A sites position on Google work like this:

Position = Relevance of content * Google Rank

So, knowing my current Google rank is going to be handy. There are a bunch of different ways to discover a sites rank from the Google Toolbar, to a million and one websites. As I want to chart the progress of this site I also need a way to periodically record my results.

I need the following components: a script to periodically measure Page Rank, a database to store the results, and a script to chart the results.

Page Rank Script

After a quick search I came across a great Open Source Google Rank script. This script returns code for a graphic so I rewrote the function pr_image($pagerank) to return a number instead.

The Cron job

I set up a Cron Job to periodically call the following script. (This script is placed outside the html directory for security).

<?php
//Connect to the database
include 'connect.php';

//Include the Page Rank script
include("pagerank.php");

$today = date("Y-m-d");

//Discover the current Page Rank
$gpr= new pageRank();
$gpr->printrank("http://www.matthewbyrne.co.uk");
$pageRank = $gpr->get_pr();

// Insert a row of information into the table
mysql_query("INSERT INTO googlePR (theDate, rank) VALUES('$today','$pageRank' ) ") or die(mysql_error()); 

//We've finished with the database, so close the connection
mysql_close($conn);

?>

Charting the results

The results are displayed live in chart (to the right). This script still needs a bit of work, as it will run off the edge of the graphic after a couple of months, but for now does the job just fine. Also, it looks a lot nicer when the bars are not all zero, so I’m keeping my finger crossed that Google moves me up a rank or too.

<?php
//Connect to the database
include 'connect.php';

//set up image
$height = 120;
$img = ImageCreate(230,$height);
$white = ImageColorAllocate($img,0xFF,0xFF,0xFF);
$black = ImageColorAllocate($img,0x00,0x00,0x00);
$blue = ImageColorAllocate($img,0x14,0x8A,0xD6);
$grey = ImageColorAllocate($img,0xCC,0xCC,0xCC);

//Query databasebase
$query= "SELECT * FROM googlePR_MB";
$data = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM googlePR_MB")
or die(mysql_error()); 

//Build array
$results = array();
while($info = mysql_fetch_array( $data )){
	$reformatDate=date('d M',strtotime($info['theDate']));
	array_push($results, array($reformatDate,$info['rank']));
}
//We've finished with the database, so close the connection
//mysql_close($conn);

$resultCount = count($results);

//Generate bars
for ($i=0;$i<=$resultCount;$i++){
	imageFilledRectangle($img,20+(5*$i),($height-1)-($results[$i][1]*10),20+(5*$i)+3,$height,$blue);
}

//Generate y-scale
for ($j=0;$j<10;$j++){
	ImageString($img,1,8,$height-(10*$j), $j,$grey);
}
//Add titles
ImageString($img,1,20,0,"Google Rank for www.matthewbyrne.co.uk", $black);
ImageString($img,1,20,10, $results[0][0]." - ".$results[$resultCount-1][0],$black);

//Output graphic
header('Content-Type: image/png');
ImagePNG($img);
?>