Check to see if a page links to your URL or mentions your brand.

With this script you can input a URL to check and a keyword to check (optional) to see whether they’re included on a particular page. Perfect for reviewing unlinked brand mentions or for checking to see whether pages on your site link to a target page. 🚀

Check out the GIF to see it in action 🎥

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How to add the Script to Google Sheets

1. Copy the script below:

/**
  * Check to see if a domain, path and/or mention exists on a page. 
  *
  * @param {"https://example.com/example-page"} host input the host URL.
  * @param {"https://test.com/url-to-search"} url input the URL you want to check.
  * @param {"brand"} mention input the string you want to check.
  * @return auto suggested questions from Google Search.
  * @customfunction
  */


function linkChecker(host, url, mention) {

  // split up domain to remove protocols
  const domainSplitter = (url) => {
    const name = url.split('.')[1];
    const cc = url.split('.')[2];
    const cc2 = url.split('.')[3];

    return (cc2 ? name.concat(",", cc, ".", cc2) : name.concat(".", cc));
  }

  // check to see if there's path
  const pathChecker = (url) => {
    const split = url.split('/');
    return (split[3] !== '' ? true : false);
  }

  try {

    const doc = UrlFetchApp.fetch(host).getContentText();


    // use Cheerio library to return body content
    const $ = Cheerio.load(doc);
    const body = $('body').html().toLowerCase();


    mention = mention || -1;
    let mentionIndex = mention;

    // if there's a mention passed as an arg, search for mentions in content
    if (mention !== -1) {
      mention = mention.toLowerCase();
      mentionIndex = body.search(mention);
    }

    // search for relative path or domain in content
    const urlSearch = pathChecker(url) ? "/" + url.split('/').slice(3).join('/') : domainSplitter(url).replace(/\//g, '');
    const urlIndex = body.search(urlSearch.toLowerCase());



    if (urlIndex != -1 && mentionIndex != -1) {
      return "There's a link and a mention";
    } else if (urlIndex != -1) {
      return "There's a link";
    } else if (mentionIndex != -1) {
      return "There's a mention";
    } else {
      return "There's no link or mention";
    }

  } catch (e) {
    return "Website failed";
  }

}

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2. Head over to Google Sheets

Or if you’re really smart, create a new sheet by going to: https://sheets.new

Select Script editor from the Tools menu.

Paste the script and save it.

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3. Add the Cheerio Library in Apps Script

Search for the Cheerio Library using the ID below. The Cheerio Library makes it easier to parse the HTML from the requested page.

1ReeQ6WO8kKNxoaA_O0XEQ589cIrRvEBA9qcWpNqdOP17i47u6N9M5Xh0

If you’re not sure how to add a library in Apps Script, follow the gif below:

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4. Add the formula to any cell in your sheet

=linkChecker(A1,A2,A3)

Replace A1 with any cell that includes your host page (the page you want to crawl).
Replace A2 with any cell that includes the link you’d like to check.
Replace A3 with any cell that includes the keyword you’d like to check (this could your brand name for example) – this is optional.

My link checker script will search for a relative path if you input a page, rather than a domain. So for example, let’s say you input ‘https://example.com/page’, it will search for ‘/page’ as many internal links are often relative.

If you input a domain, say “https://example.com/”, it will search for ‘example.com/’ to capture all protocols that a referring page might use.

*Websites could fail when fetching because of bot detection algorithms.

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