DuckDuckGo Scraper

Scrape full DuckDuckGo search results — web, news, images, videos, autocomplete suggestions, and instant answers — and get clean, structured JSON. A fast, privacy-friendly DuckDuckGo search API alternative for SEO research, market analysis, and AI/agent (RAG) pipelines.

What does DuckDuckGo Scraper do?

This Actor extracts search results from DuckDuckGo across six content types in one run: web, news, images, videos, suggestions (autocomplete), and instant answers. It returns clean, consistent JSON with stable field names, result positions, and pagination — ready to download or pipe straight into an app, dashboard, or LLM.

It is HTTP-first — five of the six types (web, news, videos, suggestions, instant answers) use a fast, lightweight HTTP path with no browser; only images use a headless browser (DuckDuckGo blocks non-browser image requests). It is reliability-focused and built to keep working under DuckDuckGo's anti-bot measures via proxy rotation and automatic retries.

Why use DuckDuckGo Scraper?

• 🔎 Full SERP coverage — web, news, images, videos, suggestions, and instant answers, not just web links.
• 🤖 AI/agent ready — flat, predictable JSON with explicit nulls (never silently missing fields) makes it a drop-in "search tool" for RAG pipelines and AI agents.
• 🧭 SEO & market research — track rankings, snippets, related questions, and news across regions.
• 🌍 Region, safe-search & time filters — localize results and restrict by recency or a custom date range.
• 🛡️ Reliability-first — datacenter proxies by default with automatic residential fallback on blocks, retries with backoff, and graceful per-type degradation (one type failing never kills the whole run).
• ⚡ Fast & cheap to run — an HTTP-first design (browser only for images) keeps compute per result low.
• 🗓️ Apify platform perks — schedule runs, call via API, integrate with 5,000+ tools, and monitor everything.

What data can DuckDuckGo Scraper extract?

Common fields appear on every item; per-type fields appear based on type.

Field	Type	Description
query	string	The search query that produced the item
type	string	web, news, image, video, suggestion, or instant_answer
position	integer	1-based rank within the query+type, continuous across pages
title	string	Result title (web, news, images, videos)
url	string	Result URL
snippet	string	Description/snippet (web, news)
source	string	Publisher/source (news)
date / relativeTime	string	Publish time (news)
imageUrl / thumbnailUrl	string	Media URLs (images, videos, news)
duration / viewCount	string/int	Video metadata
phrase	string	Autocomplete suggestion text
heading / text / answer	string	Instant-answer content

See the dataset schema for the full field list per type.

How to scrape DuckDuckGo

1. Click Try for free / open the Actor.
2. Enter one or more search queries.
3. Select the content types you want (web, news, images, videos, suggestions, instant answers).
4. (Optional) Set region, safe search, a time filter or custom date range, and max results.
5. Click Start and watch results stream into the dataset.
6. Download the data as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML — or fetch it via the API.

How much will it cost to scrape DuckDuckGo?

This Actor uses a pay-per-event pricing model — you pay only for the results you get, with no monthly rental:

• ~$0.50 per 1,000 results for web, news, videos, suggestions, and instant answers (the fast HTTP path).
• ~$3.00 per 1,000 image results — images are billed higher because DuckDuckGo blocks non-browser image requests, so they are fetched via a headless browser (real compute).

For example, a run pulling 300 text results + 100 images costs about $0.45 (≈ $0.15 + $0.30). The exact, current per-event prices are always shown on the Actor's Pricing tab. To minimize cost, request only the content types you need and keep maxConcurrency modest.

Input

See the Input tab for the full configuration form. Key options:

• queries — one or more search terms (required).
• contentTypes — which result types to scrape (defaults to web).
• region, safeSearch, timeFilter / dateRangeFrom+dateRangeTo.
• maxResults, maxPages, maxConcurrency.

Proxying is handled automatically (Apify Proxy datacenter, with residential escalation on blocks) — there is nothing to configure.

Example input:

{
  "queries": ["apify web scraping", "duckduckgo api"],
  "contentTypes": ["web", "news", "suggestions"],
  "region": "us-en",
  "safeSearch": "moderate",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Output

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel. Example items:

[
  {
    "query": "duckduckgo api",
    "type": "web",
    "position": 1,
    "title": "DuckDuckGo Instant Answer API",
    "url": "https://duckduckgo.com/api",
    "displayUrl": "duckduckgo.com/api",
    "snippet": "Free Instant Answer API for DuckDuckGo...",
    "isAd": false,
    "region": "us-en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-03T12:00:00.000Z",
    "schemaVersion": "1"
  },
  {
    "query": "duckduckgo api",
    "type": "suggestion",
    "position": 1,
    "phrase": "duckduckgo api python",
    "region": "us-en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-03T12:00:00.000Z",
    "schemaVersion": "1"
  }
]

A RUN_METRICS record is also saved to the key-value store with reliability stats (block rate, proxy escalations, per-type degradation) and cost-estimation inputs.

Tips & advanced options

• Reduce cost / blocks: request only the content types you need and keep maxConcurrency low. Proxying is automatic — datacenter first, with residential used only to recover blocked requests.
• Recency: use timeFilter (day/week/month/year) or a custom dateRangeFrom/dateRangeTo range (web, news, videos).
• Localization: set region to a DDG locale like us-en, uk-en, de-de, or wt-wt for worldwide.
• Partial results are normal: if one content type is blocked, the others still return — check RUN_METRICS for what degraded.

Integrations

Plug DuckDuckGo Scraper into your stack with no extra code:

• Export results to Google Sheets, Google Drive, Amazon S3, or a database.
• Automate with Zapier, Make, and webhooks that fire when a run finishes.
• Schedule recurring runs to track rankings, news, or image trends over time.
• Call it from anywhere via the Apify API and the JavaScript / Python SDKs — a clean, drop-in DuckDuckGo search endpoint for your apps and AI agents.

FAQ, disclaimers, and support

Are ads and knowledge-graph panels included? DuckDuckGo serves ads and knowledge/instant-answer panels inconsistently. This Actor extracts them on a best-effort basis when present (isAd, instant answers) and does not guarantee them for every query.

How are images scraped? DuckDuckGo blocks programmatic (non-browser) image requests, so images are fetched through a headless browser that loads the image results page like a real user. This is slower and more compute-intensive than the other types, which is why image results are billed at a higher rate. All other content types use a fast, lightweight HTTP path (no browser).

Does DuckDuckGo have an official search API? DuckDuckGo offers only a limited Instant Answer API — there is no official API for full web, news, image, or video results. This Actor fills that gap, returning the full SERP as clean JSON, so it works as a practical DuckDuckGo search API alternative.

Can I use the results for AI, LLMs, or RAG? Yes. The output is flat, predictable JSON with stable field names and explicit nulls, so it drops straight into retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and agent "search tools" without custom parsing.

Is it legal to scrape DuckDuckGo? Scraping publicly available search results is generally legal, and this Actor only collects public data. You are responsible for how you use the results — see the note below on personal data and GDPR.

Our Actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses, gender, or location. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our Actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe. However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on the Issues tab. For programmatic access, see the API tab.