Check out my automated niche blog business model (it really works)

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Vshep

I was testing WP-o-Matic to grab the feeds and replace the words with links and so on. The trouble started when I also started to include a "Go to source" in the Custom post template section and had WP-o-Matic set up to auto link to the source. This was fine for the most part till one of the words I set up a relink for was ALSO in the source address for the RSS feed.

I went from a nice "Go to Source" link that worked to something that looks like this:

NFL/news/story?id=3723327&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines” >Go to Source

Seems the re-linker also works on the out put of the Custom post template box.

Here is how I fixed, well worked around it would be the better term. The Cross-linker plug in listed earlier in the thread. The down side is that you cant set it per Campaign, it seems to be site wide or nothing for the most part. On the plus side it works on both the old and new posts. WP-o-Matic only works for the posts fetched AFTER you add a relink word to the Campaign. So its a toss up.

Anyway hoped it helped someone.

Good job finding the workaround! Also, you could probably mitigate that using regular expressions for the WP-O-Matic replacements. However, I'm not familiar enough with that to teach 'em. I'm working on an "advanced" guide that has some special information for people that intend to build a bunch of automated blogs that will help overcome the problems you describe here. Still testing though, so I don't want to advise something that may not work.

Originally Posted by Evita

No, my thought was to add the url's of the rss feeds, or the sites the feeds are pulled from,I guess, to that list. That way we won't have 27 outgoing links when we pull 27 new posts from those feeds.

Our only outgoing links will be to our main site, if we feed to one, or to the site of a paid link.

Evita

If that's what you want to do, I'd recommend using this one instead: External Links Plugin For WordPress

It does what you're describing (nofollow on all external links) but also adds a couple of other features that differentiate external links from internal links. It seems less complicated to use than what you want to do.

Originally Posted by vicone

There are some comments on another thread which appear to have relevance here:



The thread is here:

SEEKING a Wordpress Plugin to pull down RSS FEEDS?

Ivan

You know, I'm pretty sure I picked up that package at some point, but never got around to testing it, as my combo of free plugins worked and covered all the bases I wanted. Thanks for the reminder though! I'll revisit them and see how they can be used with the method.

Originally Posted by jbreezy

is there a random blog roll plugin?

Yes. Search "Wordpress Random Blog Roll Plugin" on Google.

Originally Posted by MalachaiGoodman

I understand where your coming from...

A while back I started a niche blog and really put my heart and soul into it. If I create a piece of content I generally take great pride in it. I obsess over every word. I want to be as clear as possible.

The issue was that every time I made a post an annoying Splogger copied it. My blog was young (approximately 3 months old). I was really trying to build momentum. Unfortunately, the Splog always seemed to have a better PR than I did.

In other words, I did all the work and the Splogger ate my lunch. That got old.

Eventually I gave up, deleted my site, and let the domain expire. Soon after the Splog went down too. I'm guessing one of the other people he was ripping off got to him.

In retrospect there's a lot I should have done differently. I should have tried to outlast the splogger, built strong backlinks, and possibly approached Google about the problem. I had little to no understanding of SEO though and honestly felt helpless. I got burned on IM for a long while.

I can appreciate the difference in what your doing. Only pulling excerpts, providing backlinks, adding value, etc... I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it's ultimately your business. I can appreciate that you're at least trying to be ethical about your approach.

;-)

Well, understand that Google is in the business of doing exactly this. They index snippets of content, sorted by keywords, and display their own ads on it. I'm just using a narrower set of keywords.

Imagine your scenario where instead of discovering duplicates of your content, you found that your items had been picked up and linked back to by a slick looking news site that serves your niche. Chances are if you're trying to market to that niche, you PROBABLY would be trying to get your content onto sites like mine anyway.

Anyway, thanks for the reasoned response there, and I'm glad the extra steps I'm taking (and encouraging others to take) is something that makes sense to you. Thanks for the comments!

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by jbreezy

i can't find my .htaaccess file for Wordpress. I have several other .htaaccess files on my hosting server but none that have the Wordpress plugin. Therefore I can't get GoCodes to run properly.

Anyone have any advice?

Originally Posted by Vshep

You should be able to paste the GoCodes info into the one that's at the base of your domain. Ie domain.com and not domain.com/somewhere_else. If it does not work there try one in your word press install directory. It does not matter if it does not have the word press lines. If a .htaaccess file isent there just make one, just take a normal text file rename it as .htaacess and upload it.

This should work for most of the time but as each hosting / person has thier files set up differently it may not work for everyone.

Originally Posted by jbreezy

Okay, I'll try that. I don't think the one at the root directory is doing anything because i'm not getting any links.

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

That's very odd. Wordpress's index.php and .htaccess files should be together in the directory indicated by the Blog address (URI) setting on your General Options page.

Just had a thought though, have you enabled Permalinks from your WP control panel? I may be wrong but unless you've changed it from the default, it wouldn't necessarily have generated a .htaccess file

Tim

jbreezy, based on this exchange and the exchange I had with you via PM, one of these solutions has got to work for you. If you'd done as I suggested and just pasted in the code to all of the .htaccess files you see, it would have worked. The code you need to paste in will have no effect if you paste it in the wrong file. If you paste it, test it, (if it works good, if not try the next one) - you'd be done. Hope that helps you resolve your issue.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Alminc

Keith ( and others using wpomatic),

Here is the solution for eliminating duplicate posts.
This works not only for wpomatic, but for all duplicate
posts.

For wp 2.6.x :

Open the file /wp-includes/post.php

and find this code on line 1333:

if ( || in_array(, ) ) {
= 2 ;

and replace =2; with return 0;


Save the file.

Now when wordpress detects a duplicate post it will not
post it, duplicate posts are ignored.

Try to post manually two identical posts, you will see
that only one post is published, even if it says in admin that
both posts are posted.


Almin

That's pretty bad ass right there. I found a solution myself (this may actually be the same one) - what happens is only the first post with a given subject line will be published. All duplicates are saved as drafts and not published. Which is fine, you just need to be aware that all your posts need to have unique titles when you make this adjustment (which is not often a problem).

Originally Posted by Allegro

haha i had the same thing with my links (that the url gets ****ed up)... also, dont keyword the trigger for gocodes, else the gocodes url will be posted with the keyword linked rofl...

i think i will use that blog to toy around with the tools and to experiment and take a more serious approach on the next blog i create... i think im going to do one blog a week - one blog per weekend starting in december or january...

Yeah, good catch. These are the kinds of bugs I need to notice and catch in the more detailed version. Thanks for pointing that out! As for your goal, kick ass! Best of luck to you. I think your goal is easily achievable and please keep me posted as you move along. I'd love to see where you end up with things. Of course I'm happy to help along the way if you get stuck. Just let me know!

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

That's very odd. Wordpress's index.php and .htaccess files should be together in the directory indicated by the Blog address (URI) setting on your General Options page.

Just had a thought though, have you enabled Permalinks from your WP control panel? I may be wrong but unless you've changed it from the default, it wouldn't necessarily have generated a .htaccess file

Tim

Again, great catch - I'll test to see if this is true. You *should* alter the default permalink structure anyway, but this is another "glitch" that I need to address in my more detailed writeup, so thanks again for pointing it out, Tim!

[jbreezy]

ok heres the recap

i've got the word foreign exchange as one of my "rewrites" in WP-O-Matic and then I've got my hop link on there.

i've got "forexreviewtodaygoforeign-exchange" typed in GoCodes and I've all the code in my .htaaccess files.

i'm a little foggy on the permalink thing...how do i enable them?

i'm also getting this error message with WP-O-Matic

"Image cache path /home/knock4/public_html/forexreviewtoday/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache is not writable!"

[theceo]

Very Good!

[jbreezy]

I installed the Random Blog Roll plugin and it seems like nothing is happening. It says it works off the OMPL feeds.. So shouldn't it randomly generate links so that my site looks more organic?

[Alminc]

"Image cache path /home/knock4/public_html/forexreviewtoday/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache is not writable!"

Just create the folder 'cache' within your wpomatic folder using your ftp client program. Then chmod it to '0777'.

Wpomatic does not create that folder, you must do it yourself.

[Webinson Solutions]

Thanks for sharing Keith

Alex
Webinson Solutions

[jbreezy]

Alminc I appreciate the help. Can you explain a little more about how to chmod something using filezilla.

thanks!

[Doug Simons]

Thanks for the business model

[Allegro]

right-click modes, then type 777 into the field

[jbreezy]

ok cool thanks guys!

[quantikev]

Here's a useful thread I found for setting up the CRON JOB

[georgeslater]

Hi Keith

Just a thought, do these sites look nice? Are they the type of sites that one could sell on Ebay and "Established".

Great Post

[Evita]

I'd love to give a BIG Thanks Giving Thanks to Keith,
and all who have contributed and shared their knowledge on this thread.

The Warrior Forum, and Warriors are just the best!!

Evita

[Allegro]

ok keith, what do you think about running this sites without adsense? as in my current thread posted, adsense wont let me in (****ers). thats kinda sad because i think alot of revenue comes from adsense, but i wonder how good a completely textlink based model would work...

[trieke]

thanks Keith,

this sounds pretty interesting and easy to setup. I am going to get a give it a try and see what happens.

From what i read it's all about volume and a large number of sites, but as a test what would you consider good results on a single site? An average of a $1 per day revenue?

Do you have any ballpark stats on how much revenue is coming from Adsense versus affiliate links?

take care and thanks again for this great info

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by georgeslater

Hi Keith

Just a thought, do these sites look nice? Are they the type of sites that one could sell on Ebay and "Established".

Great Post

They look as nice as the theme you pick, and the content is as good as the sources you choose. Yeah, it's very easy to make a site that's good enough to sell. You can make them even more complex and realistic by using not just my WP-O-Matic suggestions, but mixing in some of the other automated content methods myself and others have mentioned here.

Originally Posted by Evita

I'd love to give a BIG Thanks Giving Thanks to Keith,
and all who have contributed and shared their knowledge on this thread.

The Warrior Forum, and Warriors are just the best!!

Evita

You're very welcome!

Originally Posted by Allegro

ok keith, what do you think about running this sites without adsense? as in my current thread posted, adsense wont let me in (****ers). thats kinda sad because i think alot of revenue comes from adsense, but i wonder how good a completely textlink based model would work...

Yeah, you can make money lots of different ways with sites like this. See my original post for other monetization techniques. I heavily recommend affiliate sales, as it's very easy to work into the content, and will make more money than ad publishing anyway. It's a little more work, but I think it's worth it.

Originally Posted by trieke

thanks Keith,

this sounds pretty interesting and easy to setup. I am going to get a give it a try and see what happens.

From what i read it's all about volume and a large number of sites, but as a test what would you consider good results on a single site? An average of a $1 per day revenue?

Do you have any ballpark stats on how much revenue is coming from Adsense versus affiliate links?

take care and thanks again for this great info

Unfortunately, I am terrible at tracking performance. There's a post earlier in this thread where I talk about numbers, and that's about as detailed as I get. Someone else calculated that it's about $1 per day per site, so yeah, that's a good estimation. However, it would probably be better than that in the hands of someone who wanted to work more heavily with a single blog. I'm easily bored/distracted, and often, rather than look at a site and measure and improve and all that, I just go make another site.

It's not strictly a numbers game, but that's the lazy, least effort way to do it. If you wanted to hustle, you could churn these out and sell them or sell ads on them and make a ton more. Seriously, once you get the hang of it, setting these up takes less than an hour, and you see post after post here of people selling dinky nothing sites for at least $100. $100 an hour sounds pretty good to me.

(Keep in mind that doesn't take into account that there are enough buyers for as many sites as you could make, but if it doesn't sell, keep it, tweak it, leave it alone for a while. If it improves, try selling it again later.

Anyway, hope that helps!

[vicone]

For those interested in using Wordpress Direct as a means of setting up their blogs, there is a more extensive discussion of WPD on another thread in this forum. You can view it here:

WordPress Direct - Who has used it?

Ivan

[Kamran]

Thanks a lot for sharing your technique. I have a question:
How much can you expect from such blogs and what is the time frame?

[bobmcalister]

dotnknow if this will help anyone but seems to be along the lines of rss feeds info....it is not an affiliate link

http://rss2.com/
free rss feeds combobulator

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by vicone

For those interested in using Wordpress Direct as a means of setting up their blogs, there is a more extensive discussion of WPD on another thread in this forum. You can view it here:

WordPress Direct - Who has used it?

Ivan

You know, I wonder if anyone could develop a business around using this method to create customized feeds (content) for customers. I'm not sure how WPD's software is set up, but I can see very easily using this method strictly to sell custom content to others. Someone do it!

Originally Posted by Kamran

Thanks a lot for sharing your technique. I have a question:
How much can you expect from such blogs and what is the time frame?

It depends on how you monetize and what niche you choose. With the default method I listed, if you pick good niches and find good content, you'll do pretty good with 50 or so blogs. If you try more agressive and more profitable strategies like selling ads directly or flipping/rehabbing the sites themselves, you'd make quite a bit more.

Originally Posted by bobmcalister

dotnknow if this will help anyone but seems to be along the lines of rss feeds info....it is not an affiliate link

RSS2.com - All the Best RSS Feeds For Your Guilt-Free Reading and Enjoyment
free rss feeds combobulator

Bob, that appears to be a site that uses a strategy identical to mine, generally speaking. They just pull and republish feeds from many sites. You could actually add your own feeds to that site as well. This is what I mean when I say to submit your feed to every site you can find. If you give them your content and they republish it, you get backlinks and traffic. Make sense?

Thanks for the comments, all!

[Ouroboros]

This is a great thread, I just read it from start to finish, lots of good information. I found a use for the wp-o-matic plugin already!

Has anyone found a workaround to get it to work with google news? I've got hostgator with php5 and can't seem to get it to work with google. I did a fetch and returned 0 feeds.

It works good with a newspaper feed and another feed I tested (although the theme I was using make it look like ****). I'm only semi-tech literate so I could use some help.

Steve

(btw...Thanks Keith!)

[ericabiz]

Anyone who considers doing this to make money, take note: What you are doing here is most likely illegal. If you have not received explicit permission from the blog author to copy his/her content FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES, you are violating the blog owner's copyright.

Originally Posted by Keith Kogane

Well, understand that Google is in the business of doing exactly this. They index snippets of content, sorted by keywords, and display their own ads on it. I'm just using a narrower set of keywords.

Imagine your scenario where instead of discovering duplicates of your content, you found that your items had been picked up and linked back to by a slick looking news site that serves your niche. Chances are if you're trying to market to that niche, you PROBABLY would be trying to get your content onto sites like mine anyway.

I totally don't agree with this, and I think your reasoning is wrong.

I am also a blogger. I work hard at blogging, and I, too, have had my blog copied by sploggers (who are in the same business you are.)

To me, this business model is no better than spam. It's shady and it should frankly be banned by search engines.

Here is how YOU are different from Google:

1) Google respects robots.txt. YOU do not.
2) Google seeks permission from site owners before indexing (via robots.txt, etc.) YOU do not.
3) Google does not put ads IN the content. They clearly delineate what is an ad and what isn't. Take a look at any search result page and you will see the ads are over on the far right in their own boxes. YOU put ads in the content.
4) Google takes a 160-character snippet. YOU freely admit to taking full RSS feeds and republishing them. Then you shrug it off when someone calls you on it -- and say that if someone publishes a full RSS feed, you have the right to republish it with ads!!!!! SAYS WHO?

If you are getting permission from every blog owner before you do this, and showing them your blog URL in your request for permission, then you have a pass. If you don't, then shame on you. This is a scummy business model.

I know I'm being harsh, but I also know a LOT of people who make a living from blogging, and this sort of stuff to blogging is what spam is to email.

There are plenty of legitimate ways to make money online. Why resort to stealing others' content without permission?

-Erica

P.S. For those of you who are considering this, here is a copyright primer. Remember the default copyright of ANY blog is "All rights reserved". Seek explicit permission and explain that you will be using the content for commercial use before grabbing any RSS feed.

Copyright primer: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/copyrig...dos-and-donts/

BLOGGERS: Protect your blog and avoid copyright theft! http://www.lostartofblogging.com/pro...pyright-thefts

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

This is a great thread, I just read it from start to finish, lots of good information. I found a use for the wp-o-matic plugin already!

Has anyone found a workaround to get it to work with google news? I've got hostgator with php5 and can't seem to get it to work with google. I did a fetch and returned 0 feeds.

It works good with a newspaper feed and another feed I tested (although the theme I was using make it look like ****). I'm only semi-tech literate so I could use some help.

Steve

(btw...Thanks Keith!)

Thanks, Steve. Glad you like it!

Originally Posted by ericabiz

I totally don't agree with this, and I think your reasoning is wrong.

Agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

I am also a blogger.

Me too.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

I work hard at blogging,

Me too. I've spent a year developing this system. Admittedly, I'm lazy, and probably work less hard than you. That's probably part of why you're upset.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

and I, too, have had my blog copied by sploggers (who are in the same business you are.)

That sucks to be ripped off. However, sploggers are not in the same business I am. I'm not stealing content solely in order to place my own ads on it. I take great pride in engineering my sites to be useful to the niches they server. I'm not just making search engine fodder here. RSS stuff isn't my sole source for content either. I use articles, PLR, even some original stuff if I know enough about the niche.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

To me, this business model is no better than spam. It's shady and it should frankly be banned by search engines.

The first statement is an opinion, and that's fine. I agree that splogging is no better than spam. I don't think I'm splogging, and my model can be used ethically or not. It's up to the user. Your second statement doesn't really make sense because the search engines can't ban anything I do on my own site. They can choose to index me or not, but they can't "ban" me. And why would they? I make good sites that I design to be relevant to searchers.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

Here is how YOU are different from Google:

1) Google respects robots.txt. YOU do not.

Google assumes you DO want them to index your content. If you don't, you need to take a special action. Most sites that CRAWL other sites will tell you you need to put an exception for the user string in your robots.txt. In other words, you have to explicitly say no to that specific site. I'm not crawling, and you're right, I don't look at robots.txt, but if anyone ever told me not to post sippets from them and link back, I would. No one ever has. I use pingbacks on every single feed that I publish. If I run your stuff, I'm letting you know via that pingback. If someone wrote an RSS aggregator plugin that sniffed at robots.txt or used Feed Access Control from Bloglines, I'd use that. They don't have one though, so I use what's available.

As part of my expansion of this writeup for the report I'm making, I'm also developing methods for augmenting the RSS snippets with original content within the same post. If I could do that and somehow get the plugin to only re-link my own content rather than that in the snippet, I'd do that, too.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

2) Google seems permission from site owners before indexing (via robots.txt, etc.) YOU do not.

Google does NOT seek permission. You can be proactive in telling them no, but they don't ask permission.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

3) Google does not put ads IN the content. They clearly delineate what is an ad and what isn't. Take a look at any search result page and you will see the ads are over on the far right in their own boxes. YOU put ads in the content.

That's an assumption. You've never seen any of my blogs. You don't know where I put my ads. If you mean the links I put inline in the content, I'm linking to products and services that are actually relevant to those keywords. It's unobtrusive and the user can click or not. Does the fact that it's an affiliate link make it an "ad" even though the context isn't changed at all? I don't think so. You probably disagree, but that's fine.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

4) Google takes a 160-character snippet. YOU freely admit to taking full RSS feeds and republishing them. Then you shrug it off when someone calls you on it -- and say that if someone publishes a full RSS feed, you have the right to republish it with ads!!!!! SAYS WHO?

First, you're misquoting me. I never said I had a right to that. I said "I figure" it's okay, which is clearly an assumption on my part. That's why I said it that way. Of course that's no different that Google assuming I want my site crawled unless I say no. It's out there, and it's available through many other means (like the places I find my content) so it's not a completely crazy assumption.

Now, onto my ACTUAL content strategy so I can clarify it for you. First, I usually only publish excerpts. It's longer than Google's snippets, but I also don't have a massive database of every single word on your website like they do. I'm only pulling what's already being pushed to the outside world. Also be aware that I use feed aggregators to find content, so I'm not grabbing anything that the publisher isn't actively trying to spread.

Even then, I do NOT republish every single item from any given site. I try to get enough resources coming in so that I'm only pulling from smaller sources once every couple of weeks. If it IS from a blog, that blog's also in my blogroll.

When I DO run full content, I get it from places that are publishing full feeds explicitly for republication, like article directory sites, or PLR/royalty free content sources.

Also, you seem to think I only republish the content of other bloggers. That's inaccurate as well. I link to news sites, forums, social sites, etc. I'm not victimizing anyone. I'm not taking anything away from anyone. Nothing the individual site owner is doing is minimized or diminished in any way by what I'm doing. If anything, they're aided by what I do, as is the end user.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

If you are getting permission from every blog owner before you do this, and showing them your blog URL in your request for permission, then you have a pass. If you don't, then shame on you. This is a scummy business model.

Yes, yes. Shame on me! I can practically see you wagging your finger! I don't ask permission. I don't intend to start, either. Do with that what you will.

The news doesn't need to ask permission to cover items of note. The networks also sell advertising on top of that content, don't they? I simply collect items of note in a niche and republish snippets, and link back to the source with full credit. I think you're confusing what I do (and what I encourage others to do) with more BlueFart scraping practices.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

I know I'm being harsh, but I also know a LOT of people who make a living from blogging, and this sort of stuff to blogging is what spam is to email.

I disagree. How is this anything like what spam is to email? Whose resources am I wasting? What laws am I violating? (Not copyright - see fair use) The strategy of the spammer is a game of statistics. Millions of emails or millions of pages. Response rates are extremely low, but they profit because of sheer numbers. I'm actually trying to gather relevant content and actually put it in front of people that are looking for it. I don't make anyone look at my blogs if they don't want to.

Originally Posted by ericabiz

There are plenty of legitimate ways to make money online. Why resort to stealing others' content without permission?

I understand you're mad, but I really don't think you're mad at me. You admit to having been victimized by actual bad guys, and I feel bad for you, I really do. But I think your misplaced anger is coloring your perception.

You clearly haven't read what it is I actually do, and you've never seen any of my blogs, so you're making a lot of assumptions based on a very simplified explanation of the model. You've never actually seen the implementation, so you don't know what you don't know.

The internet is very much a self-referential medium. Making a website about other websites is a completely legitimate practice, especially if the niche would be served by it. It's no less legitimate than what Google does (create a billion dollar business by piggybacking on other people's content). What's the difference here? You want Google to do it, but not me? Why? Because they send you traffic? I do my best to do that too. Is it that they provide value to the user by sorting the web according to relevance? That's all I'm doing, just on a smaller scale. And I don't even spider anything. I just take feeds that are already being pushed out there.

I think what I do protrudes into the exact same gray area that you dip into by having affiliate links all over your blog without any kind of affiliate relationship disclosure statements.

You suggest gifts for people to buy for their loved ones, but you don't clearly say that you'll be compensated if they take your suggestions! Who said you have the right to do that!!!??? Shame on you!!!

See, that's just silly. If you want to criticize the method, ask some questions and lets talk about it. I don't know why you had to go for the personal attack. "Shame", "shady", "spammer" - thanks. Really. Thanks. Made my day.

To add to what Erica posted above, here's a relevant bit from the same site she linked to: "2. Do quote something you find interesting: the Copyright Act defines that short quotations for the purpose of criticism, commentary or news reporting are considered “fair use”. Notice that the quote should involve only a small portion of the work, and it should not replicate the “heart” of the material."

I agree with her that you should do your own due diligence when sourcing material, much as Paul Meyers very nicely stated earlier in the thread. Thanks for your contribution, Erica!

Also, I want to add - for anyone scared by what Erica said above, just write your own content or seek permission as she suggests. But don't ask her, I don't think she'll say yes. Everything else in my method is solid and works with ANY content. So if you don't want to pull RSS feeds to produce content, get some somewhere else and use the "SEO Smart Links" plugin instead of WP-O-Matic and do everything else exactly the same.

Or you can use something like Content Boss or WordPress Direct. I haven't tried those yet, so your mileage may vary. But the point is, RSS feeds are NOT the only source for content, they're just what I'm using with my current method.

[jbreezy]

I don't think my posts are loading automatically. My feeds just say "Next" but I have to automatically fetch them. Any ideas?

Plus I'm getting a lot of mini feeds that aren't the full blog post from the feed. Has anyone figured out a way around this? If not, how can you tell if an RSS feed will give you access to the whole feed?

[Allegro]

just take a look at the feed?!

[Ouroboros]

If you have an account with Yahoo or gmail, you already have an aggregator.

Just post the feed into your aggregator and look at it before you add it to you site.

My question got hijacked, has anyone figured out how to get the google news feed to display properly?

Steve

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

If you have an account with Yahoo or gmail, you already have an aggregator.

Just post the feed into your aggregator and look at it before you add it to you site.

My question got hijacked, has anyone figured out how to get the google news feed to display properly?

Steve

Hey Steve

They display fine for me, but a number of people who use WP-O-Matic have had trouble with it. It has to do with the way Google News format their feeds. Perhaps try a different theme. If that doesn't work, you can try maybe using a Google News Alert - that may display differently. Another tip, make sure to sort Goolgle news by date instead of relevance, so you get the content in the order it's published.

Hope that helps, and sorry you're having trouble. I've seen on the WP-O-Matic support site that GNews is a common problem, but I've never dug for a solution because it works okay for me. You might find some help there though.

Also, sorry your question got sidetracked!

[Ouroboros]

No Problem Keith, not your fault...

I found a workaround and got the google news feed to work after going to the authors site and then studying the help tickets!

What version of wp-o-matic are you using? Mine is 1.0RC4. Bug might have shown up in a later version.

If anyone is interested in the fix, I'll document it here, but it's a little involved for most so I'll wait and see if anyone else wants it.

Thanks again for the thread,
Steve

[Giraffe-SEO]

Wow! Great post Keith. Can't wait to try it out.

Cheers

Ant

[Paul Wilson]

Hi,

have got Gocodes and wp o matic set up - have tested by typing mydomain/go/keyword and that works (it rediects to affsite) but my keywords aren't showing up as being linked on the blog. Where am I going wrong???

Thanks,

Paul.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Paul Wilson

Hi,

have got Gocodes and wp o matic set up - have tested by typing mydomain/go/keyword and that works (it rediects to affsite) but my keywords aren't showing up as being linked on the blog. Where am I going wrong???

Thanks,

Paul.

When you set up the rewrites in WP-O-Matic's campaigns area, make sure you set the word to be rewritten as the same word along with the relink. I never though to specify that, because I always do it that way, but jbreezy had the same problem and that appeared to fix it. So basically you tell it to find "widget", replace it with "widget" and then link it to "yourblog.com/go/widget" (or something like that - I'm writing from memory).

Try that and see how it does.

Also be aware that the relinking will only happen on posts that occur after you make the settings changes. It won't go back and re-do old posts.

Hope that helps!

[David Spyres]

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

No Problem Keith, not your fault...

I found a workaround and got the google news feed to work after going to the authors site and then studying the help tickets!

What version of wp-o-matic are you using? Mine is 1.0RC4. Bug might have shown up in a later version.

If anyone is interested in the fix, I'll document it here, but it's a little involved for most so I'll wait and see if anyone else wants it.

Thanks again for the thread,
Steve

Steve ... yes please post your fix!!

Thanks ;-)

[Ouroboros]

David,

Keith and I agree that this is a little involved for most, but if you're pretty familiar with cPanel it's not a big deal.

* Set up your campaign in WP-o-Matic as usual
* Copy the URL of the feed into your clipboard (ctrl-c)
* Determine which mysql database is being used for that installation of wordpress. You can find it in your wp-config.php file if you let fantastico set it up.
* Go to phpMyAdmin in your cPanel, open it and find the database
* Click on the database, we'll call it _wrdp1(17)
* Wp-o-matic appends some extra files onto the database, we're looking for wp_wpo_campaign_feed. Click on the icon for 'browse' and you'll see the campaign_id, url, title, description, etc. You're interested in the url.
* Click on the little pencil (edit) icon.
* Go to the url field, delete the url and copy (ctrl-v) the url you saved to the clipboard earlier.
* Hit go and you're done!

Close all that stuff and you'll probably have to go back to the Wp-o-Matic dashboard and 'fetch' your feed to get it the first time.

Characters like <, >, and & have to be escaped (&amp to be validated and read by the agregators and WPOM adds those to the database. For whatever reason, it wants them left alone when it gets ready to read them?

I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but it's worked on every feed I've tried. And no, I didn't figure it out, I found it in the plugin author's help desk at Overview - WP-o-Matic - wpomatic .

Hope that helps,
Steve

DISCLAIMER: If you don't know what you're doing, don't even think about trying this!

[profitscc]

Keith,

Hope you don't mind if I incorporate some of the great blog ideas
and niche blog business models discussed here within my
Expert Blogging video tutorials... I can always add an additional
video tutorial.

Expert Blogging Secrets @ Profits.CC

Actually, I am wondering whether you'd like to receive a
complimentary Review Copy of such Video Course, so
that you may provide a Critique.

And because today is Black Friday, I am also offering a Review Copy
to anyone reading this thread. You see, the video course is
brand new, and I am looking for genuine, authentic testimonials.

Thanks.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by profitscc

Keith,

Hope you don't mind if I incorporate some of the great blog ideas
and niche blog business models discussed here within my
Expert Blogging video tutorials... I can always add an additional
video tutorial.

Expert Blogging Secrets @ Profits.CC

Actually, I am wondering whether you'd like to receive a
complimentary Review Copy of such Video Course, so
that you may provide a Critique.

And because today is Black Friday, I am also offering a Review Copy
to anyone reading this thread. You see, the video course is
brand new, and I am looking for genuine, authentic testimonials.

Thanks.

Hi.

I kind of do mind if you are just going to copy my material for use in your own product.

I'm working on my own course for my method (as you must have read here), so I'd prefer if you don't devalue my method and diminish my own product's potential. I spent a year developing this method, and have been supporting interested people here and via PM for the couple of weeks since I first detailed it here.

However, if you want to link people back to this thread, or work something out with me to offer my materials to your customers, I'd much prefer that.

And I'd love to have a look at your course for the same reason - there's just so much you can do with WordPress and I don't know it all. If you have good material, I'd love to be able to refer people to other good material that's out there.

PM me if you want to discuss it further, but please don't just take my ideas and present them as your own. To me, that goes against the spirit of the Warrior forum.

That being said, you DID ask, so I don't think you'd go against my wishes.

I very much appreciate your interest and look forward to possibly working with you in the future!

Thanks again!

[JustVisiting]

Originally Posted by profitscc

Keith,

And because today is Black Friday, I am also offering a Review Copy
to anyone reading this thread. You see, the video course is
brand new, and I am looking for genuine, authentic testimonials.

Thanks.

Hi Armando

I'd like a review copy please.

Thanks

[Paul Wilson]

Hi Armando

I'd like a review copy please.

Thanks

Paul.

[Paul Wilson]

Keith,
thanks for the reply I'"ll keep playing around with the kw and let you know how I get on.

If and when you put a product together screen shots showing the wpo page next to the gocodes page would really help.

Paul.

[Lee MacRae]

Don't know if anyone else posted this [so much in this post!] but I had a hard time with the gocodes and I found another plugin that will change a word to a link

Automatic SEO Links
WordPress › Automatic SEO Links WordPress Plugins


Just choose a word and a URL and this plugin will replace all matches in the posts of your blog. You can set title.target,rel and in case the plugin finds more of once the same word in a post, it will only change the first one.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Lee MacRae

Don't know if anyone else posted this [so much in this post!] but I had a hard time with the gocodes and I found another plugin that will change a word to a link

Automatic SEO Links
WordPress › Automatic SEO Links WordPress Plugins


Just choose a word and a URL and this plugin will replace all matches in the posts of your blog. You can set title.target,rel and in case the plugin finds more of once the same word in a post, it will only change the first one.

Just to be clear, GoCodes is just to cloak your affiliate links and make sure all links lead back to your domain. It has nothing to do with replacing words with links. That functionality is build into WP-O-Matic, under the "Rewrite" section of the campaign configuration.

That could be why you *thought* you were having trouble with it.

Hope that helps.

[Peter Johnston]

Many thanks for that. I am creating a new blog right now so I'm going to implement some if not all of these techniques. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Ouroboros]

Keith,

Something I'm not clear on yet is the rewrite function in WPOM. Let's say I want to link 'wordpress' to http:whatever. I would use wordpress as the origin, then rewrite it to 'wordpress' and then re-link it to 'http:cloakedsite'?

I understand that I need to add that middle step so the link will show, right?

Then is the rewrite and the relink only active for text within that campaign or is it global for the site?

Thanks,
Steve

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

Keith,

Something I'm not clear on yet is the rewrite function in WPOM. Let's say I want to link 'wordpress' to http:whatever. I would use wordpress as the origin, then rewrite it to 'wordpress' and then re-link it to 'http:cloakedsite'?

I understand that I need to add that middle step so the link will show, right?

Then is the rewrite and the relink only active for text within that campaign or is it global for the site?

Thanks,
Steve

That's the way it works, yes. The rewrites through WP-O-Matic are tied to the campaign they're set up in. That's actually better than having it be global across the site, in my opinion, as it gives you more control. Also, it actually enters those links into your database along with the post.

Other plugins, like SEO Smart Links will do the relinking globally, but it does it dynamically at the time the page loads, and those links aren't actually in the post content. In my testing, the links DO end up in your feed, though.

I prefer the WP-O-Matic feature, but by all means, use what works best for you!

[Ouroboros]

AHHHH! WOPM hard codes the links into the posts so they ride along with the Rss feed and the others don't?

This gets more interesting by the minute (post).

I'm getting it slowly...

Steve

[Allegro]

hahaha im laughing so hard right now. as i told a couple posts back, im going to use my first blog with this method as testing grounds. and now i got a pingback from another automated page who uses my content... thats so damn funny, i get even a backlink from them.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Allegro

hahaha im laughing so hard right now. as i told a couple posts back, im going to use my first blog with this method as testing grounds. and now i got a pingback from another automated page who uses my content... thats so damn funny, i get even a backlink from them.

That's awesome! Told you it works!

[Alminc]

Keith,

I've tried to get articles from Google News.

I did a search for my keywords and a lot of articles
were returned.

Then I picked the rss feed and entered it into wpomatic
but when I do the 'Fetch' I got this message:

'Campaign processed. 0 posts fetched'


I can fetch articles from other feeds but Google News
returns zero articles.

Am I missing something obvious ? What to do?

Almin

[TimPhelan]

My .htaccess file is empty. Any ideas on where to put the code? I tried putting it in there and it didn't work.

Originally Posted by deverell

Try this Allegro

Place the following code in your .htaccess file, above the line that says “# BEGIN WordPress”:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^go/([A-Za-z0-9]+)/?$ /index.php?gocode=$1 [L,R]

This example assumes your blog is located at the root of your domain. If your blog is located at yourdomain.com/blog/, then you should change “/index.php” to “/blog/index.php”.

This got my links working.