Integrate Online Search Engine and Keyword Tools

A1 Keyword Research can integrate its functionality with many keyword suggestion and search engine optmization tools. You can add support for new SEM, SEO and keyword tools.

• Location and usage:
  • Configuration files for website, keyword etc. tools are located in file directory: "%AppUserDataDir%\data\position-checks".
  • A good way to learn more is to open and view the files located in the above directory.
  • For new configuration files to become available, you may need to restart A1 Keyword Research.
  
  
• How it works:
  • You define an config file to specify how to query a website / address.
  • You define a regex file to specify how to parse the retrieved content.
  • See below for an example of myEngineConfig.ini and myEngineRegex.rex.
  
  
• Advanced usage:
  • You define an config include file. These files can be included by normal config files.
  • When the program loads a config file into memory, the content of any config include file is appended.
  • Many engines have localized versions that can share the same regex and config include files.
  
  
• File naming conventions:
  • File service types:
    • Keyword suggestion: Files start with "suggest--".
    • Website position: Files start with "position--".
  • File setup types:
    • Config files: File extension is ".ini".
    • Config include files: File extension is ".inc".
    • Regex files: File extension is ".rex".

For all configuration files, you can define address, results per page, how deep to scan, wait time between queries etc.
(The program does enforce some limits to help prevent excessive overuse.)

If some options have not been set, defaults will be used. Depending on the tool using the configuration file, e.g. position checking or keyword suggestion, not all match options are used.

Field (=)	Value (demonstration values listed here)	Description
meta__name_short	name example	short name shown in program
meta__name_long	long name example	long name shown in program
search__kind	generic_parser	uses HTTP GET requests to online services and APIs
search__url	http://search.example.com/results.aspx	Simple style: Generates URLs by appending query names and values based on options set.
	http://search.example.com/results/q=@search__q_var_f@/	Template style: Generates URLs using search__q_var_? to insert and replace query values.
Template style generated URLs
search__url_tmpl_var	@	Symbol to use if you choose to construct query URLs by having query tool replace @search__q_var_?@ with approriate values.
	@search__q_var_f@ = query text @search__q_var_c@ = results count @search__q_var_s@ = results start	Using the @search__q_var_?@ system can sometimes make it easier to construct the query URLs. Typical case is if the search URLs do not contain any query component, i.e. ?.
Simple style generated URLs
search__q_var_f	q	"query" (a.k.a. search/find) parameter
search__q_var_c	c	results "count" per page parameter
search__q_var_s	s	start query results from "start" parameter
		Note: Above is rarely useful if using the search__url_tmpl_var template construct
Simple style generated URLs
search__q_input_before	datacenter=en&	insert before "query" related parameters
search__q_input_after		add after "query" related parameters
		Note: Above is rarely useful if using the search__url_tmpl_var template construct
Options controling query tool
search__q_start	1	the number this engine considers first "start" result
search__q_start_default	1	the number this engine considers default "start" result
search__q_pp_sa	100	with (next) result page, add value to "start"
search__q_items	100	search results on each page
search__q_pages	2	search result pages to check
search__limit_depth_total	1000	max number of positions requested data for
search__limit_connect_timeout	10000	max miliseconds before connection attempt timeout
search__limit_read_timeout	10000	max miliseconds before read download timeout
search__limit_connect_tries	1	max number of connection tries
search__idle_lo_s	0800	minimum time before next result page (miliseconds)
search__idle_lo_e	1600	maximum time before next result page (miliseconds)
search__idle_hi_s	1200	minimum time before next search query (miliseconds)
search__idle_hi_e	2000	maximum time before next search query (miliseconds)
config__include_file	myConfigInclude.inc	file containing configuration, usually shared
extract__rex_file	myEngineRegex.rex	file containing regular expressions used to extract data
search__ua_file	myUserAgents.txt	file containing user agent string(s) to use
extract__match_url	2	match parenthesis in regex for "url"
extract__match_title	3	match parenthesis in regex for "title"
extract__match_desc	-1	match parenthesis in regex for "description"
extract__match_count_searches	-1	match parenthesis in regex for "searches count"
extract__match_count_scores	-1	match parenthesis in regex for "scores count"
clean__decode__match_url	1	0 = no decode. 1 = normal decode.
suggest__clean__match_title	false	clean "title part" (only used when suggesting phrases)

These files contain regular expressions used for matching.

Some stuff is automatically handled in A1. You do not need to worry about:

• Case sensitivity.
• HTML comments.
• HTML new-lines - all converted to spaces.
• HTML white-spaces - superfluous white-spaces removed.
• HTML embedded inside shown website title.
• All lines in .rex files are left + right trimmed for white-spaces.

Recommended books:

• Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes, Ben Forta
• Mastering Regular Expressions, Jeffrey E. F Friedl

Quick example of regular expression:
<li([\s]class="fromsite")?><h3>
<a href="([^"]*)">(.*?)</a>
</h3><p>