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Adding Custom Date Range to Footprint?

KapriceKaprice
in Need Help
In Google, you can specify a custom date range (of the page) by selecting from the first dropdown (which defaults to Any Time, but you can select Past Hour, Past Week, etc, and Custom).

Is there a way to filter GSA SER results in a similar way?

Comments

  • OzzOzz
    edited August 2013
    you can do this with a customized SE and using one of those operators
    &as_qdr=y
    &as_qdr=m
    &as_qdr=w
    instaed of "&as_qdr=all". another way would be to use footprints with specific date stamps.
  • SvenSven www.GSA-Online.de
    As @Ozz suggested. But SER adds this as well to the search query randomly to improve scrapping.
  • KapriceKaprice
    Thanks, Ozz.

    Sven, I don't understand what you mean about SER adding this to the query randomly.

    How can I limit SER scraping to pages posted within a certain date range, they way I can in Google by selecting the range dropdown?
  • KapriceKaprice
    Ozz, I went through the thread you posted (you're brilliant!) and was quite lost. I see that you showed how add custom search engines, but didn't completely follow it. And, didn't see at all how to use that info to filter by date range.

    I am aware of adding dates to the footprint, but that depends on a site actually posting a date, which many don't. That's why I was happy to see the date range limiter in Google.

    I also don't understand the &as_qdr= operator. y appears to be year? m=month? w= what? week?

    How would I use those to limit results to pages created, say between 2000 and 2006?
  • KapriceKaprice
    Note: I'm fairly technically savvy. I'm a MS Office/Access VBA developer for 18 years. But, I'm very new to GSA.
  • OzzOzz
    i'll show the steps you need to take.

    1) search for a file called "se.dat" you will find in your installation folder of SER

    2) copy/paste the lines of every google SE you're using for SER into a new text file ([Google], [Google UK], ...)

    3) modify the "url=" line from
    url=http://www.google.bg/search?q=%search%&as_qdr=all&filter=0&num=100&start=%page%
    to
    url=http://www.google.com/search?q=%search%&as_qdr=y&filter=0&num=100&start=%page%

    you can even spin the line like
    url=http://www.google.com/search?q=%search%&as_qdr={all|y|m|w}&filter=0&num=100&start=%page%
    so every option is used 25% of time.

    4) rename the SEs like ever you want. 
    Example:
    [Google UK] <- Old name
    [Google UK Mod] <- New name

    5) save the file and rename it to "user_se.dat". this file needs to be save to your %appdata%/GSA Search Engine Ranker folder. 

    6) restart SER and select your newly created SEs in the selection window

    7) done :)

    PS: y=last year, m=last month, w=last week

  • KapriceKaprice
    That's excellent, Ozz. If I may trouble you further...

    Once I've got the se.dat modified, what would I enter in the footprint box if I wanted all dog training pages put up between 2005 and 2007?
  • OzzOzz
    you don't modify se.dat as this will get overwritten after each update. you just create and modify the user_se.dat file in the appdata folder.

    regarding your time range question you need to give google.com a visit and test by yourself which operators are used.
  • KapriceKaprice
    Here's what shows in the Address Bar for "dog training":


    Here's what shows when I add a custom date range (1/1/13 to 12/31/13) from the dropdown:


    Here it is with a range from 1/1 to 6/30:


    This appears to be the date portion:

    I guess %2F is a slash "/". 

    Sorry for being dense, but what would I do with this search string in SER settings as well as in Footprint?
  • OzzOzz
    edited August 2013
    you can add a date macro for this then:
    &tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:%datetime-mm/dd/yyyy%,cd_max:%datetime-mm/dd/yyyy%

    or a random number option:
    &tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:%random-1-6%/%random-1-28%/%ramdom-2010-2011%,cd_max:%random-7-12%/%random-1-28%/%ramdom-2011-2013%

    the first option might not work as the first date needs to be earlier than the second date. @Sven needs to confirm that. if that doesn't work then use the second option.

    also i'm not 100% sure if the special characters like "%2F" are needed though but i believe it should working as stated above. you can always test your SEs mod with the "search online for urls" tool you find in your
    options -> advanced -> tools.

  • KapriceKaprice
    Ozz, thank you so much for your patience with me!

    I'll try to experiment with all this tonight.
  • AlexRAlexR Cape Town
    @sven - "But SER adds this as well to the search query randomly to improve scrapping."

    1) Is there any way we can set this? (i.e the dates to use?)
    2) Does it add it to all SE's?
  • OzzOzz
    i just saw that i had a typo in the second command two times. rename "ramdom" to "random".
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