Comparing Phrases - Google Adwords Application

I just completed a $50 Project for a client who wished to compare a list of phrases to see if they appeared in another list, only the thing was it didn't matter what order the words in the phrases were.

So...if the phrase "big boy eats cake" was in the second list, "boy eats big cake" would result in a match. What is important is that both phrases contain exactly the same words...no more no less, but the order is irrelevant. I believe the application for this type of function was to make sure that a list of keyword phrases, say for a Google Adwords campaign, didn't contain any phrases that would be "duplicates" for that purpose.

Using formulas to parse out the individual words in the phrases and a little bit of VBA code, I think I've come up with a simple-ish solution to this little problem.

Later,

Excel_Geek

Manage Google Adwords from Excel

Recently Kelly requested that I build, using Excel, VBA, and the Google Adwords API, a simple means for him/her to manage his/her Adwords account from a spreadsheet. I love the concept, especially for people/businesses that create a long list of ads to manage over time. Basically, the idea is to be able to create and activate new ads, edit existing ads, delete or deactivate ads, etc. from within Excel. Very doable, methinks.

Now, I've not done any projects using the Adwords API, and I'm a bit overloaded on some other projects right now, so I pushed this project out to my vast team of...um...two international Excel_Geek Contributors. Both very capable, but neither has chosen to tackle this particular project.

So...anyone else in the world know how to do this/want to try to do it? Please, become an Excel_Geek Contributor today!

Kelly, if no one out there is willing to step up and help out with this, I'll get to it, but it won't be tomorrow...or next week...but I do want to do this type of work. I might even use it myself.

Excel_Geek

BTW, thank you everyone for your overwhelming response to my new Meebo Me chat feature I installed yesterday. I'll stay signed in as often as possible to help you all with those quick little "How do I (blank) in Excel?" questions that always pop up.

UPDATE II on Google API Project

Thought I'd pass along an interesting development with the Google API project requested by S_ _ _ _:

I have been contacted by another party who has alerted me to potential intellectual property issues surrounding this project. I'll not be identifying this party, nor will I make any statements relative to the exact nature of this party's claims, nor my perception of the validity of their claims.

Suffice it to say that I'll not be pursuing this project for hire at this time.

Sorry, S_ _ _ _. $50 isn't worth the risk.

Excel_Geek

UPDATE on Google API Project

I fired off an email to S_ _ _ _, trying to get some clarification, and with an update. S_ _ _ _ shot back an answer, showing that he/she's already got quite a bit of insight on this project. Further proof that my readers are, in fact, some of the brightest excel users already...they're just looking to me to help them tweak the masterpieces they've already built! (Hope I can live up to that.) Anyway, I thought all of you might find the subject matter interesting, so here're the emails:

Excel_Geek to S_ _ _ _ :

I have a question and an update:

Question: When you say, "# of competing websites for the search term" do you mean the total number of search results for a given search term, or do you mean the number of Google Adwords client advertisers who have purhcased that particular search term? Obviously the two are vastly different, and getting the latter, if even possible, would require me to be an Adwords client (which I'm not) so I could get access to the Adwords API. What I don't know is if I did have access to the Adwords API if it gives out that sort of information.

Update: Backlinks? Totally doable with the Google Search API. URL? Totally doable with the Google Search API (even without it). PageRank? Hmmmm.....This is what seemingly everyone is trying to achieve (so I've found). Google doesn't make this data readily available via API, and they stopped placing PageRank in their search results pages long ago, but there is the Google Toolbar, which displays the PageRank. I found one application in DOS that returns the PageRank, but it isn't useful to me. I have some ideas on how we might get this data via the toolbar....I'll keep you posted.

Excel_Geek

S_ _ _ _ to Excel_Geek :

Hi,

Answer to the question : I mean the total number of websites for the search term, which google displays in the SERP top left corner. (such as Results 1 - 10 of about 1,720,000,000 for web sites. (0.23 seconds) )

Side Info : I already have a program called keyword analyzer (http://www.keywordsanalyzer.com) which can fetch the number of google campaigns and top bids (exact, broad and phrase match options seperately). I guess this also handled with SOAP, similar to what you have done.

PageRank : There are a few sites which can fetch the pagerank (in text or in graphics) for a given keyword, most of them use ASP or PHP. Here are a few references. It might help.

http://www.thinkbling.com/serps/serps.php
http://www.mcdar.net/KeywordTool/keywordtool.asp
http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/
http://www.splutweb.com/Tools/Tools.asp

Interesting New Google API Related $50 Project

Just before Christmas (Merry late Christmas, by the way...) I received a request for an interesting new Google API-related $50 project.

S_ _ _ _ requested the following data be returned into an excel spreadsheet for each of a list of up to 300 or so keyword phrases:

• The number of websites competing for the search term keywords, as well as intitle:keywords and allinachor:keywords;


• The number of backlinks of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th ranked competing sites for the search term keywords;


• The pageranks of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th ranked competing sites for the search term keywords;


• The URLs of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 10th ranked competing sites for the search term keywords;

And some bonus optional data S_ _ _ _ would like are the number of searches in Overture Database and the number of searches in Wordtracker Database (using the WordTracker API, with which I'm not terribly familiar).

I'll get right on it, S_ _ _ _, and I'll see what I can do.

Excel_Geek