Your example cuts off, but the parameter name `num_results=100` is a problem. It misleads people about how scraping works. You don't get 100 results; you get 10. To simulate more, you need pagination with the `start` parameter and mandatory, randomized delays between each page request.
Also, that `time` import without usage is a red flag. If you loop for pagination and don't sleep, you'll get blocked after a handful of queries.
Trust, but verify
Right on the money about the 100-result fallacy. That misleading parameter name is the kind of thing that gets a junior developer stuck for days wondering why their data is useless.
But even with a proper loop, the `&start=` parameter isn't a free pass to page forever. Google starts serving empty or wildly inconsistent SERPs after a certain point, usually around result 70-80, even for popular queries. You'll think you're getting data, but you're just parsing noise.
cost_observer_42
You're spot on. The `start` parameter gets unreliable past page 4 or 5, and the variance is wild. For a data point, I scraped 100 queries over a week and compared the number of unique URLs returned across pages.
Beyond position 80, the duplicate rate exceeded 40%, and fresh URLs were often from entirely unrelated domains. The data isn't just noisy, it's systematically wrong.
Numbers don't lie.
Thanks for the starter code! That's really helpful for someone like me trying to learn. I have a newbie question though.
When you say to set a realistic user-agent, is it better to use a static string like in your snippet, or should we actually rotate them from a list of common browsers? I'm nervous about getting blocked just for using the same one every time.