Google Rank Calculator

26 April 2004

7 comments

A Blue Perspective: Google Rank Calculator

» Google Rank Calculator «

It's a dream of mine to work with the uber-boffins at Google (not least of all because of the stock options). But for the moment, I'll have to be satisfied with access to the Google Web API – an interface which allows you to query Google's database of over 4,000,000,000 pages and do what you will with the returns.

Unfamiliar with SOAP, it took me a little while to figure out exactly how to remotely query the Google search engine and handle the returned data, but it was sorted eventually. As a first time exercise, I decided to code a little (trivial) application that answers the question that my ego is always asking: "where does my site rank in Google"?

To my disappointment, themaninblue.com doesn't appear in the first 100 results of "best site ever", but luckily I've made a public interface to the code, so you can find out whether your site is one of the best, or find its ranking in any other search query that you find interesting.

A couple of caveats:

  • The good folks at Google only give developers 1,000 search queries (consisting of 10 results) a day, so once that limit has been reached you won't be able to access any results till the next day. If your Web site appears on the 10th Google page it actually requires 10 queries to find it, so 100 such uses will devour my ration of queries. If you've got your own Google Web APIs license key, you can enter that on the form (and if you do have one, please enter it to help conserve my own allocation).
  • The results returned via the API are slightly different to those returned via the actual Google Web page (because of filtering and other operations), so the actual ranking of your site mightn't be as it appears. It's normally correct to within about 5 though.

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Comments

  1. 1/7

    Mike commented on 26 April 2004 @ 05:56

    Wow, great work! I love how the big "placement" number is all done in CSS... nice job ;)

  2. 2/7

    Andy Budd commented on 26 April 2004 @ 22:10

    Hmm, doesn't work for me. I put in my domain name www.andybudd.com and the search term "andy" and I get a message saying that the site wasn't found in the top 100 results. However I do the search on google and my site comes up 6th

  3. 3/7

    The Man in Blue commented on 26 April 2004 @ 22:46

    I think that just means I've run out of Googlability for the day ... have to figure out what their error codes are ...

  4. 4/7

    The Man in Blue commented on 26 April 2004 @ 23:13

    It now officially tells you that it can't tell you anything :o]

    But at least you know when my Google license has run out for the day.

    What are you doing getting a rank when you already know you're 6th for anyway Andy? I thought you'd be above my own petty self-congratulation. ;o]

  5. 5/7

    George BOOLE commented on 2 May 2004 @ 16:08

    Excellent, and timely inasmuch as the Google folks have really truly screwed up their entire system. NOT ONLY HAVE ALL THE TOP SITES DROPED OUT, BUT WHAT IS NOW ON TOP IS OFTEN RIDICULOUSLY LOW LIFE STUFF. I AM SURE EVERYONE IS NOT ONLY OBSERVING THIS TRULY EXTRAORDINARY HYPOCRITICAL MOVE, BUT MORE WONDERING WHY?
    IT IS ONE THING FOR RANKING TO MOVE AND EVOLVE, BUT THIS WHOLESALE MASSACARE SMELLS FISHY FISHY....

  6. 6/7

    Mike Bryan commented on 4 May 2004 @ 11:29

    My site has been up for eight years and has over a 100 article. For some keywords it is number one in Google. I tried the following keywords - "medicinal food", "functional food" and "health". The results were 1, 24 and not in the first 100. When I tried these keywords in google, I got different results. We still ranked #1 for "medicinal food" but the others were not in the first 100. I think the Google results are with a different database.

  7. 7/7

    David Bell commented on 31 July 2004 @ 02:14

    googlerankings.com does the same job... very useful tool(s)

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