In short. Qwen web search retrieves web information through API-specific controls, with source references available through DashScope and the Responses API.

Definition: Qwen web search lets supported Qwen models retrieve web information while composing an answer. As of 17 October 2026, QwenCloud's Web search guide documents API-specific search controls and source references.

Key facts

QwenCloud's guide states that Chat Completions returns no search sources and directs applications needing references to DashScope or the Responses API.
Alibaba Cloud's Web search documentation describes repeated searches within a single Responses API response, with optional page extraction.
The Qwen Code team's Web Search documentation describes a built-in tool that returns narrated findings and source URLs.

How is search enabled?

An API is the interface through which an application requests a model response. Alibaba Cloud's documentation specifies different request parameters for its Chat Completions, DashScope and Responses interfaces.

Chat Completions and DashScope use enable_search: true. With the Python client for Chat Completions, this setting goes inside extra_body. The Responses API instead accepts a web_search tool in the request's tools array. This JSON fragment matches that setting:

{
  "tools": [
    {"type": "web_search"}
  ]
}

The model decides whether to invoke the attached tool and whether to search again. The Responses API ignores search_options.search_strategy; selecting a strategy through that parameter does not trigger retrieval.

Where are the source references?

A source reference identifies a retrieved page by its URL or a numbered entry. QwenCloud's guide documents the DashScope setting search_options.enable_source: true. It adds search_info.search_results, whose entries contain index, title and url. Applications can use these fields to display inline references or a source list. The answer text may refer to an entry by index.

For the Responses API, the same guide locates source links in action.sources on web_search_call items within the output array. An application inspecting returned sources therefore reads the search-call records as well as the answer text.

What does Qwen Code add?

Qwen Code's Web Search documentation describes a separate search request to an auxiliary model using DashScope's Responses API. Its built-in web_search tool returns findings with source URLs. The tools.webSearch.webExtractor setting lets the search agent open result pages and defaults to true.

For providers that cannot support the built-in tool, the documentation describes external search services connected through MCP, the Model Context Protocol. Consequently, a Qwen Code search configuration can involve an external retrieval service with its own returned material.

FAQ

Which interface should I use to display numbered sources?

QwenCloud's guide documents DashScope's indexed source entries and their use in inline references. Enable enable_source inside search_options to return them.

Where can I inspect the Responses API's retrieved URLs?

Alibaba Cloud's documentation places them in action.sources within each web_search_call output item.

Sources

Check how a page reads to answer engines. Open the GEO score analyzer