The purpose of the rankingfactors.pl Perl script is to dimistify what it is that makes search engines tick. More importantly it helps you learn about your competitors for your specific (targeted) keywords. It takes the top ten (or one hundred) results from Google (and Bing) and performs an in-depth analysis. You get to see how keywords of your choice are found in (search engine) search results as well as in the actual (search result) page titles, page copy, domain name, URL, META Description, header tags, and much more.

The script can be modified in any way you like. The following short video demonstration shows how you can run the script within the XAMPP environment (which you can download at http://book.seowarrior.net/xampp.zip).

For those that prefer written instructions, here is the step by step tutorial you need to run rankkingfactors.pl as described on page 80 of SEO Warrior. It is assumed that you have succeffully installed XAMPP on your PC (You can see the XAMPP tutorial at this link:  http://www.seowarrior.net/accessing-book-materials-with-xampp/

1> Start Apache by running: C:\xampp\apache_start.bat (if you wish to enable Page Rank queries)

2> Open the DOS Prompt window by doing Start|Run|cmd

3> Change your directory to: C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4\

4> Execute the setpath.bat batch file to ensure Perl will see all the required modules
       Note: you are now ready to run the rankingfactors.pl Perl script

5a> If you wish to get a report on a specific keyword for the top 10 Google results execute the scripts as follows:
         perl rankingfactors.pl 10 buy shoes
        Note: “buy shoes” is a sample keyword

5b> If you wish to get a report for the top 100 Google results execute the script as follows:
         perl rankingfactors.pl 100 buy shoes

Note: Depending on your selection the report will be generated in a few minutes. Be patient.
You will know when the script is complete by seeing the following lines of output.

C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4>perl rankingfactors.pl 10 buy shoes

Starting..
..cleanup done
..getting SERPs
..got the SERPs
..got the real titles
..finished partial title comparisons
..finished keyword title comparisons
..finished title page copy comparisons
..finished domain name exact keyword analysis
..finished domain name partial keyword analysis
..finished description META analysis
..finished header tags analysis
..finished keyword proximity analysis
..finished outbound links analysis
..finished outbound link PR analysis
..finished average page size analysis
..finished optimum number of words analysis
..finished website size analysis
C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4>

6a> To see the generated reports (for Google and Bing) browse to:
C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4\report\index.html

6b> Alternatively, you could open each report separately by browsing to:
C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4\report\bing.html
C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4\report\google.html

For information regarding report metrics (what each statistic means) please reffer to Chapter 4 of SEO Warrior.

Regards,
John

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22 Responses to “A Step-by-step Tutorial for rankingfactors.pl Script”

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  5. mikeb says:

    Hello.

    Please provide tutorial for Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” OS

    Thanks

  6. mikeb says:

    I have created a directory:
    /Library/WebServer/Documents/ranking-factors/
    When I run the script from this directory I receive the following error message:

    “Can’t locate HTML/TreeBuilder.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /Library/Perl/Updates/5.10.0 /System/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Network/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.10.0 /Network/Library/Perl /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.10.0 .) at rankingfactors.pl line 25.”

    Do you know a fix for this? I have located the HTML/TreeBuilder.pm file in your download .zip package and have copied into the first 2 or 3 directories mentioned above, but the /Network directories do NOT exist on this system.

    Thanks

    Mike

  7. John says:

    Hi Mike,
    I have a Mac at home. I have not tried the scripts on a Mac. As soon as I get a chance, I will setup the scripts and then write up a short tutorial.

    Regards,
    John

  8. John says:

    Given the message, your Perl installation can not see the TreeBuilder.pm module. There are a bunch of discussions related to TreeBuilder.pm at: http://www.google.com/search?h.....&sa=N

    Regards,
    John

  9. John says:

    Hi Mike,

    I was able to install the script on my Mac Mini at home. It is running on Mac OS X 10.5.8 (if I remember correctly). You can find the tutorial at: http://www.seowarrior.net/step.....actors-pl/

    Regards,
    John

  10. Donna says:

    Hi John,

    I running your perl rankingfactors.pl script and it starts and finishes the “finished keyword proximity analysis” line and just hangs. I’m running XP, got any ideas?

    Thanks,
    Donna

  11. harmjans says:

    I’m having the same issue as Donna. Running XAMPP and the Perl script on WinXP.

  12. John says:

    Hello Harm,

    In the nutshell, here are my email conversations with Donna:
    ===
    There are ways including:
     
    > Exiting Skype (while running scripts…I usually kill the process)
    > Changing Apache port (but to do that you would need to know which ports are used by Skype and then changing httpd.conf and the actual rankingfactors.pl file)
    > Running a virtual PC environment
     
     John

     
    From: donna
    To: john
    Subject: RE: [SEO Warrior] Comment: “A Step-by-step Tutorial for rankingfactors.pl Script”
    Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:55:49 -0600

    I got an error page when I went to http://localhost:10000/
     
    I might be having issues with Skype. Is there a way to work around the Skype issue without uninstalling Skype?
     
    Donna
     
    —–Original Message—–
    From: John
    Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 8:52 PM
    To: donna
    Subject: RE: [SEO Warrior] Comment: “A Step-by-step Tutorial for rankingfactors.pl Script”

    Hi Donna,
     
    I just run the same command and had no problems. Please see attached zip file (report). Please ensure that you are running Apache (web server) within the xampp package. 
     
    You can see instructions in these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9LhZ5Vpiwo and this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related. To save you some time you simply need to start “apache_start.bat” batch file. To check that it started browse to http://localhost:10000/.

    The script does take a long time to process as it does many different things (it took me about 25 minutes on an older XP laptop). I am enclosing its output in the other attachment. Please note that this output includes some extra details so that you can see what it was doing. If am also sending the script version which produces this output.
     
    Regards,
    John

  13. salsan says:

    Hi All,

    I’ve tried last script rankingfactors.pl ( get from http://book.seowarrior.net/xampp.zip ) with Debian and on Win XP SP3, but result same problem “File not found when calculating keyword density.”, and “finished keyword proximity analysis” line and just hangs, I follow video tutorial step by step but doesn’t work ( on Win XP )

    Example
    C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4>perl rankingfactors.pl 10 seo

    Starting..
    ..cleanup done
    ..getting SERPs
    ..got the SERPs
    ..got the real titles
    ..finished partial title comparisons
    ..finished keyword title comparisons
    ..finished title page copy comparisons
    ..finished domain name exact keyword analysis
    ..finished domain name partial keyword analysis
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    ..finished description META analysis
    ..finished header tags analysis
    file does not exist
    ..finished keyword proximity analysis

  14. John says:

    Hello,
    I just did the same command and it worked for me. Do you have any Perl knowledge?
    Thanks,
    John

  15. salsan says:

    Hi John,

    Thanks you so much for your fast reply

    Sorry, I don’t have knowledge with Perl, but I’ve partial fixed this problem on Debian

    I want to explain how to fixed this issue, open with editor rankingfactors.pl, found this line of code

    use LWP::Simple;

    use LWP::UserAgent;

    use HTML::TokeParser;

    use HTML::TreeBuilder;

    use File::Path;

    use Math::Round qw(:all);

    and go to search on synaptic package manager for install packages missed

    “LWP::UserAgent”

    libcrypt-ssleay-perl
    liblwp-authen-negotiate-perl
    liblwp-useragent-determined-perl
    liblwpx-paranoidagent-perl

    “HTML::TokeParser”
    libhtml-tokeparser-simple-perl

    HTML::TreeBuilder
    libhtml-scrubber-perl
    libhtml-treebuilder-xpath-perl

    File::Path
    libfile-path-expand-perl
    libio-all-perl

    libmath-round-perl
    Math::Round

    and now work
    perl rankingfactors.pl 10 seo

    Starting..
    ..cleanup done
    ..getting SERPs
    ..got the SERPs
    ..got the real titles
    ..finished partial title comparisons
    ..finished keyword title comparisons
    ..finished title page copy comparisons
    ..finished domain name exact keyword analysis
    ..finished domain name partial keyword analysis
    ..finished description META analysis
    ..finished header tags analysis
    ..finished keyword proximity analysis
    ..finished outbound links analysis
    ..finished outbound link PR analysis
    ..finished average page size analysis
    ..finished optimum number of words analysis

    but if tried with perl rankingfactors.pl 100 seo

    Starting..
    ..cleanup done
    ..getting SERPs
    ..got the SERPs
    ..got the real titles
    ..finished partial title comparisons
    Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <– HERE in m/+ <– HERE / at rankingfactors.pl line 1476.
    ..finished keyword title comparisonssalsan@debian:~/Desktop/xampp_seo/htdocs/book/downloads/chapter-4$

  16. John says:

    Hello again,

    Based on what I see, I would suggest looking at Mac installation as it is based on BSD Unix. Sorry I do not run Linux anymore at home or at work at the moment so I can not try it out myself.

    Please note that the script runs against the top 10 search results at the moment. Please do not use 100.

    Thanks,
    John

  17. hexing says:

    I also have the same problem,

    C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4>perl rankingfactors.pl 10 clothes

    Starting..
    ..cleanup done
    ..getting SERPs
    ..got the SERPs
    ..got the real titles
    ..finished partial title comparisons
    ..finished keyword title comparisons
    ..finished title page copy comparisons
    ..finished domain name exact keyword analysis
    ..finished domain name partial keyword analysis
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    File not found when calculating keyword density.
    ..finished description META analysis
    ..finished header tags analysis
    file does not exist
    file does not exist
    file does not exist
    file does not exist
    file does not exist
    file does not exist
    ..finished keyword proximity analysis
    ..finished outbound links analysis
    ..finished outbound link PR analysis
    ..finished average page size analysis
    ..finished optimum number of words analysis
    ..finished website size analysis
    C:\xampp\htdocs\book\downloads\chapter-4>

  18. hexing says:

    And, I want to know ,whether this script can be used with baidu , Chinese Search Engine. I’m Chinese people , now I’m reading your book and your site , does “seo warrior” help Chinese SEOer?

  19. John says:

    Hello,

    I have not tested any scripts on Baidu (that are included for the book). I am sure it would easy to make modifications for Baidu.

    Thanks,
    John

  20. John says:

    Hello,

    Please make sure your Internet connection is good and that your file permissions are sufficient.

    Thanks,
    John

  21. EpicVision says:

    I’m on Windows 7 IIS 7.5 and have the same error:

    Starting..
    ..cleanup done
    ..getting SERPs
    ..got the SERPs
    ..got the real titles
    ..finished partial title comparisons
    Quantifier follows nothing in regex; marked by <– HERE in m/+ <– HERE / at rankingfactors.pl line 1476.

  22. John says:

    Hi,
    You may want to check this link: http://www.tek-tips.com/viewth.....38;page=15
    I’ll have a look when I get a chance.
    Thanks,
    John

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