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
    Create Namespaced Classes with MooTools

    MooTools has always gotten a bit of grief for not inherently using and standardizing namespaced-based JavaScript classes like the Dojo Toolkit does.  Many developers create their classes as globals which is generally frowned up.  I mostly disagree with that stance, but each to their own.  In any event...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    CSS Selection Styling

    The goal of CSS is to allow styling of content and structure within a web page.  We all know that, right?  As CSS revisions arrive, we're provided more opportunity to control.  One of the little known styling option available within the browser is text selection styling.

  • By
    Introducing MooTools Templated

    One major problem with creating UI components with the MooTools JavaScript framework is that there isn't a great way of allowing customization of template and ease of node creation. As of today, there are two ways of creating: new Element Madness The first way to create UI-driven...

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!