Google Search Console - in PHP

A show case project for executing Google web search from within the console using PHP, then write the results to a PDF file.

To do so, we have to have a Google account in order to setup a project there and get an API Key.

Prerequisites

At PHP level:

• readline library
• PHP version >= 5.6

Usage

Clone the repo and install the required packages using composer. In project directory execute:

composer install

Then update the keys.json file in project directory to add your "API Key" and "Search Engine ID" generated above.

Alternatively, you can use --key and --id command line options to provide those.

Basic Usage:

php ./google-search.php <Phrase to search> <Number of Results>

Both the <Phrase> and the <Number of results> are required.

Use --help to print the available options.

If you have troubles with SSL Certificates (on WAMP stack mostly), use the --no-verify command line option to skip SSL verification. The error will be like cURL error 60: SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate (see http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html)

The result PDF file will be saved in the same directory as the script, and will have its name automatically generated from the search phrase, you can specify the file name including the directory name using --out command line option.

Getting the Keys

1. Get Google API Key

While logged in to your Google Account, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to https://console.developers.google.com and create a new project

Select project:

Project add-new:

Project choose name and create:

2. Within the developer console, generate a new API Key for that Project just created

Go to credentials and select a project:

Create an API Key Credentials:

Then copy the key and keep it.

3. Navigate to the Dashboard and add the Custom Search API Service to the project

Go to Dashboard and click enable APIs:

Search for 'search':

select the 'Custom Search':

Enable Service:

2. Generate Search Engine ID

Also while logged in to Google Account, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to https://www.google.com/cse/all and create a new custom search

Create new Custom Search:

In the "Sites to Search" enter "www.google.com" then click "Create" Enter site and click create:

On the left navigation pane, head to "Edit search engine" and select "Setup" leaf. Edit the "Sites to Search" and select "Search the entire web but emphasize included sites". Then click "Update" at the bottom to save. Enable Search Entire web:

In the same page, click on "Search Engine ID" to get the ID needed, copy it. Get Search Engine ID:

Get Search Engine ID: