Google My Blog:Creating Speed Link Sites with WordPress
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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