Introduction to Google API
Most of the current webmaster tools are created using the powerful Google API. These includes the keyword position checker, link populartiy and indexed pages checker.
In this section, we will discuss how can we use the Google API to create a tool that allows the user to check how many pages are indexed from his / her site.
How to get started?
To start writing programs using Google SOAP Search API:
- Read their online TOS.
- Download the Developer's kit.
- Create a Google account to obtain a license key.
A working example- Number of pages indexed
In this example, we will be using the NuSOAP provided by NuSphere and Dietrich Ayala. NuSOAP is a toolkit that allow developers to create and consume web services based on SOAP.
A demo of this script can be found at the Google API Demo page. In addition, the working script is also available for download and free usage.
<?php
// include the NuSOAP class
require_once('lib/nusoap.php');
if(isset($_POST['submit'])) { // buton pressed
$mq='site:'.$_POST['url'];
$parameters = array(
'key'=> 'Your_Google_API_Key',
'q'=> $mq,
'start'=> '0',
'maxResults'=>'10',
'filter'=> 'false',
'restrict'=>'',
'safeSearch'=>'false',
'lr'=>'',
'ie'=>'',
'oe'=>''
);
$soapclient=new soapclient('http://api.google.com/GoogleSearch.wsdl','wsdl');
$results = $soapclient->call('doGoogleSearch',$parameters);
$no_pages=$results['estimatedTotalResultsCount'];
}
?>
Upon the pressing of the button, it will grab the domain URL keyed in by the user from a form and saved it together with the site: operator in the variable, $mq.
The parameters array stores the query details for later request. Please refer to the Google reference for more information on these parameters. The example then create a new instance that refers to the Google WSDL.
Finally, the results (number of pages indexed) are saved in the $no_pages variable.
Other possible API usage
We have only used the estimatedTotalResultsCount element in our example for the number of pages indexed. There are many other elements that we can used for other purposes. For example, the searchTime, searchTips, URL, snippet, title and cachedSize. The format of the search response can be found here.
The above shows a simple demostration of how to get the number of indexed pages through Google API. Please feel free to contact me if you have further problems regarding this illustration.