The IBM developerWorks site has posted part one of a new series - using PHp o build a search engine optimization application.

PHP, a dynamic Web-based programming language, takes a variety of input formats and uses a built-in SOAP client to obtain information from the Web. PHP, combined with applications using search engine optimization (SEO), is a powerful tool for obtaining information from major search engines, allowing this information to guide a webmaster's online marketing and SEO strategies. Find out how to take advantage of these strategies by building the back end of an application to monitor and track your client's SEO efforts.

The application takes in CSV files that contain keyword and domain combinations. The positions on each of the search engines is generated from these. You'll need a bit of prior PHP knowledge to work through it and you'll need a place where a web server, PHP, a database, and Java are installed.