Chimp-Simple Design » Blog Archive » Google My Blog:Creating Speed Link Sites with WordPress

Google My Blog:Creating Speed Link Sites with WordPress

Posted on August 15th, 2007 steve 18 comments

What is a Speed Link Site?

I came up with the name based on “speed linking” in blogs. This is where you have a group of links together in a post based on a specific topic. A lot of blogger use these for weekly News summaries. Here is an example from Problogger.

These are interesting but I thought they would even be better if you could automate the whole process so little interaction is required.

By using free software (WordPress & Plug-ins) and automated searches (Google Alerts) you can create sites that don’t require a group of researchers and web developers to create and maintain.

Creating a Speed Link Site

Here is how I think this can be accomplished:

1. Download and Install Wordpress on your webserver.

2. Create Google Alerts to search for a topic and then post the results back to an email address. I would setup the alert for “as they happen” so the messages are posted as individual entries (more on this later). Also use “text alerts” so they do not mess up the formatting when posting in WordPress.

3. Setup email posting in WordPress so the Google Alerts are automatically sent to WordPress. Setup a category for each alert in WordPress. This will keep the postings cleaner looking.

4. Then using an update program in WordPress like Cron Demo from Designpraxis it could automatically gather the email posts on a daily basis.

5. Install a WP-PostRatings Program to allow users to rate the postings. This way the readers do the sorting and rating work for you. This is why you want to setup the Google Alerts as the happen so each alert is its own posting in WordPress.

6. Display the top rated posts in a widget so the best article “float” to the top of the list.

Example Sites

Celebrity/Fan Site

Come up with a list of stars (Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears, etc) you want all the updates on and create alerts for each with their own WordPress categories. Now you will get alerted each time something posts about them and an new entry in WordPress.

Technology Site

Setup your own version of Digg with automatic subject feeds posted in WordPress and user ranking the content. This can be a site for WordPress, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 or any other technology you can think search on.

Final Thoughts

This type of site can be used to create a new site or add to an existing site as a new information source for your blog. In addition, it runs itself so you don’t have to spend hours each day searching on the Internet for new topics. Let Google do that for you using its spiders and then post it with your bots.

Could it get easier than this?

Has anyone created a WordPress site like this?

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Infopreneur Sites, WordPress on AutoPilot, google tools, wordpress
18 Responses to “Google My Blog:Creating Speed Link Sites with WordPress”
1. Steve B August 17th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
  
  I really liked this. I liked it so much I ran out and tired it. Everything worked great till I got to the cron part. I don’t get cron in WP. The WP-CRON plugin doesn’t work after 2.1. Im running 2.2. So I’m stumped. Any help ? Steve.
2. Dave August 18th, 2007 at 8:52 am
  
  I also tried this running v2.2. I can get the cron jobs running and it posts to my blog but the posts are empty and the title is “Google Alerts - ALERTNAME”.
  
  Ideas?
3. admin August 19th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
  
  I have been busy trying to finish my book off (WordPress on AutoPilot) and have not had chance to build this site yet. Sorry, too many fun projects and too little time.
  
  I did try a few quick posts to chimp-simple and it is stripping off the Google Alert text.
  
  I also tried just a standard text email to the posting account and it stripped the message text.
  
  Has anyone checked the WordPress site for bugs logged on email posting?
  
  Thanks,
  S
4. WordPress 2.2 Blog by Email Bug » Chimp-Simple Publishing August 20th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
  
  [...] this change the Speed Link Site won’t [...]
5. admin August 20th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
  
  After several hours of testing I came across a solution. You need to change the class-pop3.php file to a prior version (WordPress 2.13). Here is the link to the solution:
  http://www.chimp-simple.com/2007/08/20/wordpress-22-blog-by-email-fixed/
6. Dave August 20th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
  
  Well I can also report that it works when downgrading to the older class-pop3.php…but…I still don’t like the formatting that is done to it…links are stripped out of the email…not ready for prime-time…
7. wastemaster October 16th, 2007 at 8:51 am
  
  Great idea. Only thing is that scum email could give some unwanted effect to this scheme.
8. admin October 16th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
  
  I agree. That is why I like to post as draft and then moderate otherwise you can get some garbage in your site.
9. wastemaster October 17th, 2007 at 12:07 am
  
  Its possible replace cron-demo/ plugin with perl script. In this case your could filter GAlert emails by regular expression and post only them
10. admin October 18th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
  
  wastemaster, that would be a nice program to have. I cut the extra text out before posting but this could take a while if you post a lot.
11. Idetrorce December 15th, 2007 at 4:08 am
  
  very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
  Idetrorce
12. admin December 23rd, 2007 at 8:34 am
  
  @Idetrorce, can you be a little more specific in what you don’t agree with?
13. contestcumulativecom February 23rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
  
  The contests on online are interesting and easy to participate
  Please suggest sites which conduct online contests .
14. Maui May 8th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
  
  Did anyone actually get this working, as it seems like a great idea!
15. Hudson Atwell August 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
  
  Instead of alert to email you could use alert to feed, and then use an auto blogging platform to handle your posts,
  
  I use Blogsense-wp its the best out there
  http://www.blogsense-wp.com
  
  If you want to go your own route and having trouble understanding the wp cron, which i am too right now, there is a plugin that helps you figure it. here’s link
  http://wordpress.designpraxis.at/
16. sandrar September 10th, 2009 at 6:22 am
  
  Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.
17. angelina jolie September 10th, 2009 at 9:15 am
  
  I love your site. Love design!!! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that I�ve really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. Sign: ndsam
18. megan fox September 11th, 2009 at 8:44 am
  
  Sign: umsun Hello!!! rcuwwymhyw and 7949ssgfhphzye and 2542I love your blog. I just came across your blog.
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