Regular Expressions for SEO

@ N a t h a n L e s s | # B r i s t o l S E O
Regular Expressions
For SEO 101

Why this talk?
Bristol SEO May 2020

And then this happened…
h t t p s : / / s e a r c h e n g i n e l a n d . c o m / r e g u l a r - e x p r e s s i o n - f i l t e r - s u p p o r t -
c o m i n g - t o - g o o g l e - s e a r c h - c o n s o l e - p e r f o r m a n c e - r e p o r t s - 3 3 7 2 2 4
This means we will be able to easily
segment multiple conditions and brand
and generic performance

1. Watch the recording of the webinar
2. Use the resources at the end to test
all the examples
3. Use the GA demo account
4. Use the FREE version of Screaming
Frog to filter up to 500 URLs
5. Practice makes purpose
6. Find a Reg Ex buddy
7. Save Reg Ex for later
Tips for Today’s
Webinar

Match
Extract
Replace
What can
we do with
Reg EX?

Match
Extract
Replace
Custom
Extraction
Advanced Filters
Content Groupings
Advanced Filters
Search and Replace Filters
Filtering the Data Table
Advanced Segments
Filters and Goals
Content and Channel
groupings
CrawlConfiguration
Filtering
CrawlConfiguration
REGEXMATCH()
REGEXEXTRACT()
REGEXREPLACE()
REGEXP_MATCH()
REGEXPEXTRACT()
REGEXPREPLACE()
What can
we do with
Reg EX?

What is a Regular Expression?
A regular expression
(regex) is a sequence of
characters that define a
search pattern.
h t t p s : / / e n . wi k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / R e g u l a r _ e x p r e s s i o n

Regular Expression
jon

Test String
jonathan

Match
jonathan

Engine
h t t p s : / / r e g e x 1 0 1 . c o m /
When testing regex double check:
1) The “Flavour”: RE2 = Golang
2) Flags: Global, Multiline and
insensitive
Google products use the RE2 engine.
But there are some quirks, with Sheets
and Data Studio.

Literal
Characters
12 Meta
Characters
.|()[{^$?*+a-z 0-9 etc
The meta characters are
where the magic happens!

The Backslash
Use this to escape the
12 meta characters

.html
Most of the time we need to
escape the .?& characters

InputtingRegExintheGAdataTable
PRO TIP: Save configurations as a Saved Report
?

The Dot
Matches any single
character
.
.

The Caret
Matches the beginning of
the string
^
^/products

The Dollar
Matches the end of the
string
$
^/$
This regular expression
matches the homepage

The Question
Mark
Matches zero or more
characters
Think of it as optional
?
^https?://www.example.com/
The Question Mark can be
useful for writing expressions
to match brand names

The Star
Match the last character
0 or more times
When combined with the
dot it becomes a
wildcard and matches
everything
*
^/checkout/.*/thanks
Use the Dot Star combo
when setting up goals

Parentheses
Use these to group
characters together
Useful for advanced
filters and content
groupings
()
^https://www.apple.com/(befr|benl|lu|nl)/
Grouping characters allows
us to create more complex
patterns and even capture
matches

Square
Brackets
Use these to match a
specific set or range of
characters
[]
[aeiou]
[a-k]

Curly Brackets
Quantify how many
characters we need
{}
^/blog/[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}

The Plus
Match the last character
at least once
+
/page/([0-9]+)

Shorthand
Characters
d matches any digit
/page/([d+)

b word boundary
.*sbShorthand
Characters

Screaming Frog uses the Java engine
When testing regex double check:
1) The “Flavour”: JavaScript
2) Flags: Global and Single Line
3) With this engine we need to escape
forward slashes

Lazy vs Greedy
We can also use the
question mark to make
regex match as few
characters as possible
<p>(.*)</p>
<p>(.*?)</p>
PRO TIP: This pattern is useful
when using custom extraction
in SF
(.*?)

Thank You
Check out my website
jonathanmoore.digital if you have any
questions or if you want to find out
more about me
Links, glossary and resources are
on next slides

The Backslash
The Dot
The Pipe
The Carat
The Dollar
The Question
Mark
The Star
Parentheses
Square Brackets
Curly Brackets
The Plus
Any Digit
Shorthand
Word Boundary
Shorthand
Lazy Quantifier
List of Regular
Expressions in
this
Presentation

Glossary – Part 1 of 2
The Backslash – Escape meta characters
The Dot - Matches any single character
The Pipe – Match either
The Carat - Match beginning of string
The Dollar - Match the end of the string
The Question Mark - Match zero or more characters
The Star - Match the last character 0 or more times

.
|
^
$
?
*

Glossary – Part 2 of 2
Parenthesis - Group characters together
Square Brackets - Match a specific set of characters
Curly Brackets - Quantify how many characters we need
The Plus - Match the last character at least once
Any Digit Shorthand - Match any digit
Word Boundary Shorthand - Match any word boundary
Lazy Quantifier - Match as few times as possible
()
[]
{}
+
d
w
.*?

1) Regular Expressions 101
2) Reg Ex for GA Cheat Sheet
3) How to use Reg Ex in GA
4) Reg EX Cheat sheet
5) Google Analytics Demo Account
6) Distilled Guide to REGEX Formulas
in Google Sheets
7) Reg Ex Learning Game
8) RE2 Documentation
Regular
Expression
Resources

Regular Expressions for SEO

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