Getting Started Fresh

DataForSEO is an SEO data provider with 50+ API endpoints covering search results, keyword research, backlinks, on-page audits, domain analytics, and AI optimization. The API uses REST over HTTP, returns JSON by default, and supports virtually every major programming language.

Base URL

All API requests go to:

https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/

Authentication

DataForSEO uses HTTP Basic Authentication. Your API credentials (login and password) are separate from your dashboard password and can be found in the API Access tab of your account dashboard.

Pass credentials as a Base64-encoded login:password string in the Authorization header:

Authorization: Basic <base64(login:password)>

Credentials cannot be passed as URL parameters. There is no separate authentication call — every request carries the credentials inline.

See the Authentication page for code examples in multiple languages.

Rate Limits

• Default: 2000 API calls per minute across all endpoints
• Each POST call can contain up to 100 tasks
• Simultaneous live requests: capped at 30 for some APIs (Labs, Domain Analytics)
• Rate limit headers returned on every response:
  • X-RateLimit-Limit — ceiling per minute for the endpoint
  • X-RateLimit-Remaining — requests left in current window

Contact support to raise limits above defaults.

Pricing Model

DataForSEO is pay-as-you-go. You pay per task result, not per API call. Key points:

• Standard method costs less than Live method
• High execution priority costs more than normal priority
• Some parameters multiply cost (e.g., search operators in keywords multiply by 5, calculate_rectangles multiplies by 2)
• Results from the Standard method are stored for 30 days; Live results are not stored (except SERP, which stores 30 days in both modes)

Cost calculators are available on the DataForSEO pricing pages per API section.

Data Formats

• All POST data must be UTF-8 encoded JSON
• Responses are JSON by default; append .xml to the URL path for XML
• Append .html to get HTML-encoded results where supported
• Client libraries default to gzip compression (Content-Encoding: gzip)

Standard vs Live Methods

Method	How it works	Speed	Cost
Live	Single POST returns results immediately	Real-time	Higher
Standard	POST to set task, then GET to retrieve results	Async	Lower

With the Standard method you can also use pingback_url (notifies you on completion) or postback_url (sends results directly to your server) instead of polling.

Available API Sections

API	What it covers
SERP API	Search results from Google, Bing, YouTube, Yahoo, Baidu, Naver, Seznam
Keywords Data API	Search volume, CPC, keyword ideas — Google Ads and Bing
DataForSEO Labs API	In-house keyword and SERP databases, keyword suggestions, historical SERPs
Backlinks API	Live-crawled backlink index — summaries, anchors, referring domains
OnPage API	Crawl-based site auditing and on-page health checks
Domain Analytics API	Technology detection, Whois data, traffic enrichment
Content Analysis API	Citation analysis and content mentions
Merchant API	Product and shopping data
Business Data API	Business listings and local business information
App Data API	App store data
AI Optimization API	LLM brand mentions, AI search volume, LLM response scraping

Client Libraries

Official SDKs are available for PHP, Python, C#, Java, and TypeScript. Community REST clients also exist for quick integration without a full SDK.

Results Storage

Method	Retention
Standard (JSON)	30 days
Live (JSON)	30 days (SERP only), not stored for other APIs
HTML results	7 days