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auto-blog plug-in for wordpress theme

Is there the opportunity to auto populate by category or tags/words? For example; while i’ve entered in rss feeds from certain sites to populate on my wrodpress site, is there a way to aggregate content without having to manually search for it myself? Wanting to populate ‘mens fashion’, or ‘suits’ for example? Thanks….this is a big learning curve for me

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 13:09:38
  • Predrag Dubajic
    • Support

    Hey @jeffrey burnett,

    Hope you're doing well today :slight_smile:

    If I understand your question correctly you are looking to assign tags and categories to your posts imported from another RSS feed.

    There are three options when you go to your feed options, I have attached screenshot of those below.

    First one is to select whether the existing post category will be imported as category or tag, and to create new category on your site if you don't have that category already created.

    Second option is to select existing category from your site that will be assigned to all posts imported from that feed.

    And the last option is input field where you can enter custom tags that will be assigned to all your imported posts.

    Let me know if this is what you are looking for or if I completely missed the question :slight_smile:

    Best regards,

    Predrag

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Prdedrag; so great of you to take the time….thanks so much. As this is a learning curve for me so may be my communication:wink:. I think I see what you’re saying but that seems as it will only populate already curated content on my site? And categorize it? I Want to be able to pull in articles/blogs/content etc from other sources on the web related to my category however without having to go and find it myself. Can fresh content automatically populate on my site daily if I’ve asked the plug-in to only populate ‘tags’ etc? Not sure if thats possible or if the simplicity of it is right in front of me? I just launched and have yet to watch the WP 101 videos. Thanks again!

  • Predrag Dubajic
    • Support

    Hi Jeffrey,

    Options explained above are all for assigning categories to posts you import from other feed.

    Auto Blog can’t search for feeds on itself and import them on your site, you will need to create feed for each of RSS you want to import.

    Let’s take WPMU Blog for example, if you want to import all our posts you will use url like this https://wpmudev.com/blog/feed/, now let’s say you only want to import posts that have “Free themes” tag, you will need to create new feed with this url https://wpmudev.com/blog/tag/free-themes/feed/.

    Hope this clears things up a bit and let us know if you have any followup questions :slight_smile:

    Best regards,

    Predrag

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hi PRedrag; your responses are amazing. Can’t say thank you enough as they make complete sense. I now understand how it works much more, so thank you. One last question(S)..

    I have created a few feeds by pasting the url; however it ends in “rss”. So in this case it would be http://www.website.com/rss. I guess my question is should it be ‘feed’ rather than ‘rss’?

    An accurate example in my case is; I want to populate content on ‘cars’. So I set up the feed with url http://www.autonet.com/rss. Correct? From there i’ve assigned tags in the specific page/category so it pulls additional content from the rss feed. I hope I am on the right track. ?

  • Predrag Dubajic
    • Support

    Hi Jeffrey,

    Thanks, I'm glad we are getting in right direction :slight_smile:

    I have checked your site in question but there's actually no feed neither on http://www.autonet.com/rss/ or http://www.autonet.com/feed/

    You can check this yourself by simply going to those URLs in your browser, you will see when you open them there's no feed there.

    If we take WPMU blog for example again and you open one of the links I posted above you should see how the feed looks, and I have attached screenshot as an example.

    It looks like the site you are trying to add doesn't have RSS feed.

    Best regards,

    Predrag

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    AgainPredrag thanks so much for being so responsive. I shouldn’t have used that example as I was only using it as such. I guess my question should be more on point. So; does the url I use to create a ‘feed’ on my site; need to end as ‘www.example.com/FEED and or ‘www.example.com/RSS??

    RSS or FEED? Or both?

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey,

    I hope you’re doing fine today!

    does the url I use to create a ‘feed’ on my site; need to end as ‘www.example.com/FEED and or ‘www.example.com/RSS??

    RSS or FEED? Or both?

    The URL (whether is “RSS” or “FEED” or anything else) doesn’t matter itself, actually. The crucial part here the content of that URL has to be proper XML-formatted content that follows RSS standards (see here)

    Feeds generated with WordPress does follow these standards and pretty much every other popular CMS has built-in RSS feed generator that is capable of creating such feed.

    I hope that helps!

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hey Adam; so great thanks. I can’t seem still to be able to aggregate any feed from sites I see have the RSS themselves. Not sure what Im doing incorrect.

    I go to ‘example’ site, copy the feed url, then create the feed in my dashboard. Yes weeks go by and nothing seems to be coming in?

    Really appreciate all/any/your time and advice

    jeff!

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hey Jeff!

    Would you mind me taking a look at your setup? I’d be glad to check your site’s configuration and hopefully this would let me give you a bit more detailed guide on how to setup those feeds or diagnose an issue (if there’s any “glitch/bug”:wink:.

    In order to let me take a closer look you could grant me a support access via our WPMU DEV Dashboard plugin as described here:

    https://wpmudev.com/manuals/wpmu-dev-dashboard-enabling-staff-login/

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hey Adam; thats awesome and absolutely I would love it if you could take a look. That said I went to my dashboard and it doesn’t seem i have the ‘MPMU DEV…Support’ selection in the left column as described in the link manual? I did some more navigating but still couldn’t locate anything??

  • Predrag Dubajic
    • Support

    Hi Jeffrey,

    Are you accessing your site with your main admin account because WPMU DEV Dashboard is visible only for one account by default?

    If you're accessing your WP with different admin account you will need to add below code to your wp-config.php with the ID of your current account to get access:

    define('WPMUDEV_LIMIT_TO_USER', '1, 10');

    1 and 10 are example IDs.

    If you're not sure how to add this you can send us login details via contact form and we can check the account ID to give you exact code to add, and we can check Auto-blog settings as well.

    You can send us your details using our contact form https://wpmudev.com/contact/ and the template below:

    IMPORTANT: Make sure you select "I have a different question" for your topic so it doesn't go back to forums – this and the subject line ensure that it gets assigned to me.

    Subject: "Attn: Predrag Dubajic"

    – WordPress admin username

    – WordPress admin password

    – login url

    – link back to this thread for reference

    – any other relevant urls

    Best regards,

    Predrag

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  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeff,

    I hope you’re having a nice day!

    As my buddy Predrag is already off-line and won’t be back today, I took a liberty of using access credentials that you sent him. I’ve visited your site and took a look around.

    As for “WPMU DEV” menu item.

    I can confirm that although the “WPMU DEV Dashboard” plugin is active, there’s no menu item for it. I noticed that there are indeed two users with “Administrator” role assigned on your site and most likely the one who activated/enabled the plugin isn’t the the account that you’re using. As WPMU DEV Dashboard by default makes itself available only to admin account that it was activated from, Predrag’s suggestion will fix it easily.

    Another way, in case you wanted or needed to access “WPMU DEV” menu, would be to simply go to “Plugins” list and then deactivate and re-activate plugin. Your WP login will take over and you’ll be able to use it – that second admin instead loose access. This procedure however can be repeated for both accounts if necessary, anytime with no restrictions :slight_smile:

    As for Auto-blog.

    I took a look at its settings and actually there’s an error message that explains it all:

    The Cron processing file “wp-cron.php” cannot be reached from code. This may be due to your firewall blocking local loopback calls.

    You may be able to work around the firewall by adding this line to your wp-config.php file.

    define(“ALTERNATE_WP_CRON”, true);

    If that does not clear the problem, then disable using Cron and enable the “pageload” method by adding

    define( “AUTOBLOG_PROCESSING_METHOD”, “pageload” );

    to wp-config.php

    The “WP Cron” is a tool that allows WordPress to run various tasks periodically in background. For example: a plugin may need to do something every full hour, so it adds itself to WP CRON and then WP CRON calls it each hour.

    This is exactly the case with Auto-blog: it needs to be called by WP Cron on predefined periods of time and if WP Cron is unreachable, it will not work.

    Furthermore, not working WP Cron may result in some other issues, such as some plugins not being updated or backups (e.g. if you were using our Snapshot Pro plugin) not being made. It’s essential then to make it work.

    That said, please give following steps a try:

    1. Access your server with FTP

    2. Edit “wp-config.php” file by adding this line (anywhere above “/*That’s all, stop editing…”:wink::

    define("ALTERNATE_WP_CRON", true);

    3. Go to your dashboard’s “Autoblog -> All feeds” page and edit any feed:

    – scroll down to “Feed processing” section

    – set “Process this feed” value e.g. to “every 10 minutes” and save settings

    4. Wait a quarter (or even a bit more) and see if the feed has been processed.

    If feed had been processed, then you’re good to go: set “Process this feed” value for all other feeds anyway you want and all should work fine now. If the feed hadn’t been processed, then

    5. Edit your “wp-config.php” file again:

    – remove the line added in step #2

    – add following lines instead:

    define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', 'true');
    
define( "AUTOBLOG_PROCESSING_METHOD", "pageload" );

    6. Wait a bit more this time, as step #5 will make Auto-blog heavily depend on the traffic your site is getting (page views) and check if it’s working. That’s the most “foolproof” method to trigger feed processing: it’s run with visits on your site. However, the more traffic the site is getting, the more accurate feed processing is.

    I hope that helps!

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey!

    We do not offer any "setup/development" services but of course this is strictly a plugin support issue so we're here to do everything that's humanly possible to make it work. That said, I understand that you haven't yet implemented changes in "wp-config.php" file in relation to Auto-blog plugin, is that right?

    If you wish, I can take a look at it for you. I'd however need to access your WP install directly, so I'd like to ask you to send in:

    Subject: "Attn: Adam Czajczyk"

    – your site's WordPress admin login URL

    – admin login and password (may be a temporary account)

    – FTP credentials (hostname, username, password, port number if needed)

    – any other relevant URLs and information

    – link back to this thread

    Please use our contact form here https://wpmudev.com/contact/.

    Select "I have a different question" from the drop-down list.

    Please be sure to make a full backup of your entire site first!

    Best regards,

    Adam

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey!

    There’s absolutely no additional fee for this! As I mentioned before: we do not offer any design/development services and also we – as a WPMU DEV staff – are not allowed to take any “side-jobs”.

    However, what you’re asking for is a request for support of one of our plugins so you’re fully entitled for our help as you’re an active member of our community!

    That said, just follow an instruction from my last post to share those access credentials with me directly and I’ll work on this.

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Adam this is so great thank you. Im just waiting on the developer guy to send me the info for FTP (etc) and i’ll fire you the access and info. If I knew where you were I’d buy you a bottle of scotch or something. SO great of you and the team thanks again

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey!

    Good scotch is… well, it’s always good but please remember that this is my job which I love and which gives me much joy: I’m here to help you as much as humanly possible. That’s the best reward I could ever imagine. And I don’t drink when I work :smiley:

    But jokes apart, let me know please when you’re ready to go on and I’ll get back to your site. I’m sure we can work that out!

    Cheers,

    Adam

  • Michael Bissett
    • Recruit

    Hey @jeffrey burnett, hope you don’t mind me jumping in here. :slight_smile:

    I’ve inserted the ALTERNATE_WP_CRON define that Adam mentioned earlier into your site’s wp-config.php, and after doing a manual run of your Men’s Style feed, I was able to pull in the posts from the RSS feed specified.

    Now, I’ve set it to check for posts on an hourly basis, so we’ll need to wait and see if that does the trick. Just so you’re aware, I deleted the posts I manually imported before, could you check to see if there’s any new posts in the Trends category?

    From the time of this writing, it should do the check in around 55 minutes.

    Please advise,

    Michael

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    michael thats so great thank you. there are definitely new posts…im just unsure wether they’re imported or your manual posts as you mention?

    i still have much to learn and go thru on this site so i use it properly….all this help is just fantastic

    2 things however. 1, the posts don’t seem to credit the ‘source’ nor do they pull in images?

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey!

    Since @Michael Bissett had removed the posts that were inserted with “manual run” these must have been published automatically, which would confirm that the plugin is now working fine. I checked your site and can also confirm that it’s working. Take a look at your feeds’ list and you will see a message stating that the feed has been processed e.g. “24 minutes ago, next check in 35 minutes” (as for this very moment, so time values may change for you).

    2 things however. 1, the posts don’t seem to credit the ‘source’ nor do they pull in images?

    I made following changes to your setup:

    1) on “Auto-blog -> Add-ons” page I enabled the “Featured Image Import” add-on which is necessary to import images

    2) on feed’s edit screen I then set “Featured Image Importing” option to “Find the first image withing the content of a feed item”

    3) on the same page I replaced an URL with a “source” word in “Link to original source” settings (any word you put there should be automatically converted to a link pointing to original article)

    Could you please check back in some time (new items have to be imported to the site) and let me know if it helped?

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Adam thanks so much once again. Yes I see all that. Thats great of you. No knew imports as of yet, however I See it ‘checked hourly’ so I’ll assume those publishers haven’t generated any new content yet.

    ill check back in here tho in a few hours or tomorrow and give it a little time?

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hey Jeffrey!

    Yes, that’s entirely possible that there were just no updates on publisher’s side. I guess then we will just have to wait. Please get back to me here any time that suits you and I’ll jump back in if necessary :slight_smile:

    Best regards,

    Adam

  • jeffrey burnett
    • WPMU DEV Initiate

    Hey there Adam; so it seemed about 6 or so auto posts were pulled in which is awesome. Sadly they had nothing to do with my theme of fashion. That said I wasn’t sure which auto feed out of the url’s i entered they all came from? I think I’ve now put the auto post on ‘pending’ so I can approve the content however is there a way to see where the auto post was generated from?

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jeffrey!

    so it seemed about 6 or so auto posts were pulled in which is awesome. Sadly they had nothing to do with my theme of fashion.

    For each feed there's a "Post filtering" section that you may use to filter posts by keywords/phrases before posting. This may prove handy here.

    That said I wasn't sure which auto feed out of the url's i entered they all came from?

    There's no way to see which post came from which feed, however there's a simple workaround for it.

    The simplest way wold be to set publishing to different category for each feed. In case you'd like to keep all post in the same category though, the alternative is to put additional tag into the "Add these tags to the posts" option on feed's edit screen that would be unique for each feed (see screenshot).

    I think I've now put the auto post on 'pending' so I can approve the content

    That will indeed hold publication until approved, nice finding :slight_smile:

    Best regards,

    Adam

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