Best way to programatically check the # of results in google for a keyword?

What would be the best way to set up a script where the user could enter a keyword and the script would then simply check Google to see how many results are in the index?

If anyone could even point me in the right direction, that would be awesome.

Thanks
kkibak

 

If I remember right, you can do that with the Google API

 

great thanks. in case anyone else wants to do this w/php, here's a cool source i found: http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/175

 

exam, have you played around w/the API at all? If so, do you have any recommendations for how to do multiple queries?

for ex if I want to check the # of results for
test
big test
bigger test
never mind
etcetera

im playing around with some array stuff now but its all sort of trial and error as ive never worked with apis before

how would you recommend going through all these? thanks..

 

er answered my own question i think, but perhaps there's a more efficient way. for now, here's what im doing:

enter list of keywords or whatever into textarea
explode text area w/php to make array
one at a time use the api to check em and get results that way