PHP Alexa Rank Fetcher Class
The most well known online website popularity measuring stick appears to be Alexa. Alexa provides a wealth of information on a given website, most notably:
- Popularity rank (the most important one)
- Reach
- In-links
- Speed
Alexa provides this information in many useful formats, including XML. Using the XML provided by Alexa, we can gain access to Alexa information within our pages. I've created a PHP class to make fetching Alexa data free, quick, and easy. The class comes in a PHP4 version and a PHP5 version.
The Code - PHP4 Version
/* the alexa rank class */
class alexa
{
/* initial vars */
var $xml;
var $values;
var $alexa_address;
/* the constructor */
function alexa($alexa_address,$domain)
{
$this->alexa_address = $alexa_address;
$this->xml = $this->get_data($domain);
$this->set();
}
/* gets the xml data from Alexa */
function get_data($domain)
{
$url = $this->alexa_address.'http://'.$domain;
$xml = file_get_contents($url);
return $xml;
}
/* set values in the XML that we want */
function set()
{
$this->values['rank'] = (preg_match('/POPULARITY URL="[a-z0-9\\-\\.\\/]{1,}" TEXT="([0-9]{1,12})"/',$this->xml,$regs) ? number_format($regs[1]) : 0);
$this->values['reach'] = (preg_match('/REACH RANK="([0-9]{1,12})"/',$this->xml,$regs) ? number_format($regs[1]) : 0);
$this->values['linksin'] = (preg_match('/LINKSIN NUM="([0-9]{1,12})"/',$this->xml,$regs) ? number_format($regs[1]) : 0);
}
/* returns the requested value */
function get($value)
{
return (isset($this->values[$value]) ? $this->values[$value] : '"'.$value.'" does not exist.');
}
}The Code - PHP5 Version
/* the alexa rank class */
class alexa
{
/* initial vars */
var $xml;
var $values;
var $alexa_address;
/* the constructor */
function alexa($alexa_address,$domain)
{
$this->alexa_address = $alexa_address;
$this->xml = $this->get_data($domain);
$this->set();
}
/* gets the xml data from Alexa */
function get_data($domain)
{
$url = $this->alexa_address.'http://'.$domain;
$xml = simplexml_load_file($url) or die('Cannot retrieve feed');
return $xml;
}
/* set values in the XML that we want */
function set()
{
$this->values['rank'] = ($this->xml->SD->POPULARITY['TEXT'] ? number_format($this->xml->SD->POPULARITY['TEXT']) : 0);
$this->values['reach'] = ($this->xml->SD->REACH['RANK'] ? number_format($this->xml->SD->REACH['RANK']) : 0);
$this->values['linksin'] = ($this->xml->SD->LINKSIN['NUM'] ? number_format($this->xml->SD->LINKSIN['NUM']) : 0);
}
/* returns the requested value */
function get($value)
{
return (isset($this->values[$value]) ? $this->values[$value] : '"'.$value.'" does not exist.');
}
}Using cURL
If you'd rather use the cURL library, you can simply modify the get_data() function:
/* gets the XML data from Alexa */
function get_data($domain)
{
$url = $this->alexa_address.'http://'.$domain;
$ch = curl_init();
$timeout = 5;
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,$timeout);
$xml = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
return $xml;
}The Usage
Provide two paramenters: the path to the XML file (minus the domain) and the domain.
/* retrieve & display rank */
$alexa_connector = new alexa('http://alexa.com/xml/dad?url=','digg.com'); // domain only!
echo 'Rank :: '.$alexa_connector->get('rank'); // returns 118
echo '';
echo 'Reach :: '.$alexa_connector->get('reach'); // returns 95
echo '';
echo 'Links In :: '.$alexa_connector->get('linksin'); // returns 34,414Do you have any suggestions for this class?
Discussion
Be Heard!
Share your thoughts with fellow developers of all skill levels! I want to hear from you!
I did not know Alexia. It’s a good site. Thank’s for the suggest.
About the class why not put the address site direct in the function get_data? If the address change you only need change in only place. In the constructor you need change in every call of this class.
I waffled between putting it inside the class or giving it to the constructor.
In the end, I chose the constructor to make the class more “flexible,” so to speak. There are multiple URLs you can retrieve this information from.
Hello …
thank you for this script … but the result didn’t contain the alexa rank …
it looks like :
Rank :: 0
Reach :: 745,382
Links In :: 0
any explain ….
thanks anyway for your great effort
Not all sites are given a rank Osama. What should it be?
I am having some kind of error
firstly in my site i am having php5.0 version, so i tried to use php5.0 (alexia rating) codes given above
but i get error on this simplexml_load_file function, saying undefined!
anyways so then i used php4.0 codes, it worked fine, but giving error again at line 31: Warning: preg_match() [function.preg-match]: Unknown modifier ‘]’
i just copied these codes, what might be the reason?
Please be a little descriptive, since i have a little knowledge on this object-oriented thing in php.
oh i forgot to say
the line 31 is this line
$this->values['rank'] = (preg_match(‘/POPULARITY URL=”([a-z-0-9-./]{1,})” TEXT=”([0-9]{1,12})”/’,$this->xml,$regs) ? number_format($regs[1]) : 0);
which is having the error
sorry the above line was modified(by me only), but still
original line 31:
$this->values['rank'] = (preg_match(‘/POPULARITY URL=”[a-z0-9-./]{1,}” TEXT=”([0-9]{1,12})”/’,$this->xml,$regs) ? number_format($regs[1]) : 0);
didn’t work :(
Thank you for the heads up Parijat. WordPress mangled my code. I’ve completely replaced the previous PHP4 “set” function above so use that. You’ll notice many more forward slashes.
hi david
thx for solving that thing. its working fine now and so i can use it with my top-site.
Thank you
For others who r using it:
One small Tip:
if you need to make the thing dynamic, replace the constructor.
Replace:
$alexa_connector = new alexa(‘http://alexa.com/xml/dad?url=’,'digg.com’); // domain only!
with this two line
$site = $_GET['site'];
$alexa_connector = new alexa(‘http://alexa.com/xml/dad?url=’,$site); // domain only!
you pass the domain name as get parameter.
Alternatively, you can use POST method too.
Hope that helps you.
Hey David,
How easy would it be to deposit the data into a MySQL database?
Thanks for a cool tool!
@Kevin: Extremely easy — you’d just add the MySQL code to my code above.
Yeah.but how can I parse the tag and get the text?
@neekey: It’s all above…
I mean I want to get more tags like ADDR,LANG,SPEED, and so on.
could you do it?Thank you very much.
It is really a useful lib :)
Absolutely brilliant! Thank you for this class – it’s a real help. :-)
Thank you for the brilliant class you’ve made. I just want to suggest if you can make it by URL/page not by domain only. Thank you :-)
It seems as though Alexa have changed their method and no longer provide this data for free, but rather by payment through Amazon servers. Is that correct??
Eytan, you might be right: http://aws.amazon.com/awis/
Question is, how is my Firefox SearchStatus Addon still working?
Is CURL a better option? What are the pros/cons? Do you have an opinion?
This is a great post, fortunately 70% of the time of website owner is consumed in experimenting towards increasing page rank and alexa rank. To start with increasing page rank one must start with downloading Alexa toolbar for IE or firefox on as many system possible. as a second step alexa widget on every page of your website, by this way every webpage opened is counted while calculating rank inspite is user does not have alexa toolbar installed knowtheworldaround.com
The code below cannot fetch the data from alexa –
$alexa_connector = new alexa(‘http://alexa.com/xml/dad?url=’
I used PHP5 version and replaced the above code with it. Will try to modify the code and use it on http://seoadsense.free2step.com/index.php/seo-tools/page-rank-checker/ and see how it goes.
it’s not working anymore :(
anyone got a new code for it ?
Do you know information about names of field in XML data that Alexa send? Here it is a part of XML data
Oops.. It looks like your comment engine cut XML data.. Try again
<ALEXA VER=”0.9″ URL=”google.com/” HOME=”0″ AID=”=”>
<RLS PREFIX=”http://” more=”255″>
<RL HREF=”www.zoneedit.com/” TITLE=”ZoneEdit”/>
<RL HREF=”www.tzo.com/” TITLE=”Tzo.com The Reliable Dynamic Dns Service”/>
</RLS>
<SD TITLE=”A” FLAGS=”DMOZ”>
i think the script its not working anymore, because alexa.com use pay subscription for this kind of service
Script not working
return Warning: file_get_contents(): HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
ok, if they want $$$ for xml… we can just download the whole page containing the information ;).. but there must be some other way, because there are free toolbars which showing the alexa numbers without parsingthe whole page…