The 9 Best Google Image Search APIs 2022

WebscrapingAPI on Nov 15 2022

Are you a software developer looking for a reliable way to scrape google images and their sources? Look no further!

With the discontinuation of the Google Image API, finding the right solution for your project can be a challenge. But don't worry, we've got you covered.

In this guide, we'll take you through the top 9 Google Image Search APIs and proxy solutions that offer access to Google's Image Search. From fully-featured, expensive options to more affordable, customizable alternatives, we've reviewed a variety of options to suit every need and budget.

Whether you're looking for a one-stop solution or want to build your own, we'll help you make an informed decision. So, let's dive in!

What is a Google Image Search API?

Simply put, it's a tool that allows developers to access and utilize Google's image search capabilities within their own projects. By using an API, you can easily search, retrieve and filter images based on specific keywords or parameters.

This can be incredibly useful for a variety of tasks, such as building image databases, creating search engines, or automating image scraping.

However, as mentioned before, Google Image API has been discontinued and this guide is to help you find alternative solutions that can provide similar services.

Use cases for Google Image Search APIs

The possibilities are endless! Software developers often use these APIs to gather image data for a wide range of projects. Some popular use cases include:

  • Building image databases: By using an API to automatically gather images based on specific keywords, developers can easily create and maintain image databases for their projects.
  • Creating search engines: A Google Image Search API can be integrated into a search engine to allow users to search for images based on specific keywords or parameters.
  • Automating image scraping: By using an API to automate the process of scraping images and their sources, developers can save time and effort.
  • Enhancing user experience by providing image results for specific search queries.

These are just a few examples of how a Google Image Search API can be used, but the possibilities are truly endless for those who are creative and know how to utilize the data.

The 9 Best Google Images Search APIs For Web Scraping Images

1. WebScrapingAPI

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WebScrapingAPI is a powerful solution for developers looking to scrape Google Images and other popular sites. This advanced proxy API is designed to handle browsers, proxies, and CAPTCHAs, making it easy for you to extract valuable data with minimal effort. Whether you need to scrape images, PDFs or other files, WebScrapingAPI makes it simple and seamless.

One of the standout features of WebScrapingAPI is its support for data extraction using CSS selectors, which allows developers to easily target and extract specific pieces of data from webpages. Additionally, the platform provides access to a cloud infrastructure of Chrome browsers, which is essential for scraping websites that heavily rely on JavaScript and client-side rendering.

Furthermore, WebScrapingAPI offers a range of proxy options to help you avoid being blocked while scraping, with global geotargeting capabilities and flexible pricing,

For developers looking for a ready-made solution, WebScrapingAPI offers Google Search Engine Results Pages API, a dedicated product that extracts data from Google search in real-time and returns the results in a variety of formats such as HTML, JSON, or HTML.

This eliminates the need for building custom scrapers, saving developers time and effort. SERP API is the perfect solution for anyone looking for a quick and easy way to extract data from Google Images Search.

WebScrapingAPI is a great choice for anyone looking to scrape Google Images at scale, and it's lightweight REST API and support libraries for popular language platforms makes it easy to integrate it with your existing projects.

Pros & Cons of Web Scraping API

Pros 👍

Seamless integration, extensive documentation, and support for SPAs with JavaScript rendering are some of the key features of this solution. Additionally, this option offers a cost-effective alternative to buying proxies, even for a large number of requests per month.

Cons 👎

This solution requires developer expertise in handling web APIs. Without this, it may be difficult to make full use of its features.

2. SERP API

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SERP API offers a convenient solution for developers looking for a ready-made solution for Google Image data, without the need to build their own web scrapers. The team behind SERP API has done an excellent job creating an API that's specifically tailored for Google Image Search, which allows you to search for any image you desire and perform reverse image searches.

However, one downside to this great API is the cost. Plans start at $50 for 5,000 searches and can go up to $250 for 30,000 API calls, which can make it a costly option for larger image scraping projects.

Pros & Cons of SERP API

Pros 👍

High-quality and user-friendly Google Image Search API that returns all the essential information you need.

Cons 👎

Can be costly for larger image scraping projects and not customizable to fit your specific project requirements.

3. TinEye API

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TinEye API is an ideal solution for automating image searches within a vast index of web images. It's perfect for finding the source of an image, its usage, and any modified versions. It also provides a reliable way to confirm image uniqueness.

The API supports various image formats, including PNG, JPEG, and GIF, making it easy to search for images you're working on within other applications or by using screenshots.

You can upload, drag, drop, or specify a publicly accessible image URL to perform your search. It also helps you build high-performance reverse image search options.

Pros & Cons of TinEye

Pros 👍

Scalable, high-performance

Cons 👎

No free plan is offered.

4. Zenserp API

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Zenserp API is a powerful tool that enables you to scrape search engine result pages without interruption. One of its key features is the Google Image Search API, which allows you to scrape and access image search results on Google in real-time. You can use similar parameters as for a standard Google search when searching for an image, but you'll need to make sure to set a search keyphrase and API key to turn your search into an image search.

Additionally, the Zenserp image search API is great for assembling image datasets for use in training machine learning algorithms, it provides a large number of settings that allow you to set the desired image properties.

In terms of pricing, Zenserp offers a free plan that allows 50 requests per month. If you need more requests, you can choose from other options, such as $29.99 for 5000 requests and $379.99 for 100,000 requests per month.

Pros & Cons of Zenserp API

Pros 👍

Easy to use, scalable

Cons 👎

Costly for large amounts of requests.

5. Contextual Web Image Search API

ContextualWeb is a great option for individuals who want to get started quickly and easily. The API can handle your query in real-time and searches through billions of webpages using a simple Google search API call.

The Google Image API feature allows you to create a vast image database, so you can find the exact image you're looking for. The ContextualWeb image search API also provides the most recent photos for your search query, not just static images.

Pros & Cons of ContextualWeb

Pros 👍

Easy to use

Cons 👎

Costly

6. Google Custom Search

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The Google Custom Search API allows developers to programmatically retrieve and display search results on their websites and applications. With this API, you can use RESTful requests to get image search results in Atom or JSON format.

The pricing for this API includes a free plan for standard and non-profit search elements, and paid plans for custom search JSON API and Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API. The free plan offers 100 search queries per day, and additional requests can be purchased through paid plans.

Pros & Cons of Google Custom Search

Pros 👍

Helps create custom search engines for searching images

Cons 👎

You need to create a Custom Search Engine

7. Image Raider

Image Raider is a popular API that can help you find matching image results by searching through Google, Yandex, and Bing. As the name suggests, it is specifically designed for image searches, and it can scour the World Wide Web when you upload an image to find its source, as well as all the other webpages where it has been posted.

The tool is feature-rich, including multi-image search capability, reverse image searches, and multiple input options for an image, such as entering a page URL, adding images from the web directly, or adding images from XML Sitemap.

The pricing plan for Image Raider includes a free trial version for 7 days, after that the pricing starts at $75 (1750 images) per month and for professional usage (10,000 images) you need to pay $300/month.

Pros & Cons of Image Raider

Pros 👍

Helps users looking to monitor their images across multiple web pages

Cons 👎

Slow

8. ScraperAPI

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With this API, you can use RESTful requests to scrape data from any website and access the results in various formats, including HTML, JSON, or plain text.

The ScraperAPI is designed to handle browsers, proxies, and CAPTCHAs, so you can easily get the data you need with a simple API call.

ScraperAPI also offers global geotargeting capabilities and flexible pricing, making it a great option for anyone looking to scrape data at scale.

Pros & Cons of ScraperAPI

Pros 👍

Easy to use, has a free plan.

Cons 👎

Slow

You need to have developer skills to use it.

9. SerpWow

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SerpWow is a powerful tool that enables users to easily access Google search results with its simple and fast API. It provides data from various sources, including organic results, maps, news articles, images, videos, related searches, and the knowledge graph.

With SerpWow, you can target your query to specific locations or countries and receive accurate geo-targeted results, just as you would when searching in an ordinary browser.

The API eliminates the need for proxies and solving CAPTCHAs, as SerpWow takes care of it for you. The real-time API also provides clean and structured JSON results, making it easy for users to process and understand the data.

Pros & Cons of SerpWow

Pros 👍

Easy to use

Cons 👎

Costly

Summary

We've just shared a list of some of the top image search services available. We hope you found it useful and that one of them meets your image scraping needs.

If you have a favorite image search engine or know of one that we missed, please let us know in the comments section below. We value our readers' feedback and welcome your suggestions. If you have any questions about web scraping, feel free to reach out to us, we're more than happy to discuss your specific case.

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