Search the Web

Search the web and retrieve relevant web page contents.

POST /search

Search the Web

cURL

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.perplexity.ai/search \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '
{
  "query": "<string>"
}
'

import requests

url = "https://api.perplexity.ai/search"

payload = { "query": "<string>" }
headers = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer <token>",
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
}

response = requests.post(url, json=payload, headers=headers)

print(response.text)

const options = {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {Authorization: 'Bearer <token>', 'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
  body: JSON.stringify({query: '<string>'})
};

fetch('https://api.perplexity.ai/search', options)
  .then(res => res.json())
  .then(res => console.log(res))
  .catch(err => console.error(err));

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_URL => "https://api.perplexity.ai/search",
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "POST",
  CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
    'query' => '<string>'
  ]),
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
    "Authorization: Bearer <token>",
    "Content-Type: application/json"
  ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
  echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
  echo $response;
}

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"strings"
	"net/http"
	"io"
)

func main() {

	url := "https://api.perplexity.ai/search"

	payload := strings.NewReader("{\n  \"query\": \"<string>\"\n}")

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", url, payload)

	req.Header.Add("Authorization", "Bearer <token>")
	req.Header.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

	defer res.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(res.Body)

	fmt.Println(string(body))

}

HttpResponse<String> response = Unirest.post("https://api.perplexity.ai/search")
  .header("Authorization", "Bearer <token>")
  .header("Content-Type", "application/json")
  .body("{\n  \"query\": \"<string>\"\n}")
  .asString();

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

url = URI("https://api.perplexity.ai/search")

http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url)
request["Authorization"] = 'Bearer <token>'
request["Content-Type"] = 'application/json'
request.body = "{\n  \"query\": \"<string>\"\n}"

response = http.request(request)
puts response.read_body

200

{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "<string>",
      "url": "<string>",
      "snippet": "<string>",
      "date": "<string>",
      "last_updated": "<string>"
    }
  ],
  "id": "<string>",
  "server_time": "<string>"
}

{
  "detail": [
    {
      "loc": [
        "<string>"
      ],
      "msg": "<string>",
      "type": "<string>"
    }
  ]
}

Search API vs. Sonar. These are different APIs with different response shapes.

• Search API — Returns structured JSON results[] with title, url, snippet, date, and last_updated. Call https://api.perplexity.ai/search directly — no router required.
• Sonar — Chat completions with built-in web search. Returns a prose answer with citations, not a results array.

Both are first-party Perplexity APIs. Neither routes through OpenRouter.

Response Shape

The Search API returns a ranked results[] array. Each result includes title, url, snippet, and optional date and last_updated fields:

Example Response

{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "Example Article Title",
      "url": "https://example.com/article",
      "snippet": "A short excerpt from the article relevant to the query...",
      "date": "2025-01-23",
      "last_updated": "2025-09-25"
    },
    {
      "title": "Another Relevant Source",
      "url": "https://example.org/source",
      "snippet": "Another excerpt showing the structured result format.",
      "date": "2024-11-15",
      "last_updated": "2025-08-12"
    },
    {
      "title": "Third Result",
      "url": "https://example.net/page",
      "snippet": "A third result demonstrating the ranked array structure.",
      "date": "2024-09-10",
      "last_updated": "2025-07-03"
    }
  ],
  "id": "e38104d5-6bd7-4d82-bc4e-0a21179d1f77"
}

Direct Call

curl -X POST 'https://api.perplexity.ai/search' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer $PERPLEXITY_API_KEY' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "query": "latest AI developments",
    "max_results": 3
  }' | jq

Authorizations

Authorization · string · header · required

Bearer authentication header of the form Bearer <token>, where <token> is your auth token.

Body

application/json

query · string string[] · required

Search query (required)

country · string

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code

Required string length: 2

max_results · integer · default: 10

Maximum number of results to return

Required range: 1 <= x <= 20

search_context_size · string

Controls how much content is extracted from result pages.

• low — short passages most relevant to the query.
• medium — a balanced amount of content per document.
• high (default) — detailed content relevant to the query.

Omit when using max_tokens or max_tokens_per_page.

max_tokens · integer

Maximum total webpage content tokens to return across all search results

Required range: 1 <= x <= 1000000

max_tokens_per_page · integer

Maximum webpage content tokens to extract from each result page

Required range: 1 <= x <= 1000000

search_language_filter · string[]

ISO 639-1 language codes (2-character max)

Maximum array length: 20

Required string length: 2

search_domain_filter · string[]

Limit search results to specific domains (max 20)

Maximum array length: 20

Maximum string length: 253

last_updated_after_filter · string

Return results updated after this date (MM/DD/YYYY)

last_updated_before_filter · string

Return results updated before this date (MM/DD/YYYY)

search_after_date_filter · string

Return results published after this date (MM/DD/YYYY)

search_before_date_filter · string

Return results published before this date (MM/DD/YYYY)

search_recency_filter · enum<string>

Filter by publication recency (hour/day/week/month/year)

Available options: hour, day, week, month, year

Response

200

application/json

Successful Response

results · ApiSearchPage · object[] · required

Show child attributes

id · string · required

server_time · string | null