Alexa API, PHP and getting traffic rankings

I've been trying the official scripts for getting the traffic rankings using the Alexa API but it fails on about 75% of requests.

Has anyone got any tips or scripts that actually work or do I need to screen scrape?

The official script:

<?php

// Make a request to the AWIS UrlInfo operation to get information about a given url

define("ACCESS_KEY", "--- Replace with your access key id ---");
define("SECRET_ACCESS_KEY", "--- Replace with your secret access key ---");

define("SERVICE", "AlexaWebInfoService");
define("OPERATION", "UrlInfo");
define("RESPONSE_GROUP", "Rank");

$site_url = "yahoo.com";

echo("For site: " . $site_url."\n\n");

$awis_url = generate_rest_url($site_url);

echo ("Request: \n". $awis_url."\n\n");

// Make request

$result = make_http_request($awis_url);

// Display resulting XML

echo("Response:\n");
echo($result);

// Returns the AWS rest url to get AWIS information for the given site

function generate_rest_url($site_url) {

        $timestamp =  generate_timestamp();
        $site_enc = urlencode($site_url);
        $timestamp_enc = urlencode($timestamp);
        $signature_enc = urlencode (
            calculate_RFC2104HMAC
                    (SERVICE . OPERATION . $timestamp, SECRET_ACCESS_KEY)
            );

        return  "http://awis.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?"
                        . "Service=".SERVICE
                        . "&Operation=".OPERATION
                        . "&AWSAccessKeyId=".ACCESS_KEY
                        . "&ResponseGroup=".RESPONSE_GROUP
                        . "&Timestamp=$timestamp_enc"
                        . "&Signature=$signature_enc"
                        . "&Url=$site_enc";

}


// Calculate signature using HMAC: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2104.html

function calculate_RFC2104HMAC ($data, $key) {
    return base64_encode (
        pack("H*", sha1((str_pad($key, 64, chr(0x00))
        ^(str_repeat(chr(0x5c), 64))) .
        pack("H*", sha1((str_pad($key, 64, chr(0x00))
        ^(str_repeat(chr(0x36), 64))) . $data))))
     );
}

// Timestamp format: yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'

function generate_timestamp () {
    return gmdate("Y-m-d\TH:i:s.\\0\\0\\0\\Z", time());
}

// Make an http request to the specified URL and return the result

function make_http_request($url){
       $ch = curl_init($url);
       curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 4);
	   curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
       $result = curl_exec($ch);
       curl_close($ch);
       return $result;
}


?>

PHP:

 

I have Alexa rank checker as part of my Site Information tool. It is based on similar code. Functions calculate_RFC2104HMAC and generate_timestamp are the same, but I am getting response like this:

  $secret_access_key = 'skipped';
  $aws_access_key_id = 'skipped';
  $service = 'AlexaWebInfoService';
  $operation = 'UrlInfo';
  $timestamp =  generate_timestamp();
  $site_enc = urlencode($url);
  $timestamp_enc = urlencode($timestamp);
  $signature_enc = urlencode(calculate_RFC2104HMAC($service . $operation . $timestamp, $secret_access_key));

  $awsurl =  'http://awis.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?'
      . "Service=$service"
      . "&Operation=$operation"
      . "&Timestamp=$timestamp_enc"
      . "&AWSAccessKeyId=$aws_access_key_id"
      . "&ResponseGroup=Rank"
      . "&Url=$site_enc"
      . "&Signature=$signature_enc";

  $request = @file_get_contents($awsurl);
  if ($request && preg_match("/<Rank>([0-9]+)<\/Rank>/", $request, $match))
   return $match[1];

PHP:

 

Couldn't get your script to work. Think its my server firewall.

Got it sorted so its working about 50% of the time.

 

Hi, do you have to pay to use the Alexa API to get traffic stats? Some where I read on their site it's $0.15 / 1000. If so, is it worth it?

 

One API of Alexa is available that gives latest rank details of the website.

It's simple to use with URL.

<?php
     $domain = "guruquest.net";
     $url =  "http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&url=".$domain;
     $response = file_get_contents($url);
     print_r(json_decode(json_encode($response)),1);
?>

PHP:

http://data.alexa.com/data?cli=10&url=domain_name

from there reference alexa api php