no upstream API key.
No credit card required · PAYG credits never expire
# DuckDuckGo web search as JSON
import scrapebadger
client = scrapebadger.ScrapeBadger("sb_live_...")
results = client.duckduckgo.search(
query="web scraping",
region="us-en"
){
"query": "web scraping",
"region": "us-en",
"results": [{
"title": "Web scraping - Wikipedia",
"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/...",
"is_ad": false
}, ...],
"result_count": 23,
"has_next": true
}DuckDuckGo API — 7 Dedicated Endpoints
Structured JSON responses with normalized data models. No HTML parsing. No proxy management. No upstream API key.
/v1/duckduckgo/search/v1/duckduckgo/images/v1/duckduckgo/news/v1/duckduckgo/videos/v1/duckduckgo/autocomplete/v1/duckduckgo/instant/v1/duckduckgo/regionsEvery Field You Need, Ready to Use
All fields are normalized from DuckDuckGo’s own results — no HTML for you to parse. Result URLs arrive already unwrapped from redirect links, ads are flagged instead of mixed into the organic ranking, and news dates ship in both Unix and ISO form.
Search Result
titlestringResult title as DuckDuckGo shows iturlstringClean destination URL — already unwrapped from redirect linkssnippetstringThe text snippet under the resultdisplay_urlstringThe shortened URL shown on the result cardis_adbooleanWhether the result is a paid placement — organic rankings stay cleanabstractobjectThe knowledge box: heading, text, source, URL and image, when DuckDuckGo shows oneresult_countintegerResults on this pagehas_nextbooleanWhether another page exists, so you know when to stop pagingInstant Answer
headingstringThe Instant Answer topic headingabstract / abstract_textstringTopic summary as HTML and plain textabstract_source / abstract_urlstringWhere the summary comes from — usually Wikipediaanswer / answer_typestringA direct answer when one exists, e.g. a calculation or conversiondefinitionstringDictionary definition with its own source and URLimagestringTopic image URLtypestringAnswer classification: article, disambiguation, category, …redirectstringWhere a !bang query would redirectrelated_topicsarrayRelated topics with text, URL and icon — great for topic expansion~64 Regions, One Parameter
Every search endpoint takes a region code — the same kl codes DuckDuckGo itself uses. Pass wt-wt for unregionalized results, or any locale below and beyond.
From API call to clean JSON in seconds
No proxy setup. No session management. No anti-bot configuration.
Send a request
Call any DuckDuckGo endpoint with your API key — a query for web, image, news or video search, a prefix for autocomplete, or a topic for an Instant Answer. REST or SDK.
We handle the hard parts
ScrapeBadger routes the request through rotating exits, keeps sessions healthy, detects blocks and retries — your request either succeeds or costs nothing.
Get structured JSON
Receive normalized JSON with clean unwrapped URLs, snippets, flags for ads, machine-readable dates and the abstract box — ready to store, rank or pipe into an agent.
What Developers Build with DuckDuckGo Data
Unpersonalized rankings, four search verticals and encyclopedic Instant Answers — the raw material for rank tracking, monitoring and AI grounding.
SEO rank tracking
Track where domains rank on an unpersonalized SERP across ~64 regions — DuckDuckGo shows everyone the same results, so your rank data has no profile bias.
Brand & news monitoring
Poll news search for brand mentions with source, excerpt and machine-readable dates in both Unix and ISO form — ready for alerting pipelines.
LLM grounding & RAG
Give agents and RAG pipelines live web results with clean, unwrapped URLs and snippets — a drop-in search tool with no upstream API key to manage.
Keyword research
Autocomplete returns the suggestions DuckDuckGo itself shows for a prefix, at 1 credit a call — cheap fuel for keyword discovery at scale.
Image dataset collection
Image search returns the full-resolution URL, dimensions, source page and license filter support — build training and moderation datasets with provenance.
Content research
Combine web, video and Instant Answer data to map what already ranks for a topic, which formats dominate, and what the knowledge box says about it.
Pay Per Request. Credits Never Expire.
You only pay for successful responses — failed requests are always free. PAYG credits never expire; volume subscription tiers reduce per-credit cost further.
| Endpoint | Credits / request | PAYG | Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|
Web Search /search | 5 credits | — | — |
Image Search /images | 5 credits | — | — |
News Search /news | 5 credits | — | — |
Video Search /videos | 5 credits | — | — |
Autocomplete /autocomplete | 1 credit | — | — |
Instant Answer /instant | 1 credit | — | — |
Regions /regions | Free | — | — |
See the full plan comparison on the pricing page — subscription tiers step down per-credit cost beyond the cheapest column shown above.
Built for Reliability at Scale
ScrapeBadger's DuckDuckGo Scraper API handles the plumbing — so your pipeline keeps running.
Unpersonalized, reproducible rankings
DuckDuckGo does not profile users, so the same query in the same region returns the same ranking for everyone. That makes it the cleanest large search engine to measure — no filter bubble skewing your data.
URLs come back clean
DuckDuckGo wraps result links in redirect URLs. We unwrap them before you see them, so every result carries the real destination URL — no decoding step in your pipeline.
Ads flagged, never mixed in
Paid placements carry an is_ad flag, so organic ranking positions stay clean while you still see which advertisers bid on a query.
Four verticals, one shape
Web, images, news and videos share the same request pattern — query, region, safesearch, page — so adding a vertical to your pipeline is a path change, not a rewrite.
Dates in both Unix and ISO
News results ship publication time as both a Unix timestamp and an ISO 8601 string, so nothing in your stack has to parse "2 hours ago".
Instant Answers at 1 credit
The Instant Answer endpoint returns abstracts, definitions, direct answers and related topics — encyclopedic grounding for agents at a fifth of the cost of a full SERP.
Simple Integration. Any Language.
Get started in minutes with Python, Node.js, or plain HTTP requests.
The scrapebadger Node.js library wraps the DuckDuckGo API with typed methods. Install with npm install scrapebadger, then start pulling search results in a few lines of code.
import ScrapeBadger from 'scrapebadger'
const client = new ScrapeBadger({ apiKey: 'sb_live_...' })
// Fresh, region-targeted web results
const { results } = await client.duckduckgo.search({
query: 'web scraping',
region: 'us-en',
timelimit: 'week',
})
for (const r of results) {
console.log(r.title, r.url, r.is_ad)
}
// News from the last day
const news = await client.duckduckgo.news({
query: 'artificial intelligence',
timelimit: 'day',
})import ScrapeBadger from 'scrapebadger'
const client = new ScrapeBadger({ apiKey: 'sb_live_...' })
// Keyword discovery at 1 credit a call
const { suggestions } = await client.duckduckgo.autocomplete({
query: 'web scra',
})
console.log(suggestions) // ['web scraping', 'web scraper', ...]
// Encyclopedic grounding for an agent
const ia = await client.duckduckgo.instant({
query: 'duckduckgo',
})
console.log(ia.heading, ia.abstract_text)
console.log(ia.related_topics.map((t) => t.text))Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about scraping DuckDuckGo with the API — Python, Node.js, or REST.
Do I need a DuckDuckGo account or API key?
No. You only need a ScrapeBadger API key. DuckDuckGo has no official search API to sign up for — this API gives you its real results as structured JSON without any upstream credentials.
Which regions can I search from?
About 64 region codes — us-en, uk-en, de-de, jp-jp and so on — plus wt-wt for no region at all. The free /regions endpoint lists every code, and every search endpoint takes a region parameter.
Are the result URLs usable directly?
Yes. DuckDuckGo wraps outbound links in redirect URLs; the API unwraps them before returning, so the url field on every result is the real destination and can be stored or fetched as-is.
What is the difference between /search and /instant?
/search returns the actual results page — ranked organic links, snippets and the abstract box — for 5 credits. /instant returns DuckDuckGo’s Instant Answer data — abstracts, definitions, direct answers and related topics — for 1 credit. Use /search for rankings, /instant for encyclopedic answers.
What happens if a request is blocked?
It returns a 422 and costs you nothing. Credits are only deducted for successful responses, so you never pay for a block or a retry.
Bigger volume? Save up to 64%
Per-request credit costs are listed above. For higher monthly volume, subscription tiers reduce the per-credit rate substantially. All DuckDuckGo endpoints — web, image, news and video search, autocomplete, Instant Answers and regions — are included on every plan.
Start Scraping DuckDuckGo Today
1,000 free credits. No credit card. Get your API key in under a minute.
PAYG credits never expire · Pay only for successful requests · ~64 regions