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Action: Perform Internet Search
Action: Perform Internet Search
Updated over a month ago

Overview

The Perform Internet Search action allows you to execute web searches and retrieve relevant results based on the provided search query. It enables you to search the entire internet or filter the search to specific types of content like news articles, images, videos, locations, or products. You can also specify a time period to narrow down the search results, ranging from the past hour to the past year. The action outputs a list of search results containing the website URLs, titles, and snippets, which can be further processed or utilized in subsequent Workflow steps. This action serves as a powerful starting point for gathering information from the web, enabling you to scrape, summarize, or extract data from the retrieved search results for various use cases.

Usage Examples

  • Scrape and summarize URLs - After receiving the list of URLs from the search, you can then use the Scrape Web Page action to extract the content from those webpages. With the scraped content, you can use the Generate Text action to automatically summarize and provide a roundup of the latest news or information regarding the topic you searched for.

  • Extract URL results - Instead of scraping the full pages, you can extract just the URL, title, and snippet preview from the search results. This metadata can be used for other purposes like saving URLs to review later or using as a starting point for additional web scraping.

  • Analyze Search Results for SEO - There are many ways that analyzing search results and meta descriptions can be valuable from an SEO perspective for a given topic such as understanding search intent or categorizing the types of search results.

Inputs

  • Search Query - The keyword or phrase you want to search for on the internet.

    • For example: search engine optimization

  • Number of Pages - The number of pages of search results you want to retrieve. Each page typically contains 10 results, and you can select up to 10 pages of results.

  • Search Type - The category or scope of your search. You can search the entire web or narrow it down to specific types of content.

    • Entire Internet

    • News Articles

    • Images

    • Videos

    • Locations/Places

    • Products

  • Time Period - The timeframe you want to limit your search results to.

    • Any Time

    • Past Hour

    • Past 24 Hours

    • Past Week

    • Past Month

    • Past Year

Outputs

The Perform Internet Search action outputs a list of search results based on the provided search query. Each search result in the list contains the following information:

  1. Website URL: The complete URL or web address of the website that was returned in the search results.

  2. Title of the Web page: The title or heading of the specific webpage from the website that matched the search query.

  3. Snippet: A short description or excerpt from the webpage content that provides context about how the page is relevant to the search query.

The number of search results returned can be controlled by specifying the number of pages to include in the search, with each page typically containing 10 results. So if you request 3 pages, you'll receive around 30 search results in the output list, each with the URL, title, and snippet details.

This list of comprehensive search results can then be used as input for other actions like Scrape Webpage or Generate Text Summary to further process and analyze the content from the relevant websites identified through the initial search query.

Troubleshooting

  • Keyword specificity - Search results won't populate if the keyword is too specific Ensure that the search query you provide is not overly specific or narrow in scope. If the keyword or phrase is too niche or specialized, it may not return sufficient search results from the internet. Aim for more general, broad keywords that capture a wider range of relevant content.

  • Lack of search results - Troubleshoot search settings If you are not receiving the expected number of search results, double-check your search settings. Ensure that you have selected the appropriate search type (web, news, images, etc.) and time period (any time, past week, past month, etc.). Adjusting these settings may yield more comprehensive search results.

  • Irrelevant search results - Refine search query If the search results you receive are not relevant to your intended topic or query, you may need to refine your search query. Try using more specific keywords or phrases that better capture the subject matter you are interested in. Additionally, you can experiment with different combinations of keywords to narrow down the results.

  • Outdated search results - Adjust time period If you require the most up-to-date information on a particular topic, ensure that you have selected the appropriate time period for your search. For example, if you want to find recent news or articles, you should set the time period to "past week" or "past month" instead of "any time."

  • Incomplete search results - Increase number of pages By default, the search results may be limited to a certain number of pages (e.g., 1 page or 10 results). If you require more comprehensive search results, you can increase the number of pages to retrieve additional results.

Related Actions

  • Scrape Webpage - This action allows you to extract the textual content from a web page URL. It can be used in conjunction with the "Perform Internet Search" action by taking the list of URLs returned from the search and scraping the content from those pages. This gives you the full text from the web pages, which can then be used as input for further text processing.

  • Generate Text - This is a text generation action that can be applied to the text extracted from web pages using the "Scrape Web Page" action. It allows you to summarize, rephrase, expand or otherwise manipulate the extracted text through natural language generation capabilities. For example, you could use it to automatically generate summaries of the search results after scraping the pages.

  • Extract Data from Text - This action allows you to extract specific pieces of information like the URL, title, and snippet description from the list of search results returned by the "Perform Internet Search" action. Having this structured data extracted can enable further processing or analysis of just the core components of each search result, without the full page text.

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