Nerdy Data is a big deal. It searches all source code. Awesome.

No, you do not have to be a developer to find a use for this. The ability to search a page’s source code allows you track competitors, discover trends, and find where an image’s URL is being hotlinked, but first how does NerdyData do what it does?

NerdyData Co-Developer, Steven Sonnes, tells AG Beat their crawler has “visited over 140 million homepages and collected terabytes of HTML, Javascript, and CSS code.” Instead of having to sift through page after page, looking for code, NerdyData has designed an interface that allows anyone to search against the source code of webpages or even download a list of sites that contain a specific search term.

There is even an interface specifically designed for SEO’s and marketers which allow you the search for specific HTML tags (meta descriptions and meta keywords). This makes finding what you need a whole lot easier.

Now why would you want to do this?

By searching a page’s source code you have the potential to discover new leads that contain a specific keyword or phrase and when you subscribe, you can click the “view contact info” button in the NerdyData search results to get more information about the domain owner. Also, you can search a site for their client list, giving you new leads.

NerdyData gives the example of running a simple search for: “cdn.nameofsite.com” and you will be able to see every single one of their clients. You can also discover trends: how many people are using one thing versus another, but querying the search code. Also, you can research backlinks pointing to a URL, find out where an image URL is being hotlinked, and find live examples of how codes and themes are being used. The last one being of particular interest to developers and designers; it is so much easier to tweak your own code when you can see a live example of what it looks like.

I mentioned above that you can download a list of your search results; you can save these as a CSV, Excel, JSON, or plain text file. You can also share them with anyone or have the results send to you, or anyone on your team via email.

Testing it out

When I tried the search out for myself, I typed in the keyword: AGBeat. After a few seconds, there were 219 results returned, compared to Google’s 85,400 results (demo accounts are only able to search source code). Once you have rendered a search you can immediately see a source code snippet and the button to view the contact information.

You can sort your results by popularity or relevance and download the whole list with one click. There is a toolbar on the left side that shows your search history, as well as, image locator, backlinks, SEO search, and a comparison chart. You can also access support and documentation from your toolbar. Overall it is a very easy to use interface offering insight into source code, without having an extensive knowledge of it.

NerdyData offers three pricing levels: basic, professional and enterprise. At the basic level you receive 200 credits, ten results, and online support, but you do not have the ability to download or email results. At the professional level ($99/month), you receive 1,200 credits, 5,000 results, a refine tool, priority online support and the ability to download and email your results. And finally, at the enterprise level ($149/month), you get 3.000 credits, 100,000 results, a refine tool, email and online support, and the ability to download and email your results.

The results number is the number of results you are allowed to download or email, per month. If no results come back for the term you enter into the search bar, no credits are deducted. My “AGBeat” search cost two credits. To learn more about how these credits work, you can find more information on the NerdyData site.