Due to the many requests for details that I’ve recieved concerning the Firefox extension bounty I wanted to take a minute and outline the details. It seems everyone thinks I’m being too secretive about the whole thing. I didn’t mean for that to be the case I was just being brief with my post. Here are the details.
I would like an extension that simply checks whether or not the current page is indexed on Google. I know there are extensions that check for PageRank, which I suppose would be similar, but with this tool the important part is simply the indexing. A page may be indexed but not have a PR value, and that is what I would like to find. Is the page I'm currently visiting indexed on Google?To check whether or not a site or specific page is indexed in Google you can use the site: prefix to any URL. An example would be site:http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/user-sitemap/ (results here).
I imagined a simple statusbar icon that would report a green color for a positive result or a red for negative. Nothing more is needed but a small visual report based on a yes / no indexed result.
In theory it sounds fairly simple, I simply don’t have the time or experience with xul to build it myself. I hope that satisfies all you curious cats out there. I do have a few people that have shown some interest, which I’m grateful for. At this stage I mainly want to get it done so whoever can throw somethingtogether first becomes my new best friend.
Isn’t it faster to use cache: instead of site: and check just the second line of the returned html for a “” tag?
(Of course, google may change it and the extension would require update)
that was a BASE tag up there 🙂
salty-horse – you make a good point. cache: would work as well.
I may be dumb, but what’s the point of knowing if a page is indexed by Google?
Using the cache: operator won’t be suffice: some pages don’t want to be cached or just aren’t cached yet.
Hey guys,
This extension already exists – it’s part of the Google Toolbar. If you enable the PageRank feature:
Settings –> Options –> More –> PageRank & Page Info
Then click on the PageRank icon and select cached snapshot of page you’ll be taken to Google’s cache of the page.
If a page is in Google’s index, then it will be cached, end of story.
The only drawback to accessing the cache command via the toolbar is that the data is only updated every couple of months or so, and so sometimes a page will not seem cached in the toolbar but will be when using the cache operator on google directly.
P.S. Love the blog, and keep flying the Ubuntu flag – I’m loving Fiesty 🙂
I think the “site:” search is a better solution than checking the cache.
Has anyone implemented this yet? If not, I’d like to claim the bounty. I have a working prototype.