Google Search (via Apify) MCP server

Google Custom Search JSON API alternative: same requests, same JSON

Google Custom Search API Alternative is an Apify Actor that replaces Google's Custom Search JSON API, which Google has closed to new customers and retires on 1 January 2027. It answers the same /customsearch/v1 requests with the same JSON (items with title, link, displayLink and snippet, plus image search), built from live Google results, at $5 per 1,000 searches with no daily cap.

Price: $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results ($4 on Gold and above) · Run it: https://apify.com/automationnation/google-custom-search-api · Guide: https://retracn.github.io/automationnation-actors/google-custom-search-api/

Quick facts

• Drop-in endpoint: replace https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1 with https://automationnation--google-custom-search-api.apify.actor/customsearch/v1 and send your Apify token (token=… or Authorization: Bearer) instead of key=.
• Same parameters: q, num, start, gl, hl, lr, cr, safe, dateRestrict, siteSearch, exactTerms, excludeTerms, orTerms, fileType and searchType=image with its image filters; cx is accepted and ignored.
• Open WebUI: pick the External web search engine with URL https://automationnation--google-custom-search-api.apify.actor/search and your Apify token as the key, to keep Google results now that Google PSE is closed to new customers.
• SearXNG-compatible route for AnythingLLM and other SearXNG clients: https://automationnation--google-custom-search-api.apify.actor/searxng?token=YOURAPIFYTOKEN returns Google results in SearXNG's JSON format.
• Same JSON: kind, queries.request and nextPage, searchInformation and items[] with title, htmlTitle, link, displayLink, snippet, htmlSnippet and formattedUrl (image items add mime and image.contextLink, width, height, byteSize, thumbnailLink).
• Web searches use Google's "Web" results view: ten plain results per page without the AI Overview, ads or video and forum boxes, close to what the API returned.
• Differences: it searches the whole web (pass site lists as siteSearch or site: operators), totalResults is a lower bound, there is no pagemap, and a request takes about 4–10 seconds.
• Price: $5 per 1,000 searches of up to 10 results, the price Google charged; searches with no results are free and there is no daily cap.

Use it as a drop-in Custom Search JSON API

Change the endpoint and the key; keep the rest of your code:

curl "https://automationnation--google-custom-search-api.apify.actor/customsearch/v1?q=best+crm+for+startups&num=10&token=$APIFY_TOKEN"

Python (examples/cserequests.py) and JavaScript (examples/csefetch.mjs) versions are in examples/. The response is the API's JSON: items[].title, link, displayLink, snippet, queries.nextPage and searchInformation; searchType=image works too.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "best project management software"
  ],
  "maxResultsPerQuery": 10
}

Run it from code

REST API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automationnation~google-custom-search-api/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries": ["best project management software"], "maxResultsPerQuery": 10}'

Python — see examples/python_example.py

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.