Result Tiers: Regular / Advanced / HTML

Three depths of parsed output you can request from SERP and OnPage endpoints: Regular (organic + paid only), Advanced (full structured parse of every element), and HTML (the raw unparsed page). Sits under DataForSEO Brain → Concepts.

Overview

DataForSEO lets you choose how richly a result is parsed. The tier you request controls which SERP element types you get back and, on some endpoints, the price. Regular returns only organic and paid items; Advanced returns the full structured parse of all SERP feature/element types; HTML returns the raw page so you can parse it yourself or audit what was scraped. The tier is selected in the path tail of task_get (or the Live path).

What it covers

• Regular: organic + paid results only (limited to organic search types).
• Advanced: full structured parse of all SERP feature/element types across engines (e.g. AI Overview, featured snippets, People Also Ask, local pack, knowledge graph, images).
• HTML: the raw unparsed SERP HTML page.
• Tier is set per request and applies across SERP verticals and, for OnPage, raw page retrieval.

Key parameters / inputs

• Path tail selects tier: .../task_get/regular/$id, .../task_get/advanced/$id, .../task_get/html/$id; Live uses .../live/advanced etc.
• postback_data mirrors the tier when pushing results via postback (“advanced”/“html”/sometimes “regular”). See cap-webhooks-pingback-postback.
• depth controls how many results are parsed within a tier (cost scales above the base 10). See cap-queue-priority-cost-model.

Response / what you get back

• Regular: items[] of organic/paid types only.
• Advanced: items[] covering every detected element type, including AI features; item_types lists what was found (e.g. ai_overview auto-included when detected).
• HTML: a single field with the raw page markup (no structured items).
• Live-observed: all SERP Live calls in _cost-log.json use /live/advanced at $0.002/SERP (google organic, maps, bing, youtube, news, images).

Cost & method notes

Regular and Advanced are the common analytical tiers; HTML is for raw capture/auditing. HTML results have a shorter retention (7 days) than Standard parsed results (30 days), and once a Page Screenshot is generated its URL is accessible only 1 day. Advanced is the default for full SERP-feature tracking. Async AI Overview expansion (load_async_ai_overview=true) bills extra; expand_ai_overview=true is free on HTML endpoints. See cap-serp-google-verticals.

When to use / how it fits

• Tracking organic positions only → Regular (lighter).
• Tracking SERP features, AI Overviews, local packs → Advanced.
• Auditing exactly what was scraped or doing custom parsing → HTML. This choice feeds play-rank-tracking-pipeline, play-content-strategy-brief, and the routing in dec-which-api-for-which-job.

Gotchas / limits

• Regular excludes most SERP features - do not use it for AI Overview or feature tracking.

• HTML retention is 7 days vs 30 for parsed Standard results; capture promptly. See cap-account-usage-userdata.

• Higher depth multiplies cost within any tier.

• Tier availability and element coverage vary by engine/vertical. See cap-serp-non-google-engines.

• Advanced is the default for full SERP-feature and AI Overview tracking. See cap-serp-google-verticals.

• HTML is for raw capture/auditing or custom parsing where no structured items are needed.

• HTML results retain for 7 days versus 30 days for parsed Standard results. See cap-account-usage-userdata.

• Page Screenshot URLs are accessible only 1 day once generated. See cap-onpage-api.

• load_async_ai_overview=true bills extra; expand_ai_overview=true is free on HTML endpoints.

• Tier is mirrored by postback_data when results are pushed via postback. See cap-webhooks-pingback-postback.

• Element coverage in Advanced varies by engine and vertical. See cap-serp-non-google-engines.

• All SERP Live calls observed in _cost-log.json used /live/advanced at $0.002/SERP.

• Higher depth multiplies cost within any tier. See cap-queue-priority-cost-model.

• Tier choice routes into dec-which-api-for-which-job and play-rank-tracking-pipeline.

Related

• index
• _index
• cap-serp-api
• cap-serp-google-verticals
• cap-serp-non-google-engines
• cap-task-vs-live-execution
• cap-queue-priority-cost-model
• cap-onpage-api
• cap-webhooks-pingback-postback
• dec-which-api-for-which-job
• play-rank-tracking-pipeline

Sources

• https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/serp-overview/ (retrieved 2026-06-26)
• https://dataforseo.com/help-center/how-long-do-you-keep-results (retrieved 2026-06-26)
• https://dataforseo.com/update/ai-overview-in-google-serp-api (retrieved 2026-06-26)
• https://dataforseo.com/apis/serp-api/pricing (retrieved 2026-06-26)