Carsten Cumbrowski, a Search Engine Journal columnist, has developed a tool which some webmasters may find useful. It converts the .CSV files which can be downloaded from Google Webmaster Central into cleaner customized files which can be used with other tools and software.
I met Carsten at Search Engine Strategies San Jose and learned that he and Bill “Bragadocchio” Slawski were working together to rewrite the Wikipedia entry on Search Engine Optimization.
Bill, Carsten, Dave Zuls and I shared an excellent lunch at La Taqueria in San Jose (which I highly recommend) and have been in touch since.
Carsten explained his File Converter Tool today on his SEJ post New Google Webmaster Tools and Tools for those new Tools, but I thought it fitting to make a post which focuses primarily on the tool he developed and how some webmasters should find it useful. Enjoy :)
Google Webmaster Tools - Query and Link Stats File Converter
Some folks might want to use the file for something else, such as import it into a software application for statistical purposes. This application might or might not support clean CSV format. It is not unusual for some applications not to support the text-qualifier properly for example. Other applications might require feeds that use a different delimiter for columns (fields) and rows (records). The Query and Link Stats File Converter Tool could do that for you.
The tools supports various delimiters and text qualifiers. Here are the details (if you think that I missed one, let me know)
Supported Row Delimiters (Records) Linefeed/lf (unix/default) char(10)
* Carriage Return & Linefeed/crlf
(dos/windows) char(13) & char(10)
* Carriage Return/cr (char(13)
* Tab (char(9)
* Semicolon (;)
* Comma (,)
* Vertical Bar/Pipe (|)
* Tilde (~)Supported Column Delimiters (Fields) Comma (CSV/default) (,)
* Tab char(9)
* Semicolon (;)
* Vertical Bar/Pipe (|)
* Tilde (~)Supported Text Quallifiers Double Quote (default) (”)
* N/A (None)
* ..any single ASCII character
Comments
4 responses so far ↓
CarstenCumbrowski on Feb 7, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Thanks for the plug Loren. The casadia was great and the pure thought about it makes me hungry hehe.
Btw. Bill was working on the rewrite of the Search Engine Optimization article and I on the Affiliate Marketing one. I only did minor edits on the SEO article itself, but supported other editors in getting at least some “commercial” and “spammy” references in. Forums and Blogs, that sort of unreliable stuff :)
I saw Bill’s struggle which I only knew too well from personal experience and gave him some tips.
The SEO article may be has 3-4 sentences from me in there, compared to the affiliate marketing article that is over 50% my content with other editors fine-tuning it.
Oh, feedback regarding the tool, please directly to me :)
I hope to see you guys again soon. Too bad that you could not make it to the Affiliate Summit in Vegas.
Bill on Feb 7, 2007 at 3:42 pm
That was an excellent burrito place. I’m a little sorry that we didn’t find it sooner.
I haven’t spent much time on the SEO article for a while, but I may be returning to make some additions soon. Appreciated the suggestions Carsten. Have to spend some time looking over those tools from you.
CarstenCumbrowski on Feb 9, 2007 at 8:55 am
Okay now I added quite some content to the SEO article at Wikipedia.
The old into paragraph made me scratch my head. I also noticed some important stuff that is missing, especially after all the posts about SEO is Child’s play and now Jason’s Calcanis post that SEO = Scam.
Half the first paragraph and the first two paragraphs (on site/off site factors, SMO) were added/changed by me and I added some other references.
Good job, now is an Affiliate Marketer and hobby SEO doing the job that is supposed to be done by SEO professionals. :) I hope that encourages some people.
I hoped my personal “encouragements”
for Rand Fishkin and Aaron Wall would have some effects. They didn’t so far, obviously.
Jerry Parrotto on Mar 21, 2007 at 7:05 pm
do not understand what “awaiting moderation” means
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