AI Search Tool - Real-Time Web Search

A powerful web search actor designed for AI agents and LLM applications that need real-time knowledge.

Why This Actor?

Break Through Knowledge Cutoffs - Give your LLM agents access to current information beyond their training data cutoff dates.

Built for AI Agents - Structured JSON output perfect for LangGraph, AutoGPT, LangChain, and custom AI agent frameworks.

Reliable Results - Multi-backend architecture with automatic fallback ensures you get results even when one search engine is rate-limited.

Features

• Multi-Backend Search - Automatically falls back between DuckDuckGo, Bing, Brave, Google, and Yahoo
• 5 Search Types - Web, Images, Videos, News, and Books
• 10+ Regions - Localized search results (US, UK, AU, JP, and more)
• Smart Filtering - Safe search, time range filters, and result limits
• Proxy Support - Apify Proxy (residential/datacenter/SERP) and custom proxies
• AI-Ready Output - Clean JSON output in both Dataset and Key-Value Store

Perfect For

• LangGraph/LangChain Tools - Real-time web search for agent workflows
• ChatGPT Plugins - External knowledge retrieval
• RAG Systems - Current web data for retrieval augmented generation
• AI Research Assistants - Fetch latest information on any topic
• Autonomous Agents - AutoGPT, BabyAGI, and similar frameworks

Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
query	string	required	Search query string
maxResults	int	50	Maximum number of results (1-500)
resultType	string	"web"	Type: web, images, videos, news, books
region	string	"us-en"	Region code (see below)
safeSearch	string	"moderate"	Options: off, moderate, strict
timeRange	string	""	Filter: d (day), w (week), m (month), y (year)
proxy	object	null	Proxy configuration (optional)

Advanced Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
dev_transform_fields	array	[]	Transform output to include only specified fields. Use dot notation for nested objects (e.g., ["title", "link", "snippet"])
dev_dataset_name	string	"default"	Save results into a custom named Dataset. Supports placeholders: {ACTOR}, {DATE}, {TIME}
dev_dataset_clear	boolean	false	Clear the dataset before inserting new data

Example Input - Basic Web Search

{
  "query": "artificial intelligence trends 2024",
  "maxResults": 10,
  "resultType": "web",
  "region": "us-en",
  "safeSearch": "moderate"
}

Example Input - Recent News with Time Filter

{
  "query": "OpenAI GPT-5",
  "maxResults": 20,
  "resultType": "news",
  "region": "us-en",
  "timeRange": "w",
  "safeSearch": "off"
}

Example Input - With Apify Proxy

{
  "query": "machine learning datasets",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "resultType": "web",
  "region": "us-en",
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}

Supported Regions

Code	Region	Code	Region
us-en	United States	uk-en	United Kingdom
au-en	Australia	ca-en	Canada
nz-en	New Zealand	jp-jp	Japan
de-de	Germany	fr-fr	France
es-es	Spain	it-it	Italy
nl-nl	Netherlands	br-pt	Brazil

Search Types

1. Web Search (resultType: "web")

Returns standard web search results with titles, snippets, and URLs.

Output Fields:

• position - Result ranking (1, 2, 3...)
• title - Page title
• link - Full URL
• snippet - Text excerpt
• domain - Domain name
• query - Original search query

2. Image Search (resultType: "images")

Returns image search results with thumbnails and metadata.

Output Fields:

• position, title, link
• image - Full-size image URL
• thumbnail - Thumbnail URL
• source - Source website
• height, width - Image dimensions

3. Video Search (resultType: "videos")

Returns video search results from multiple platforms.

Output Fields:

• position, title, link
• description - Video description
• thumbnail - Video thumbnail URL
• duration - Video length
• published - Publication date
• publisher - Source (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)

4. News Search (resultType: "news")

Returns recent news articles with publication dates.

Output Fields:

• position, title, link
• snippet - Article excerpt
• date - Publication date
• source - News source name
• image - Article image URL

5. Books Search (resultType: "books")

Returns book search results from Anna's Archive and other sources.

Output Fields:

• position, title, link
• author - Book author
• publisher - Publisher and year
• info - Format and size info (e.g., "English [en], .epub, 0.5MB")
• thumbnail - Book cover image URL

Output Format

Results are stored in two locations for maximum flexibility:

1. Dataset (Individual Results)

Each search result is stored as a separate item in the dataset:

{
  "position": 1,
  "title": "Artificial intelligence",
  "link": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence",
  "snippet": "Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems...",
  "domain": "en.wikipedia.org",
  "query": "artificial intelligence"
}

2. Key-Value Store (Complete Output)

Three keys are stored for different use cases:

OUTPUT - Full output with results and metadata:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "position": 1,
      "title": "...",
      "link": "...",
      "snippet": "..."
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "query": "artificial intelligence",
    "totalScraped": 10,
    "region": "us-en",
    "resultType": "web",
    "scrapeDuration": "2.18s"
  }
}

RESULTS - Just the results array for direct use

METADATA - Just the metadata object

Proxy Configuration

Apify Proxy (Recommended)

{
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}

Available Proxy Groups:

• RESIDENTIAL - High-quality residential IPs
• DATACENTER - Fast datacenter proxies
• SERP - Specialized for search engines

Custom Proxy URLs

{
  "proxy": {
    "proxyUrls": [
      "http://user:pass@proxy1.example.com:8080",
      "http://user:pass@proxy2.example.com:8080"
    ]
  }
}

Manual Proxy Configuration

{
  "proxy": {
    "protocol": "http",
    "hostname": "proxy.example.com",
    "port": 8080,
    "username": "user",
    "password": "pass"
  }
}

Use Cases

1. Real-Time Knowledge for LLMs

Give your AI assistant access to current events, latest research, or breaking news:

{
  "query": "latest developments in quantum computing",
  "maxResults": 10,
  "timeRange": "w"
}

2. Fact-Checking & Verification

Verify claims by searching recent news and authoritative sources:

{
  "query": "climate change statistics 2024",
  "resultType": "news",
  "timeRange": "m",
  "safeSearch": "strict"
}

3. Research Assistant

Gather information on specific topics for reports or analysis:

{
  "query": "best practices machine learning deployment",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "resultType": "web"
}

4. Content Discovery

Find images, videos, or news for content creation:

{
  "query": "startup funding 2024",
  "resultType": "news",
  "maxResults": 20
}