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News Feeds For Word Press

by magentawave
8 replies
3 questions about using news feeds with Wordpress sites please...

1) I have heard that having a news feed on your Wordpress site featuring news related to the subject of your site can help you rank better with search engines because of the new content it continually delivers. Is that true?

2) Does anyone know of a great free Wordpress plugin that does that?

3) Is a news feed the same as an RSS feed?

Thank you.
Steve
#feeds #news #press #word
  • Profile picture of the author Tim Dixon
    1) Yes it can help, particularly when integrated with a blog that contains other unique content as well.

    2) WP-O-Matic is one plugin that will automatically creat posts from an RSS feed.

    3) Generally, an RSS feed can be described as a news feed. You can also get news feeds from a site sometimes which is not an RSS feed but their own widget or plugin for your site. However because the content from these is usually dynamically created they are of limited 'SEO' value as they are generally not visible to a search engine.

    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      Originally Posted by Tim Dixon View Post

      1) Yes it can help, particularly when integrated with a blog that contains other unique content as well.

      2) WP-O-Matic is one plugin that will automatically creat posts from an RSS feed.

      3) Generally, an RSS feed can be described as a news feed. You can also get news feeds from a site sometimes which is not an RSS feed but their own widget or plugin for your site. However because the content from these is usually dynamically created they are of limited 'SEO' value as they are generally not visible to a search engine.

      Tim
      Hey Tim, thanks for responding!

      I have a few more questions for you or anyone else looking at this please.

      Continuing from my previous questions 1, 2, 3...

      4) For the sake of SEO, is there any best place to put a news feed on a WP site?

      5) Would anyone be willing to post some urls of their sites that have news feeds on them here so I can see how it looks?

      6) Do you know if WP-O-Matic works with the latest version of WP? I looked at the site but see no evidence of that.

      Thanks again.
      Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim Dixon
    Hi Steve

    4) Well the way I and many others integrate a news feed it actually creates a post for each news item. Beware (as far as SEO goes) news feeds that you can put on your blog as a piece of Javascript or in a Widget as they will not be seen by a search engine crawler so will not do you much good in that respect.

    5) I'll post one that I'm doing as an example of how I do things in the near future.

    6) Yes, I'm using it with the latest version of WP and seems to be ok. However, I have had a strange issue when selecting the 'Pingback' function and I'm not sure if that is a problem with the version of WP, I'm still checking that out. For now I just don't use that function.

    Tim
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  • Profile picture of the author cclegg06
    I also use WP-o-Matic and love it. My suggestion would be that you use it to generate "draft posts" and then you go in and review, add your two bits, and then schedule it. Not doing this had gotten me into a bit of trouble with 'crapping up' my blog or posting duplicate content.

    Do others agree?
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim Dixon
    I also use WP-o-Matic and love it. My suggestion would be that you use it to generate "draft posts" and then you go in and review, add your two bits, and then schedule it. Not doing this had gotten me into a bit of trouble with 'crapping up' my blog or posting duplicate content.
    Sounds like you need to read the thread in my signature!

    (Shameless self promotion but it's all free info......)

    Tim
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  • Profile picture of the author cclegg06
    Reading it now...
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  • Profile picture of the author digitalproductreporter
    Originally Posted by magentawave View Post

    3 questions about using news feeds with Wordpress sites please...

    1) I have heard that having a news feed on your Wordpress site featuring news related to the subject of your site can help you rank better with search engines because of the new content it continually delivers. Is that true?

    Steve
    i think that is an old wives tale. I see pages all day long that rank like gangbusters that don't have rss feeds on them.

    adding new, fresh, and original content to your site might help get you spidered more often but putting regurgitated and duplicate headlines on your site ain't helping you any imho

    also note: putting that on your site gives people more options to leave your site ;( (assuming you make them clickable links)
    Signature


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  • Profile picture of the author xlfutur1
    I have used the firstrss plugin for awhile and it has worked well. An example page would be here Latest News for Nokia 5800 Phone

    I used to think that rss pages would be looked down upon by google, but it just depends on the site. For a couple of years now I have had a page with an rss feed from indeed.com that shows band director job listings. It now ranks #1 in google for the term: band director jobs
    the page is Band Director Job Listings

    So don't be afraid to use pages that only have rss feeds on them. If you don't over do it and put an rss page that relates to your sites and is relevant and benefits your site's visitors, google should have no problem with it. They always seem to figure it out pretty well any more.
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