searchConsoleR
R interface with Google Search Console (formally Google Webmaster Tools) API v3.
Setup Guide
Install dependency googleAuthR from CRAN:
install.packages("googleAuthR")
library(googleAuthR)Install searchConsoleR 0.3.0 from CRAN:
install.packages("searchConsoleR")
library(searchConsoleR)If you want the development version of searchConsoleR on Github:
devtools::install_github("MarkEdmondson1234/searchConsoleR")
library(searchConsoleR)Shiny Compatible
Authentication can be done locally or within a Shiny app. See a very bare bones example here: https://mark.shinyapps.io/searchConsoleRDemo/
Info Links
Function Quick Guide
Search analytics
search_analytics()- download Google SEO data into an R dataframe.
Website admin
list_websites()- list websites in your Google Search Console.add_website()- add a website to your Google Search Console.delete_website()- delete a website from your Google Search Console.
Sitemaps
list_sitemaps()- list sitemaps recognised in Google Search Console.add_sitemap()- add sitemap URL location to Google Search Console.delete_sitemap()- remove sitemap URL location in Google Search Console.
Error listings
crawl_errors()- list various types of crawl errors googlebot has found.list_crawl_error_samples()- get a list of example URLs with errors.error_sample_url()- show details about an example URL error (for example, links to a 404 URL)fix_sample_url()- mark a URL as fixed.
Authentication functions from googleAuthR
scr_auth()- main authentication function. Works locally and within a Shiny environment.
Work flow
Work flow always starts with authenticating with Google:
library(searchConsoleR)
scr_auth()Your browser window should open up and go through the Google sign in OAuth2 flow. Verify with a user that has Search Console access to the websites you want to work with.
Check out the documentation of any function for a guide on what else can be done.
?searchConsoleRIf you authenticate ok, you should be able to see a list of your websites in the Search Console via:
sc_websites <- list_websites()
sc_websitesWe'll need one unique sc_websites$siteUrl for the majority of the other functions.
Most people will find the Search Analytics most useful. All methods from the web interface are available.
Here is an example query, which downloads the top 100 rows of queries per page for the month of July 2015, for United Kingdom desktop web searches:
gbr_desktop_queries <-
search_analytics("http://example.com",
"2015-07-01", "2015-07-31",
c("query", "page"),
dimensionFilterExp = c("device==DESKTOP","country==GBR"),
searchType="web", rowLimit = 100)For a lot more details see:
?search_analyticsBatching
You can get more than the standard 5000 rows via batching. There are two methods available, one via a API call per date, the other using the APIs startRow parameter.
The date method gets more impressions for 0 click rows, the batch method is quicker but gets just rows with clicks.
Specify a rowLimit when batching - if using method byDate this will be the limit it fetches per day, and currently needs to be over 5000 to work. (Issue #17 will fix this).
test0 <- search_analytics("http://www.example.co.uk",
dimensions = c("date","query","page","country"),
rowLimit = 200000,
walk_data = "byBatch")
Batching data via method: byBatch
### test0 has 13063 rows
test <- search_analytics("http://www.example.co.uk",
dimensions = c("date","query","page","country"),
walk_data = "byDate")
Batching data via method: byDate
### test has 419957 rows
> sum(test0$clicks)
[1] 12866
> sum(test$clicks)
[1] 12826
> sum(test$impressions)
[1] 1420217
> sum(test0$impressions)
[1] 441029
>
Demo script
Here is an example for downloading daily data and exporting to .csv
## A script to download and archive Google search analytics
##
## Demo of searchConsoleR R package.
##
## Version 1 - 10th August 2015
##
## Mark Edmondson (http://markedmondson.me)
library(searchConsoleR)
## change this to the website you want to download data for. Include http
website <- "http://copenhagenish.me"
## data is in search console reliably 3 days ago, so we donwnload from then
## today - 3 days
start <- Sys.Date() - 3
## one days data, but change it as needed
end <- Sys.Date() - 3
## what to download, choose between date, query, page, device, country
download_dimensions <- c('date','query')
## what type of Google search, choose between 'web', 'video' or 'image'
type <- c('web')
## other options available, check out ?search_analytics in the R console
## Authorize script with Search Console.
## First time you will need to login to Google,
## but should auto-refresh after that so can be put in
## Authorize script with an account that has access to website.
scr_auth()
## first time stop here and wait for authorisation
## get the search analytics data
data <- search_analytics(siteURL = website,
startDate = start,
endDate = end,
dimensions = download_dimensions,
searchType = type)
## do stuff to the data
## combine with Google Analytics, filter, apply other stats etc.
## write a csv to a nice filename
filename <- paste("search_analytics",
Sys.Date(),
paste(download_dimensions, collapse = "",sep=""),
type,".csv",sep="-")
write.csv(data, filename)The dimensionFilterExp parameter
This parameter is used in search_analytics to filter the result.
Filter using this format: filter operator expression
Filter can be one of:
country,devicepagequery
Operator can be one of ~~, ==, !~, != where the symbols mean:
~~: 'contains',==: 'equals',!~: 'notContains',!=: 'notEquals'
Expression formatting:
- for
pageorqueryis free text. - for
countrymust be the three letter country code as per the the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 standard. e.g. USA, GBR = United Kingdom, DNK = Denmark - for
devicemust be one of: 'MOBILE', 'DESKTOP' or 'TABLET'
You can have multiple AND filters by putting them in a character vector. The below looks for desktop searches in the United Kingdom, not showing the homepage and not including queries containing 'brandterm'.
c("device==DESKTOP","country==GBR", "page!=/home", "query!~brandterm")
OR filters aren't yet supported in the API.
The dataState parameter
In this parameter could be used for downloading fresh data.
final: response will contains just final dataall: response will contains also fresh data from lattest days
In default state search_analytics function works with final state. Be careful with the interpretation of fresh data. They get progressively more accurate as they become final data.
Using your own Google API project
As default searchConsoleR uses its own Google API project to grant requests, but if you want to use your own keys:
- Set up your project in the Google API Console to use the search console v3 API.
For local use
- Click 'Create a new Client ID', and choose "Installed Application".
- Note your Client ID and secret.
- Modify these options after
searchConsoleRhas been loaded:
options("searchConsoleR.client_id" = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID")options("searchConsoleR.client_secret" = "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET")
For Shiny use
- Click 'Create a new Client ID', and choose "Web Application".
- Note your Client ID and secret.
- Add the URL of where your Shiny app will run, as well as your local host for testing including a port number. e.g. https://mark.shinyapps.io/searchConsoleRDemo/ and http://127.0.0.1:4624
- In your Shiny script modify these options:
options("searchConsoleR.webapp.client_id" = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID")options("searchConsoleR.webapp.client_secret" = "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET")
- Run the app locally specifying the port number you used e.g.
shiny::runApp(port=4624) - Or deploy to your Shiny Server that deploys to web port (80 or 443).