how to parse Google/MSN/Yahoo search queries

Does anyone know of any pre-built functions out there to parse the search query used to get to your site?

I'm going to build a function to do it, but would certainly love to save myself the time if it already exists.

I need to determine whether they came from natural search vs paid as well

 

do you mean like in awstats where it says the search terms used ?

 

yes, that sort of functionality, but I want to create a PHP function to do it, so I can track leads by their search engine source

 

Untested.

$ref = @parse_url($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);

if (preg_match('/(google|yahoo|msn)\.[a-z]{2,4}/$', $ref['host'], $engine))
{
	@parse_str($ref['query'], $query);
	$request = $engine[1] == 'yahoo' ? $query['p'] : $query['q'];
	
	if (!empty($request))
	{
		$keywords = preg_split('/[\+\s]/', $request);
			
		print_r($keywords);
	}
}

PHP:

 

very slick. Now I suppose that if you wanted to parse for all search engines you could use a switch case instead of this line, correct?

	$request = $engine[1] == 'yahoo' ? $query['p'] : $query['q'];

PHP:

 

Yes. Most search engines use q though, so there won't be much to switch.

 

I believe hotbot, aol, and lycos use query=

 

I know that someone, somewhere, has written some code for this. I know this because I remember seeing it linked either here or on another forum. I can't for the life of me find it, though... suffice to say there is code out there: just keep looking