creating a search script or program for a search engine (google more than likely)

shrapnel222

hi guys, i have a question for you and most likely need your help, but first, i need to give you a little bit of background for this request.

basically this summer i got slightly scammed when i rented an apartment in the south of france. Not a big scam mind you, just a bit of false advertising and fake pictures which looked nothing like what we rented, but probably paid twicce as much as what we should have paid. We still stayed there and had a great time, but the place was a sh*thole. The redeeming feature was a massive terrace, twice the size of the bunker which this guy calls a 2 bedroom flat, where we basically spent all our time.

Now, like everyone, i don't like being taken for a fool, but there wasn't a lot we could do but take it on the chin and have a good holiday regardless. what i did do though is take loads of photos of the place, thinking that i wouldn't let this happen to anyone else and make sure this guy never rents his place online ever again.

so my question is this: is it possible to write some kind of script or program to automate a search on the internet on a regular basis looking for keywords, ip addresses... anything that could be used to flag his flat being put up for rental on any number of rental sites, and output a log of results so that i can then go onto that site and call out the guy, and put off potential clients or even get him banned from all rental sites?

any help would be greatly appreciated

Sheeps

So you want a list of all keywords that return search results to his page?

shrapnel222

no, i'm looking for a little program which would run the search regularly(based on a number of keywords) and if the flat is found on any rental site, then it is automatically flagged for future reference so that i can then deal with it.

Gordon

Not going into why you are using this but what about google alerts? http://www.google.com/alerts

shrapnel222

Gordon wrote: »

Not going into why you are using this but what about google alerts? http://www.google.com/alerts

thanks for that. looks good but isn't specific enough. what i need it for is to find one advertisement for a particular flat in amongst the hundreds of holiday rental websites out there for french rentals.

I basically want to stalk this guy's flat to make sure it is never rented online again without the people knowing what they will actually be renting.

NeverSayDie

First advice I'd give would be to leave this to law enforcement or trade bodies and move on with your life.
Barring that, second advice I'd give would be to seek legal advice before you get into something like this.

That said, on a technical level, I'd agree with Gordon's suggestion of Google Alerts. It's pretty much designed for keeping up to date with particular search results, which appears to be what you want to do.

Bear in mind you can use a variety of complex search queries along with plain keywords, see here for details; http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en . You can tell it to search particular sites for instance, look for combinations of keywords, do "this OR that" queries, etc. A few of those strung together and emailed/RSS'd to you regularly should suffice.

That's assuming you have particular keywords, address, etc that will distinguish what you're looking for from other properties. If you don't have that, you're out of luck.

Beyond that, google for "data mining", and be aware that searching lots of randomly structured data (ie, websites) is a difficult problem, and in cases like this is usually best left to Google, who are very good at it. Building a mashup of some sort on top of the highest level results you can get from Google is your best bet.

shrapnel222

NeverSayDie wrote: »

First advice I'd give would be to leave this to law enforcement or trade bodies and move on with your life.
Barring that, second advice I'd give would be to seek legal advice before you get into something like this.

That said, on a technical level, I'd agree with Gordon's suggestion of Google Alerts. It's pretty much designed for keeping up to date with particular search results, which appears to be what you want to do.

Bear in mind you can use a variety of complex search queries along with plain keywords, see here for details; http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en . You can tell it to search particular sites for instance, look for combinations of keywords, do "this OR that" queries, etc. A few of those strung together and emailed/RSS'd to you regularly should suffice.

That's assuming you have particular keywords, address, etc that will distinguish what you're looking for from other properties. If you don't have that, you're out of luck.

Beyond that, google for "data mining", and be aware that searching lots of randomly structured data (ie, websites) is a difficult problem, and in cases like this is usually best left to Google, who are very good at it. Building a mashup of some sort on top of the highest level results you can get from Google is your best bet.

thanks for the advice. to be honest, this is pretty petty stuff. all i want to do is get the guy banned from rental websites, by letting them know what a small time scammer he is, and give proof with photos. i don't want to involve the police or seek legal advice. all i want to do is be a pain in this guys side for a little while, and take away part of his unlawful revenue stream by telling the truth about his flat.

I can google his flat not a problem, i just thought there might be an automated way which lets me know every time he posts his flat on a new rental website.

NeverSayDie

Well, that's exactly what Google Alerts is for. If you can run a Google query that finds what you're looking for, then Google Alerts will run it automatically for you, and let you know whenever it has new results. You could set it up for a particular set of sites, if you happen to know which ones you have in mind. If you have search terms that find a listing on site XYZ, then Google Alerts will let you know when they bring back results for sites 123 and ABC as well, assuming the same search terms apply. The sites themselves may have tools for doing this kind of thing, for that matter.

AARRRGH

If you don't want to use Google Alerts, you can just write a script in PHP which searches google for particular terms, spiders the results, and alerts you if it finds specific details, e.g. his phone number or the address or something like that.