Google Hacks, 2nd Edition

Build a Custom Date Range Search Form

Search only Google pages indexed today, yesterday, the last 7 days, or last 30 days.

Google has a date-based search [Hack #16] but uses Julian dates. Most people can’t convert Gregorian to Julian in their heads. But with a conversion formula and a little Perl scripting, you can have a Google search form that offers to let users search Google pages indexed today, yesterday, the last 7 days, or the last 30 days.

The Form

The frontend to the script is a simple HTML form:

<form action="http://path/to/cgi-bin/goofresh.cgi" 
method="get">
Search for:<br />
<input type="text" name="query" size="30" />
<p />
Search for pages indexed how many days back?<br />
<select name="days_back">
<option value="0">Today</option>
<option value="1">Yesterday</option>
<option value="7">Last 7 Days</option>
<option value="30">Last 30 Days</option>
</select> 
<p />
<input type="submit" value="Search">
</form>

The form prompts for two user inputs. The first is a Google query, complete with support for special syntax ["Special Syntax” in Chapter 1] and syntax mixing ["Mixing Syntaxes” in Chapter 1]; after all, we’ll just be passing your query along to Google itself. The second input, a pull-down list, prompts for how many days’ worth of search the form should perform.

The Code

Note that this script just does a couple of date translations in Perl and redirects the browser to Google, altered query in tow. It’s just a regular query as far as Google is concerned, so it doesn’t ...