NAME

URI::ParseSearchString - parse Apache refferer logs and extract search engine query strings.

VERSION

Version 0.03

SYNOPSIS

use URI::ParseSearchString ( 'parse_search_string' );

$string = parse_search_string('http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=a+simple+test&btnG=Google+Search') ;

FUNCTIONS

parse_search_string

This module provides a simple function to parse and extract search engine query strings. It was designed and tested having
Apache referrer logs in mind. It can be used for a wide number of purposes, including tracking down what keywords people use
on popular search engines before they land on a site. It makes use of URI::split to extract the string and URI::Escape to un-escape
the encoded characters in it.	Although a number of existing modules and scripts exist for this purpose,
the majority of them are either outdated using obsolete search strings associated with each engine.

The default function exported is "parse_search_string" which accepts an unquoted referrer string as input and returns the 
search engine query contained within. It currently works with both escaped and un-escaped queries and will translate the search
terms before returning them in the latter case. The function returns undef in all other cases and errors.

for example: 

		$string = parse_search_string('http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=a+simple+test&btnG=Google+Search') ;

would return 'a simple test' 

whereas

		$string = parse_search_string('http://www.mamma.com/Mamma?utfout=1&qtype=0&query=a+more%21+complex_+search%24&Submit=%C2%A0%C2%A0Search%C2%A0%C2%A0') ;

would return 'a more! complex_ search$' 

Currently, the search engines supported include Yahoo, MSN, Google, Tiscali, Netscape, Blueyonder, Mamma, Hotbot, AllTheWeb,
Lycos and Mirago. I would be glad to add support for any additional search engines you might come across so please feel free to email me.

That is all, nothing fancy.

AUTHOR

Spiros Denaxas, <s.denaxas at gmail.com>

BUGS

This is my first CPAN module so I encourage you to send all comments, especially bad, to my email address.

SUPPORT

For more information, you could also visit my blog:

http://idaru.blogspot.com

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2006 Spiros Denaxas, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.