h1. Google Competitor Research Tool v1.1

Developed by Pete Wailes, Strategy Internet Marketing
@petewailes / pete@strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk
BSD Licenced - take it and break it

If you make any amends or improvements to this that you find useful, please let me know. All development on this is done pro bono, for the community, so give back!

h2. Version History

1.0 -> MVP launched

1.1 -> sep'ed out rankings in main table to show rankings for individual keywords
	-> improved formula to include length of keyword, different weighting for positions
	-> now supports linking from positions in ranking table to listings below
	-> added readme.txt

1.2 -> split out functions and config into seperate files
	-> split out various elements into new config file for flexibility
	-> changed default lookup times to reduce load on Google. Now defaults to 3-6 seconds pause between lookups
	-> changed timeout value to be relational
	-> added csv download capability
	-> added basic styling using DAWS - see base.css for more info
	-> changed to skip on timeout and report skipped keywords instead of exiting
	-> cURL section broken out into a function
	-> split output into sections for re-ordering
	-> added calc.php to show potential time to run values
	-> added field for setting filenames

1.3 -> amend to time calculator
	-> added 'new report' button
	-> truncated ranking power numbers to 2 significant figures
	-> added domain beside Google output listings

1.4	-> added SEOmoz API to config
	-> added SEOmoz page authority to ranking power calculation

1.5	-> added SEOmoz domain authority & mozRank to domain table
	-> added SEOmoz page authority & page mozRank to keyword tables
	-> added link metrics to keyword tables (passes weight, all and doesn't pass weight)

1.6	-> added social sharing (twitter, facebook & google+) to output at page and domain level

1.7	-> lots of bug fixes
	-> added files directory for storing output csv files

1.8	-> changed fb to be total count of likes, shares and comments
	-> added fb likes, shares and comments to page detail report
	-> changed cURL to ignore ssl errors (thanks Fb...)
	-> new exponential system for calculating social weights
	-> alterations to power calculation
	-> bug fixes

h2. What Is It?

This tool is a fairly advanced competitor analysis tool, which takes an input of line-seperated keywords and outputs a list of sites that rank for them, ordered by a power metric, as well as their positions for each term. It also shows the number of tweets, fb & google+ shares, as well as (if you specify your API credentials in the config file) SEOmoz metrics for domains and pages


h2. What's The Power Metric?

The power metric is a very basic formula applied to any site ranking for any keyword, which weights the site based on an array of values assigned to any position, multiplied by a value assigned to the keyword. The forumula looks like this:

Array for Positions & Values
P => V
1 => 16
2 => 10
3 => 7
4 => 5
5 => 4
6 => 3
7 => 2.4
8 => 1.66
9 => 1.33
10 => 0.9
11-20 => 0.5
21-30 => 0.2
31+ => 0.08

Formula for Multiplier
m = 1 / (number of spaces in phrase + 1)

Thus a domain ranking for the term 'red ford focus' at position 5 would have the following formula:

4 * (1 / (2 + 1))
4 * 1/3
1.333


h2. Non-Local Querying

The tool supports non-local querying by proxy. Should you wish to use this functionality, it can be enabled in the following way:

config.php, lines 7-10 -> proxy settings for non-local querying. Enter details as needed
config.php, lines 13 & 14 -> locTld is your normal, local google version. Default is .co.uk. forTld is a non-local tld version, which you can specify. Default is .com

If you don't know what you're doing here, contact your developer or leave it alone!