Jul 29

Google Lookup in Spreadsheets

Search Engine Optimization Add comments
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 48 seconds

There is a new way to access the unlimited datastore of the internet using google docs and the web.

Google spreadsheets has a feature called GoogleLookup that lets you do real time automated lookups through their spreadsheet feature.

What makes GoogleLookup really cool is that it references data not only from your spreadsheet (as with functions like =SUM(A1:A12)), but searches that incredibly expansive body of published information directly from the web. By performing a specific websearch, GoogleLookup attempts to return facts about the entity you specify. City populations are a nice example. Entering =GoogleLookup(”Los Angeles”, “population”) in any spreadsheet cell will automatically retrieve the number of people living in Los Angeles.

It is not perfect, and if you choose a value with multiple locations such as Portland, it may be incorrect. It is important to verify any auto-generated data before using.

Google just created a simple API to access the unstructured data online.

Read more about GoogleLookup from beahburger.

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3 Responses to “Google Lookup in Spreadsheets”

  1. johnny Says:
    August 7th, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Thank you for this great info on search engine optimization. Keep up the postings on link bait.

  2. teinby Says:
    August 10th, 2009 at 3:21 am

    thank you for explaining how to implement dynamic data into google docs and online spreadsheets.

  3. londons love Says:
    August 18th, 2009 at 1:26 am

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