Begginer looking for help how to make a specific program

[optimise-u]

So a bit of background - I know enough VB that I could probably make this in VB 6 or .net but I haven't touched VB in a long time. I am good with HTML and CSS and I am ok with Javascript. I understand the VERY basics of PHP and c# (not very relevant) in that I can read code to get the gist of it's function rather than actually know anything about it but I want to learn and my goal is to make a specific program.

 

The program would have 3 lists. List 1 the beggining of a phrase like "how can I", "what is a", "how do you" ect. List 2 would contain the end of the phrase like "Cook pancakes" "build a house" "program in PHP" ect. The program would combine list 1 and 2, looping list 1 for every entry in list two. The program would then (using a wrapper because I want to make this as simple as possible for myself) search Google for a phrase being the combination of list 1 and two and post the result in list 3.

 

It doesn't seem like this should be too hard to do, it wouldn't be in VB or even c# with a wrapper. Am I right in thinking this? I would also ideally like to save the titles and meta descriptions to a file. Or make a second function where list 1 contains one word and the program saves how many times this word is found in the coding for the body of the website.

 

The reason I want to make this is I work in SEO and this would help me get data on how google populates it's listings for different searches. I would like to make this program public because it could be useful for all sorts of SEO case studys. I am trying to work out if I am better relearning VB which I haven't used in years or if I could probably achieve this with a bit of help.

 

I am not asking for somebody to walk me through how to do this because I imagine it would be quite time consuming. I just don't even really know where to start. The lists presumably wouldn't have to be made in PHP? What should I be learning about and can you recommend an easy to use HTTP wrapper. If anyone can help me and wants any SEO advice in return I am more than happy to help,

 

Thanks a lot

[requinix]

The two lists: there are a few places you could store that information but the most appropriate is probably a database. Then you can add, change, or remove items at will without having to change any code.

 

The looping: two loops, one on the outside counting the first half of the phrase and one on the inside counting the second half of the phrase. Or vice versa, it doesn't matter.

 

The "wrapper": Google has an API you should use for that. I think they consider it part of the "custom search engine" stuff, but IIRC you can fiddle with it so that it acts like a regular search.

 

The results: also go in the database.