{"id":176,"date":"2020-07-01T17:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emersoncode.com\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2023-02-03T16:33:52","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T16:33:52","slug":"building-bootleg-builtwith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emersoncode.com\/blog\/building-bootleg-builtwith\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Bootleg BuiltWith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
How I outperformed BuiltWith and PublicWWW’s free plans with a couple hours and 30 lines of code.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What if you wanted to find a list of websites that are using a specific piece of technology? Like if you wanted a list of all websites using WordPress? Or in my case, all websites built with Shopify?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might turn to BuiltWith<\/a> or PublicWWW<\/a>. These sites scan the source code of websites to determine the technology the website is built on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very useful and cool. Until you see the pricing pages:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, let me just say – I get it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work they’re doing ain’t easy, and the pricing is justifiable, but since I can code, how about I just build my own for free?<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way I see it, this problem has two components:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. I need a script that can automatically check, when supplied a website domain, if that website is using Shopify or not.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. I need a really big list of website domains to run the first script against.
    <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Once I have both of those pieces, I can put them together to make my Bootleg Builtwith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Part 1: Determining if a certain website uses Shopify<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Let’s start with the first component: When given a website URL, I need a reliable method to check if that website uses Shopify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The simplest way to check if a website is using Shopify is to inspect the website source, and look for code that only a Shopify store would use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now, I already know of such a snippet that is unique to Shopify stores: It’s ‘trekkie’ – which is what Shopify calls their custom analytics solution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Cool. Let’s use that as a base point and start coding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Let’s write a dead simple, 15 line, Ruby script to kick this off:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    #~\/desktop\/is-shopify-store.rb\n\nrequire 'open-uri'\n\n# Prompt me for a URL \nputs \"What URL do you want to check?\"\nurl = gets.chomp\n\n# Open the URL I supplied above\nhtml = open(url).read\n\n# Checks the source code for the Shopify specific code snippet\nif html.include? \"var trekkie = window.ShopifyAnalytics.lib\"\n\tputs 'This site uses Shopify'\nelse\n\tputs 'This site does not use Shopify'\nend \n <\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Cool. Let’s run it, and try testing it against a couple websites to make sure it’s reliable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n