Google Grabber — Using PHP to Find Out How Many Pages Your Domain Has Listed in Google

By  on  

Most bloggers make an effort to get as many pages listed on Google as possible. Benefits of being listed in Google may include:

  • Increased blog visits
  • Increased ad clicks
  • Broadened visitors / audience
  • Increased article comments
  • Increased referral revenues

Using a short amount of PHP code, you can query Google to retrieve the number of pages your domain has listed in Google.

The Code

/* return result number */
function get_google_results($domain = 'davidwalsh.name')
{
	// get the result content
	$content = file_get_contents('http://www.google.com/search?q=site:'.$domain);

	// parse to get results
	$result = get_match('/Results <b>(.*)from/isU',$content);

	// split the results
	$split1 = explode('of about',$result);

	// return result
	return $split1[1] ? strip_tags($split1[1]) : 0;
}

/* helper: does the regex */
function get_match($regex,$content)
{
	preg_match($regex,$content,$matches);
	return $matches[1];
}

The Usage

/* do it! */
echo 'davidwalsh.name: '.get_google_results('davidwalsh.name'); // 164
echo 'digg.com: '.get_google_results('digg.com'); // 3,790,000
echo 'google.com: '.get_google_results('google.com'); // 19,300,000
echo 'cnn.com: '.get_google_results('cnn.com'); // 2,180,000
echo 'imdb.com: '.get_google_results('imdb.com'); // 19,000,000
echo 'dzone.com: '.get_google_results('dzone.com'); // 484,000
echo 'fark.com: '.get_google_results('fark.com'); // 7,390
echo 'some-domain-that-doesnt-exist.com: '.get_google_results('some-domain-that-doesnt-exist'); // 0

Recent Features

  • By
    Animated 3D Flipping Menu with CSS

    CSS animations aren't just for basic fades or sliding elements anymore -- CSS animations are capable of much more.  I've showed you how you can create an exploding logo (applied with JavaScript, but all animation is CSS), an animated Photo Stack, a sweet...

  • By
    Camera and Video Control with HTML5

    Client-side APIs on mobile and desktop devices are quickly providing the same APIs.  Of course our mobile devices got access to some of these APIs first, but those APIs are slowly making their way to the desktop.  One of those APIs is the getUserMedia API...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a Brilliant Sprited, CSS-Powered Firefox Animation

    Mozilla recently formally announced Firefox OS and its partners at Mobile World Congress and I couldn't be more excited.  Firefox OS is going to change the lives of people in developing countries, hopefully making a name for itself in the US as well.  The...

  • By
    Save Web Form Content Using Control + S

    We've all used word processing applications like Microsoft Word and if there's one thing they've taught you it's that you need to save every few seconds in anticipation of the inevitable crash. WordPress has mimicked this functionality within their WYSIWYG editor and I use it...

Discussion

  1. Or, you could just register your site with Google Webmaster tools at: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools.

  2. True. I’m not a big fan of Google’s Webmaster Tools. Plus, with my grabber, I can loop through all 100+ customer domains and get the information quicker than navigating through GWT.

  3. Kenny

    Hi, David,

    I don’t know much about php, but your codes seems very usefull, can you tell me how do I put this in action?

    thanks.

  4. I definitely love you … ^^ … thats a quick way :-).

  5. kenny

    Hi, David,

    How do i put it in action please?

    thank you.

  6. Concerned...

    Just a quick one as I stumbled over this whilst looking around…

    You do realise that this may count as using the Google servers/services in an automated fashion – which would be against G’s Terms of Service?

  7. Tope

    This script does not work again. Google as change their result format. PLEASE, update.

  8. To get it WORKING again:

    change the last three lines with these:

    // parse to get results
    $result = get_match(‘/About (.*) results/i’,$content);

    // split the results
    $split1 = explode(‘ ‘,$result);

    // return result
    return $split1[0] ? strip_tags($split1[0]) : 0;

  9. cmcm63366

    Burberry outlet Bags there, very refreshing taste of summer to use the gray model. Simple and elegant style and practical package, can be described as beautiful share. If a top luxury brand in pursuit of a vanity, it is worth the vanity bags, it is perfect, profound, because the low-key, and can track the fraud out of kitsch; while participation and practice, can not withstand scrutiny , eternal. Check it out, definitely something you like.

  10. I can get result if i give any url.
    But i want to search links so i am passing link:digg.com.
    How to get that number ?

  11. View source code from opera miniserver:source

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!