Overview

The Serper MCP Server connects AI assistants to Google Search via the Serper API — the fastest Google Search API for LLMs. With 13 specialised tools covering web, images, news, scholar, patents, shopping, places, maps, and even Google Lens, it provides the most comprehensive Google SERP access available through MCP.

Community Server:

Community-maintained by garylab. MIT licensed. Available on PyPI and Smithery.

Key Features

🔍

13 Specialised Search Types

Web, images, videos, news, scholar, patents, shopping, places, maps, reviews, Lens, and autocomplete

🌍

Geolocation Support

Country and language filtering for localised search results with region-specific data

📰

News & Scholar Search

Access Google News and Google Scholar results with time-range filtering and citation data

🛍️

Shopping & Reviews

Search Google Shopping for products with pricing and query local business reviews

📍

Maps & Places

Google Maps and Places search with location coordinates and business data

📄

Web Scraping

Extract full page content from search result URLs for deeper analysis

Available Tools

Quick Reference

Tool	Purpose	Category
`google_search`	General Google web search with full parameter control	Search
`google_search_images`	Search Google Images with size, colour, and type filters	Images
`google_search_videos`	Search Google Videos with duration and quality filters	Videos
`google_search_news`	Search Google News with time range and source filtering	News
`google_search_scholar`	Search Google Scholar with citation and publication data	Academic
`google_search_patents`	Search Google Patents with filing status and assignee filters	Patents
`google_search_shopping`	Search Google Shopping for products with pricing data	Shopping
`google_search_places`	Search Google Places for businesses and landmarks	Location
`google_search_maps`	Search Google Maps with geographic coordinates	Maps
`google_search_reviews`	Retrieve local business reviews and ratings	Reviews
`google_search_lens`	Reverse image search via Google Lens	Visual
`google_search_autocomplete`	Get Google search query autocomplete suggestions	Query
`webpage_scrape`	Extract full content from a webpage URL	Extraction

Detailed Usage

google_search▶

Perform a Google web search with location, language, and result count control. Returns organic results with titles, snippets, and links.

{
  "query": "best open-source LLM for code generation 2026",
  "num": 10,
  "gl": "us",
  "hl": "en"
}

google_search_news▶

Search Google News with time period filtering (past hour, day, week, month, year).

{
  "query": "AI regulation developments",
  "tbs": "qdr:w",
  "num": 10,
  "gl": "us"
}

google_search_scholar▶

Search Google Scholar for academic papers with citation counts and publication details.

{
  "query": "attention is all you need",
  "num": 5
}

google_search_places▶

Search for businesses, landmarks, and points of interest with address and rating data.

{
  "query": "best coffee shops in San Francisco",
  "num": 5,
  "gl": "us"
}

webpage_scrape▶

Extract clean, readable content from any webpage URL. Useful for reading articles found via search results.

{
  "url": "https://example.com/article",
  "includeMarkdown": true
}

Installation

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "serper": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["serper-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "SERPER_API_KEY": "your-serper-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

API Key Required:

Get a Serper API key from serper.dev. Free tier includes 2,500 searches/month. Paid plans start at $50/month for 50,000 searches.

Comparison: Serper vs Other Search MCPs

Feature	Serper	Tavily	Brave Search	Google Search (direct)
Provider	Google (via Serper API)	Tavily (AI-optimised)	Brave Index	Google Programmable Search
Search Types	12 specialised (web, images, video, news, scholar, patents, shopping, places, maps, reviews, Lens, autocomplete)	Web search + extraction	Web + images	Web only
AI Optimisation	Fast, structured SERP data	AI-summarised results	Privacy-focused index	Raw Google results
Scholar/Patents	Yes	No	No	No
Shopping/Maps	Yes	No	No	No
Google Lens	Yes	No	No	No
Scraping	Built-in webpage scrape	Built-in extract	No	No

Security

API key authentication for all requests
Key scoped to Serper API — no Google account access required
All traffic encrypted via HTTPS
Self-hosted or remote — data stays between you and Serper

Serper MCP Server