Power Query offers many ways to get data to Excel. One of them is to Web Data import feature. Let’s understand how this works by importing world stock exchange closing data from Google Finance website.
[Related: Introduction to Power Query]
Importing web data in to Excel – Step by step tutorial
Note: You need Power Query for this tutorial. Install Power Query on Excel 2013 (how to) and continue reading.
- Open a blank workbook. Go to Power Query ribbon & click on From Web button. Enter the URL of the webpage from which you want to import the data.
- Your web page will be loaded in to Navigator pane. If there are any tables or other sections of the page that can be readily embedded in Excel, they will show up in the navigation tree structure. Hover on any table to see if that is the data you want. Once you identify what you need, click on Load to get this data in to Excel. If you want to pre-process the data before loading in to Excel, click on Edit.
- Let’s say you have taken Table 0, which contains stock market closing data around the world. When this is edited in Power Query window, it looks like this.
- As you can see, there are 2 problems with this data. (1) Column headers are missing (2) Column 3 should be splitted in to 2 columns.
- Renaming columns: Simply double click on column headers and write whatever header you want.
- Splitting a column: Select column 3 and Click on home > split column button in Power Query window. Specify the delimiter (in our case space should work) and click ok.
- Once column is spitted, our new set up looks like below. Column 3.2 needs further cleaning. We need to remove the brackets ( ).
- Removing the brackets: Select column 3.2 and click on Home > Replace values button. Replace ( with nothing. Repeat the replacement, but this time replace ) with nothing.
- Almost done. Our data is clean. Just change the column titles and we get this:
- Finally load this data to Excel by clicking on “Close & Load” button. Instantly, all this web data will be loaded to Excel as a new table.
How to refresh the imported data?
Simple. Do one of the below:
- Click on “Refresh all” button in Data ribbon of Excel
- Right click on Excel table with web data and choose “Refresh”
- Activate workbook queries pane (from Power Query ribbon) and refresh the query by clicking on the refresh icon at right.
Download Power Query web data – Example workbook
Please click here to download the workbook with Power Query web data extraction example. Right click on the query in workbook queries pane and edit it to understand the pre-processing steps better.
What awesome things can you do with web data in Excel?
Integrating your own data with publicly available sources can lead to interesting analysis situations. Power Query, Power BI & Power Pivot offer several ways to connect to web data (Facebook, Azure market place, Google Analytics etc.) and analyze it in Excel.
Have you tried importing web data to Excel? What has been your experience like? Please share your tips & thoughts in the comments section.
More ways to analyze web data in Excel:
Learn more about analyzing web data in Excel
12 Responses to “Analyzing Search Keywords using Excel : Array Formulas in Real Life”
Very interesting Chandoo, as always. Personally I find endless uses for formulae such as {=sum(if(B$2:B$5=$A2,$C$2$C$5))}, just the flexibility in absolute and relative relative referencing and multiple conditions gives it the edge over dsum and others methods.
I've added to my blog a piece on SQL in VBA that I think might be of interest to you http://aviatormonkey.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/lesson-one-sql-in-vba/ . It's a bit techie, but I think you might like it.
Keep up the good work, aviatormonkey
Hi Chandoo,
You might find this coded solution I posted on a forum interesting.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-programming/680810-create-tag-cloud-in-vba-possible.html
[...] under certain circumstances. One of the tips involved arranging search keywords in excel using Array Forumlas. Basically, if you need to know how frequent a word or group of keywords appear, you can use this [...]
@Aviatormonkey: Thanks for sharing the url. I found it a bit technical.. but very interesting.
@Andy: Looks like Jarad, the person who emailed me this problem has posted the same in excelforum too. Very good solution btw...
Realy great article
"You can take this basic model and extend it to include parameters like number of searches each key phrase has, how long the users stay on the site etc. to enhance the way tag cloud is generated and colored."
How would you go about doing this? I think it would need some VB
Hi,
I found the usage very interesting, but is giving me hard time because the LENs formula that use ranges are not considering the full range, in other words, the LEN formula is only bringing results from the respective "line" cell.
Using the example, when I place the formula to calculate the frequency for "windows" brings me only 1 result, not 11 as displayed in the example. It seems that the LEN formula using ranges is considering the respective line within the range, not the full range.
Any hint?
@Thiago
You have to enter the formula as an Array Formula
Enter the Formula and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Not just Enter
Thank you, Hui! I couldn't work out how this didn't work
is there a limit to the number of lines it can analyse.
Ie i am trying to get this to work on a list of sentances 1500 long.
@Gary
In Excel 2010/2013 Excel is only limited by available memory,
So just give it a go
As always try on a copy of the file first if you have any doubts
Apologies if I am missing something, but coudn't getting frequency be easier with Countif formula. Something like this - COUNTIF(Range with text,"*"&_cell with keyword_&"*")
Apologies if I missed, but what is the Array Formula to:
1. Analyze a list of URL's or a list of word phrases to understand frequency;
2. List in a nearby column from most used words to least used words;
3. Next to the list of words the count of occurrences.