Importing Google search results to Zotero

dsoergel
There are import options for other search engines. I understand that the Google search results page is not easy to process. However, Zotero already has the ability to add an entry for any Web page. So coding a module to do the following should not be very difficult for an experienced developer (which I am not):

Iterate through the Google search results, opening each one and adding the opened Web page to the directory that is active in Zotero.

The user should have the option to specify the number of search results they want to add so that the module knows when to stop.
  • adamsmith
    The expectation is that when Zotero offers you a custom import button, it will get reasonable metadata. That won't be the case for google -- this would create more confusion than benefits. Depending on your use case, there are other extensions that will crawl and save google search results
  • dsoergel
    With the exponential increase in both the amount and the variety of content on the Web, search with Google and other search engines has become quite important in research. Processing Web search results would ever so much easier if they could imported to Zotero, so there is an important use case.

    The method I suggest would produce reasonable metadata since it uses Zotero's functionality of creating entries for individual Web pages. A somewhat more cumbersome method of importing Web search results using a simpler app (to be written) is as follows:
    1 Use Simple Search Saver
    https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/save-search-results/fppgodjcdekgbhbipabkkdhbmnahbhnj?hl=en
    to scrape the search results and save in an Excel spreadsheet, one row per result
    2 Now we need an app that iterates through the Excel file (or a .txt file created from it) to
    2.1 find each URL in that file and open the Web page always in the same tab (so the tab does not need to be closed)
    2.2 create a Zotero entry by invoking the Zotero shortcut. Ctrl+Shift+S is one option, but it has user uses. So perhaps define Shift+Alt+Z.
    This app should be fairly easy to use and would have wide applicability.
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