Acquire Search Queries with Python

Developers have till now showed a lot of interest in getting access to the search queries on their websites in Webmaster Tools. Till now there was no such method. If you are one such developer looking from programmatic access, there is great news for you. You will now be able to get access to the search queries in CSV format by using an open source Python script available in the webmaster tools project. Webmaster Tools has been the most commonly used API and till now it did not have any feature that would allow developers get access to search queries data, even though this had been one of the most common request by API users.

Webmaster tools is considering to add this feature in the next API update. However, you can also get access to the data right now by using the search query downloader Python script. It can be used to download the data and then upload it to a Google Docs spreadsheet.

Here is an example of using the Python script for this purpose which would be of great help to SEO experts:

1. Download and then install Python on your system. If you are a smart developer, most likely you would already have Python installed. If so, you can skip this step.
2. Download the Google Data API Python Client Library and install it.
3. Now create a new folder and then add to it downloader.py script.
4. Now copy the example-create-spreadsheet.py in the same folder to which you added downloader.py and edit it. Replace the values for ’email’, ‘website’ and ‘password’ with some valid values for your website verified by Webmaster tools.
5. Open a new terminal window and run the script example-create-spreadsheet.py by entering it in the terminal window.
6. You can now visit the Google Docs spreadsheet containing that data that you required.

Having access to the data will allow you to change your internet marketing strategy accordingly. You can also download the data in a .CSV format by adding the script example-simple-download.py instead of the earlier added script example-create-spreadsheet.py.

You can also configure these scripts to run at regular intervals. This way you will be able to access your queries data over very large data ranges. The script example that you would use contains the password and user name within the script itself. You may have to follow security best practices if you are in any case planning to make use of this script in a production environment. Encrypted user credentials would probably be a very good idea. The script also uses the secure HTTP or HTTPS to communicate with the API in order to protect these credentials.

The script is very easy to use and even if you have not considered getting access to the data till now, you can give it a try and use it to create a more efficient internet marketing strategy. Using it is not very difficult and hence no professional help would be required.