Focus Modes

Route searches to specialized sources like web, shopping, AI engines, news, and social media.

Focus modes allow you to specialize search queries to retrieve results from specific sources and platforms. Each focus mode uses one or more Web Search Agents (WSA) to gather results optimized for different use cases

Available Focus Modes

Focus Mode
Description
Best For

general (default)

Web search engine (e.g., Google, Bing)

General information, broad topics, web pages

news

News sources (e.g., Google News)

Current events, breaking stories, journalistic analysis

location

Local business search engine (e.g., Google Maps)

Places, businesses, geographic information

coding

Developer resources and code

Finding code examples, debugging help, API documentation

academic

Scholarly sources and papers

Scientific research, peer-reviewed studies, scholarly citations

shopping

E-commerce platforms (Amazon, Walmart, Target, ...)

Product comparison, price discovery, merchant reviews

geo

Generative Engine Optimization - AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, ...)

AI-generated answers, search optimization strategies, synthetic insights

social

Social media platforms (TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, ...)

Social content, influencers, trending topics

Basic Usage

Specify a focus mode using the focus parameter:

curl -X POST "https://nimble-retriever.webit.live/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "best laptops 2026",
    "focus": "shopping",
    "max_results": 10
  }'

Quick Examples

General web search:

News search:

Product search:

AI search engines:

Social media search:

Key Parameters

focus

Type: string Default: "general"

Specify which focus mode to use:

max_subagents

Type: integer Default: 3 Range: 1-5

Controls how many Web Search Agents (WSA) execute in parallel for focus modes with multiple agents.

Higher values = more diverse results but slower response.

Type: boolean Default: true

Extract full page content for each result. Disable for faster responses when only metadata is needed.

include_answer

Type: boolean Default: false

Generate an AI summary of search results.

Best Practices

Choose the right focus mode:

  • Product research → shopping

  • Current trends → geo or social

  • Technical docs → coding

  • Academic research → academic

  • Breaking news → news

Optimize performance:

  • Lower max_subagents (1-2) for faster responses

  • Disable deep_search when only metadata needed

  • Choose focused modes for specific use cases

Maximize quality:

  • Higher max_subagents (4-5) for diverse results

  • Enable deep_search for comprehensive content

  • Adjust max_results to get more comprehensive data


Need help? Check the main Search API documentationarrow-up-right or contact [email protected].

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