curl -X POST https://api.fetchlayer.dev/duckduckgo/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"open source crm","limit":10}'

Going deeper

A limit above 10 reads more result pages — up to 200 results — and each page read counts as one request (pagesScraped). To continue later, send nextCursor back as cursor with the same query and filters. DuckDuckGo lists at most about 190–200 results for a query; endOfResults says when it has stopped.

3. Check where your site ranks

For SEO rank tracking, don’t page through search yourself. /rank-check scans up to 200 positions for a domain or a URL prefix and returns whether it was found, its best position, and every match with the page it was on.

bash

curl -X POST https://api.fetchlayer.dev/duckduckgo/rank-check \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"reddit api","target":"fetchlayer.dev","depth":200}'

One credit at any depth

A rank check costs 1 credit regardless of depth: scanning 200 positions across 10 or more result pages is billed as one request. serpPagesFetched reports how many result pages were read and is never billed. A 200-position check typically takes around 30 seconds.

Rankings depend on the searcher

Results reflect a US searcher (region: "us-en") unless you set a region, and the same query ranks differently in uk-en or de-de. Positions also move over time — github.com for “open source crm” has shown up on the first page and on the third within days. Track a query in the region your audience searches from.

By default the scan stops after the first result page that contains a match. Set allMatches to scan the full depth and see every page of yours that ranks. found: false always means the whole depth was examined.

4. Expand the research

/suggestions returns what DuckDuckGo’s search box offers for a partial query — the queries worth tracking next. /news and /videos search those verticals, and /instant-answer returns the topic summary, facts and related topics DuckDuckGo shows.

bash

curl -X POST https://api.fetchlayer.dev/duckduckgo/suggestions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss-your-key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"fetchla"}'

Tip

Already have a DuckDuckGo link? Send it to /resolve-url — it returns the query, region, safe search and time range the URL carries, or where a result link leads, without contacting DuckDuckGo, and it does not consume a credit.

Errors and retries

A 400 names the field to fix. Unrecognised fields are rejected rather than ignored, so a typo such as regoin fails loudly instead of quietly returning US results — and /suggestions takes a region but no safe search or time range. A 503 means DuckDuckGo turned the request away repeatedly within the time allowed; it is always worth retrying, and a rank check never reports “not found” in its place. A search that matches nothing is a 200 with an empty list. Read notes on every successful response too.

Next steps

On this page