DeepSeek launched its in-house search engine for developers on Oct. 17, introducing a DeepSeek search API designed to filter SEO spam, low-quality AI content, and GEO manipulation. Search Engine Journal reports that the engine handles search requests on its website and API while indexing hundreds of billions of web pages from around the globe.
Key takeaways
- DeepSeek released its in-house search engine and Fetch API on Oct. 17.
- The Search API returns authority tiers, rerank scores, snippets, and summaries.
- Search and Fetch cost $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests.
- Billing for certain server-side calls starts on Oct. 31 at 16:00 UTC.
What does the DeepSeek search engine return to developers?
Each result from the new DeepSeek search engine includes a snippet meant for human display and a summary for an AI model to read. Results also contain an authority field ranging from -1 to 4, where tiers of 3 or higher count as highly authoritative sources. A separate rerank score on a 0-3 scale combines relevance, authority, and freshness, with scores above 1.5 viewed as high quality.
Developers can limit queries using site: commands and filter by date and language. According to Search Engine Journal, Search and Fetch cost $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests, and empty searches are not billed. Also, requesting 50 results costs the exact same amount as requesting just one result.
How do search and Fetch handle crawling and privacy?
The companion Fetch API delivers a single Markdown page based on the target site's availability and access policies. While the EU summary for DeepSeek-V4 states the crawler respects robots.txt protocols, launch documents do not name the crawler or specify a user agent for the search index. The Known Agents bot directory lists a DeepSeekBot user agent for AI training data, but launch pages do not clarify if blocking it affects the index.
DeepSeek privacy policies updated on Feb. 10 mention integrating third-party APIs for search services and sharing keywords. Search Engine Journal notes that a GitHub README from a Chinese-based search API company named Bocha lists itself as an official web search supplier, although DeepSeek launch pages do not reference Bocha.
Why this matters for site owners
With a funded account, individual site: searches cost under a penny and can return up to 50 pages from a single domain. If a page does not show up in results, developers currently have no method in the user guide or reference to determine if it was filtered out or simply missing from the index. Billing for server-side searches and page fetches in tools like Claude Code, Codex, or DeepSeek Harness begins on Oct. 31 at noon ET.
Frequently asked questions
DeepSeek opened its in-house search engine to developers on Oct. 17, according to Search Engine Journal.
Search and Fetch each cost $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests, while queries returning no results are not billed.
Authority fields range from 0 to 4, with -1 being unknown, and tiers of 3 or higher classified as highly authoritative sources.
Billing for server-side searches and page fetches in tools like Claude Code, Codex, or DeepSeek Harness begins on Oct. 31 at 16:00 UTC.
According to the company changelog, the engine filters SEO spam, GEO manipulation, and low-quality AI-generated content.
Based on reporting by Search Engine Journal. Read the original article
