Script to check the popularity on Delicious

How many bookmarks to the pages of a Web site? This script checks the popularity of a site by finding the number of saved pages Del.icio.us, and calculates the sum of all bookmarks.
It is therefore a means of assessing the popularity of a site providing it is sufficiently important for have bookmarks on several pages.

This scripts depends upon the availability of the bookmarks site and takes a while to complete its tasks.

Update 2014: The script no long work because the site now blocks access to its data.

How the program works

Popularity Checker operates in HTTP mode. It crawls the site starting from the home page and following internal links.

For each page of the site, it researches on Del.icio.sus the number of "saved". To do so it downloads the page of favorites and extract the number of saved with a regular expression.

Broken links and errors

The program detects internal broken links and displays an error in this case. It knows how to interpret relative links, but it does not recognize redirects. This can cause errors and false broken links which should not be taken into account.
It is recommended to use absolute paths in internal links on its site, including the http:// protocol and the domain.

The program also returns errors if it can not access the pages of bookmarks and that happens when the requests succeed too quickly, because access is then denied.

How to use the script

The command syntax is as follows:

php popche [options] url

The URL is the start page, normally the home page, in the form:

http://www.scriptol.com/index.php

Do not omit the slash in suffix or otherwise add the file name.

Options:

-r    recursive, process linked pages.
-v   verbose, displays each page processed.
-q   quiet, no display.

A sub-directory can be reached in the form http://www.scriptol.com/design/ or http://www.scriptol.com/design/index.php. To avoid duplication, the program tries to reconstitute the full path by trying the usual names and extensions for a home page. This system can not take into account all possible cases.

Once the script is launched, you should start another task until it has finished. The program is not fast, and it should not be because the bookmarks site prohibits requests too close together.

Using as a Web service

The use of the script as a Web service is discouraged. The site Del.icio.us temporarily denes access to its pages to any site that source them too frequently, to avoid spam.
Even at command line, the program must not be used too often and its speed must not be improved.

Last changes

• 1.2 - August 26 2008.
  Updated the script to work with the new interface of Delicious.
  Replaced the ereg function, that will be deprecated some day, by preg_match.
  Program limited to a page and internal linked pages to avoid the bookmark site to be overloaded.
• 1.0 - First release.

Getting the program. Licensing.

The archive contains the source code in Scriptol language and the PHP binary code. It works on any computer where is installed the PHP 5 interpreter.
It is distributed under the GPL 2.0. You can use it without reserve and distribute it provided you keep the copyright notice in the Scriptol code and the PHP code.