Wordpress plugin: Guest Blogger
Aug 24th, 2009 by Bob King
A recent change to EzineArticles search result page caused Guest Blogger not being able to find any related articles. Please upgrade to version 1.4.x.
When you’re going to be on vacation, or you’re simply out of your wits on a certain subject that you know your readers are expecting, you may want to invite an expert guest blogger.
Guest Blogger plugin helps you by simplifying the process of finding a guest blogger, searching for an interesting post and creating a guest account.
The plugin searches the well respected EzineArticles database in relevant subjects and creates a draft so that you can put in your editorial before posting.
You can choose to auto-create a guest blogger account in your Wordpress blog with the original author’s details. The guest blogger role is controlled by Wordpress “New User Default Role” (under “General Settings”, normally set to “Subscriber”).
When searching for a guest post, you can specify the keywords of the desired subject. Searching criteria can be refined with
- Matching criteria: exact match, broad match, or match any words.
- Fields to be searched: in article title, body, author name, or keyword.
- Category: all category, category or sub-category.
These criteria narrows down the most relevant potential guest posts.
The plugin also support compliance checking with EzineArticles’ Terms of Service, i.e. you cannot quote more than 25 articles per year, by keeping a counter of quoted posts and suspending searching in case of exceeding the limit.
Download:
Guest Blogger is free and licensed under GPLv3. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
You can download the latest version here.
i get Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error. Guest Blogger requires PHP 5 and cURL to work. when i try to activate the plugin. i am running the latest version of wordpress. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!
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Bob King
wealthynetizen.com Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Ben,
The plugin does require PHP 5 and Curl. Most hosting company support both Php5 and 4 for free. You just need to choose the right package. Php4 is being phased out. So the upgrade will help you run other plugins.
Bob
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Bob King
wealthynetizen.com Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Ben,
I think the code is largely backward compatible to php version 4.0.6, still with cURL support. I change the version checking in version 1.3.2. Please give a try and let me know how it goes.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
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Works great, thank you
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Very useful. Now I can go on vacations
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Hey man, this is better than the premium plugin I got. It works like a charm. Thanks for reminding us of the TOS. Got to observe that.
I’m grateful that you give awy this great work. Thanks so much.
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Hi Bob, thanks for this plugin. I installed and activated it, saved a task with a keyword etc. but nothing happens. is there anything i missed? thanks, Guy
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Bob King
Reply:
September 7th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Guy,
Firstly, you can try to check if there’s any article that matches your keywords. To do so, you can click on “Check Article” on your task row.
Secondly, by its nature, the wp-cron doesn’t fire on time, but by visitors. So you can force it to post the article right away, by clicking “Post Now” along the same task row.
If this still doesn’t work, it must be a bug. Please let me know.
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Hi Bob,
Thanks for the quick response, i appreciate it.
I already tried all of the above with no help. any suggestions?
Thanks, Guy
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It could be missing cURL installation, or hosting company block out-going HTTP. Let me at the cURL testing and you can try it again.
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Thanks Bob,
I am not familiar with the term cURL…
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Bob King
Reply:
September 8th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Guy, I just put in version 1.3.8. Please give a try and let me know how it goes.
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Thanks. Upgraded but no change. when i click on post it just doesn’t do anything. does it have anything to do with me using Google Chrome?
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Bob King
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September 9th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Can you check the web server error log to see if any error showing up when running “Post Now”.
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I havent got a clue how to get to the server error log… thanks anyway for your help.
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Hi Bob, I am happy to inform you that now the plugin works and it’s so cool… thanks again.
If you plan on having a new version anytime soon, here’s a feature for your consideration – ability to filter articles by original publish date. Most of the articles i got on my keywords were from 2005-6 and are no longer relevant. it’d be awesome if you could make it happen. Thanks, Guy
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Guy,
How did you get it to work? I am having the same problem but only on some of my shared servers. All on host gator, some work and some don’t????
Thanks
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Bob King
Reply:
September 15th, 2009 at 7:22 am
This most likely have to do with ISP setup. For those which doesn’t work, can you get a print out of phpinfo.php?
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Bob King
Reply:
September 15th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
gbrenner, I’ve put in more PHP setup test in version 1.3.9. Please give it a try and let me know the result on your hostgator accounts. Thanks.
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Hey Bob,
I did update and passed the php checks but still having the same issue. Everything goes as it should until I “post” the articles (10) as drafts or published and it refreshes in about 3 seconds or so with no new articles. Like I said in the previous comment it is working on other HG servers I use. BTW I did check my error log and it does not show any errors for the domain I am trying to post to.
Thanks for your efforts. I am using this successfully on many of my blogs and hope to use it more soon
Gbrenner
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it was working fine, but now it is posting empty article 1.3.8 version. I only publich 50 articles over 2 days.
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Bob King
Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
A format change at EzineArticles caused the problem. Please update to version 1.4.0.
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G’Day Bob,
I like, I have this set up and running but am only using draft mode right now as I have had GuestBlogger pull up the same article 4 times in a row. I am trying settings further apart than 1 day to see if that improves the situation.
The ability to order posts by popularity, oldest, youngest, most viewed, least viewed, author etc. would be useful. Not essential but certainly useful.
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Bob King
Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Guest Blogger does a title lookup in the database to avoid duplicated content. Let me see if draft post are checked.
I’ll take notes of the feature requests.
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Im having a strange problem, while it doesnt seem to work for me, never publishes or drafts any articles when it runs. What it does do though is, it makes the article writers members of my site without posting or drafting the articles they belong to
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Bob King
Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 7:21 am
It indicates that the article is empty. Can you let me know your keyword and other setup? I’ll have a look.
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Bob King
Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Please update to version 1.4.0. A format change at EzineArticles caused the problem.
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When i installed the plug, as you know it runs a test to make sure you have all you need server side for the plug to work properly and it passed all the setup requirements.
When i did a test run, i did check to make sure that the keywords i used had some articles to bring over to my site, so no problem there. Ive tried different keywords, like inspirational, which producers a list of articles more than 5 pages worth, so not stuck for choice. Ive tried it on auto creating on author, even post as admin, ive tried it on draft, and on publish. Ive tried picking up articles from 1 to 50 per run, i wont be doing 50 again though on auto creating as it didnt publish any articles, but made 50 members all at once, must have scared my HG server and alerted something, because it shut my site down for 15mins probably thinking it was an injection attack or something “blah” LOL.
Ive really tried every option there is with the same results. The article writers become members but it doesnt bring the articles with them.
Regards
Steve
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I am having the same problem of everything testing out ok but nothing is posting.
Here is the self test
———–BEGIN————
Installation Tests
PHP version test: Passed. Current version: 5.2.9
mbstring extension test: Passed.
PCRE extension test: Passed.
DNS test: Passed.
cURL extension test: Passed.
Safe mode: Disabled
Open Base Dir: Null
HTTP retrieval test: Passed.
WordPress version: Passed. Current version: 2.8.4
Very good! You are all set to go!
————-END———-
Thanks,
Ed
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Bob King
Reply:
October 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Edward,
Can you let me know your search keyword so that I can have a look?
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Bob King
Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I found out it’s a change at the EzineArticles search result format that render the plugin failing to find any article.
The fix is in version 1.4.0. Please update and let me know if this is still a problem.
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Hey, your plugin worked great, but after using to post around 10 articles (3 blogs), it stopped working (all the blogs), any reason why it would do that? I found it weird
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BoB
Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
If you’re not using version 1.4.x, you need to upgrade.
If you’re using version 1.4.x, perhaps there are only 10 articles matching your criteria.
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I erased and uploaded the plugin again, and chose a very general term (car), but is not uploading the new posts.
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BoB
Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Are you using version 1.4.x?
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Hi
frasil.com Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I just download it right now, I try making a post using the “loan” term, unfortunately, no posts, I use the check function for search and ezine articles is giving out an error
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BoB
Reply:
November 8th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Looks like the search function at EzineArticles.com is broken. The folks there fix thing up pretty fast. Just be patient and give them a couple of days.
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Hi Bob.
I’ve just installed your Guest Blogger.
I’ve 2 question/comment:
1) It’s set to Auto create Author info – but all created with my admin email.
2) How do I invite an expert guest blogger?
Thanks
Fred
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BoB
Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 9:54 am
You invite expert bloggers by using their articles. Those articles are authorized to be used on your blog, as long as no changes are made. See EzineArticles.com’s Term and conditions.
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I’m think I’m asking the same question as Fred. Can I change the email address of the auto created users without worry that the plugin will create them again? Can in a future update can the plugin create unique email addresses. The php is pretty easy for that… just add the created nickname to the admin email… like nickname.admin@mysite.com or nicknameadmin@mysite.com
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BoB
Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 9:53 am
that’s a good point when Gravatar is being used. Let me look into this.
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Tim
ww2.avonpa.com Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I made the change myself, and decided to share it for you next update. Look for the user_email field and change get_option(‘admin_email’) to $login.”_gb@domain.com”. It works.
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BoB
Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Tim,
Thanks for sharing your changes. I just got around and added a more generic solution in version 1.4.3.
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Hi Bob. So if you’re saying that “Invite a guest blogger” means “coping” an article from EzineArticles website into my blog (which is what this plug-in does), then there is no “Invite a guest blogger” feature. Invite a guest blogger to me is, when I can invite someone as a “Guest Blogger” to write a blog/post –most likely a unique content-.
Forgive me for saying, but then this is an Article display plugin – which is obviously not a unique content -, but a copy of an existing article from another site. Or we just differ in the term of “Guest Blogger”. So, then I either misunderstood your plugin and its features or it somewhat misleading as it described.
Am I wrong?
Thanks. Fred
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BoB
Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Your understanding is correct.
If you like, the author of the articles have put their work at EzineArticles.com and want to be “invited as a guest blogger”. Most people put in an editorial before publish, which makes it unique.
If you dont’ agree with this interpretation, I would have to create a guest blogger (ghost blogger) market place to satisfy your needs.
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Everything working fine except the Ezine categories aren’t populating the drop down. It just has All Categories. Am I doing something wrong?
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BoB
Reply:
November 27th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
There should be a drop down list for each category.
Is your plugin complete?
The categories are in file: guestblogger-categories.txt
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beth
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November 27th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
had the file… trying deactivating and then reactivating and now categories are there. obviously poltergeists are involved.
) Very nice plugin.. thanks.
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I’m seeing that there appears to be a 20 task limit. Can this be expanded. I’m targeting very specific keywords, many of which match only infrequently, so I need mor than 20 of them. Thanks. Also, one feature request is to be able to edit the task. Appears that the only option is to delete and resubmit the task. I’m sending a $20 donation because this is and excellent plugin and hoping the 20 task limit is removed.
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BoB
Reply:
December 13th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Beth,
Thanks for your support. I wasn’t expect people need more than 20 tasks. Let me look into the issue.
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ps… that payment from jasbet is me.
)
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I like the plugin, but I notice it doesn’t pick up the author’s resource box. I thought that was also a condition of using an Ezine article? I write Ezine articles myself, and I’d be really pissed off if people took my article without the resource box, which is the whole point of me writing the article!
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BoB
Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I thought that the complete resource box was included before. I’m traveling at the moment and will take a look when I’m back in 2 weeks
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Jon
saltlakecity-mortgage.com Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Hi Bob – just curious if you have any update on this? I can confirm that the author’s resource box is not included in the posts, which violates Ezine’s TOS. Thanks! (great plugin BTW)
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BoB
Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Hi there, Thanks for the reminder.
I just came back from a long trip and will look into it in the next few days.
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BoB
Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Jon,
The Sig paragraph was there but lost due to a regular expression mismatch. It’s now fixed in version 1.4.4
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Am I to understand if we use this plugin, we can only post 25 articles PER YEAR? Hardly seems worth it. Just double checking. I never heard this about Ezine Articles. Can someone confirm this being true or false? Thanks guys/gals.
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BoB
Reply:
February 11th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Yes, it’s true. See bullet 6 http://ezinearticles.com/terms-of-service.html
However, you cannot find articles of this high caliber anywhere else.
Worth it or not? Depending on what you want to do.
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Hey, BoB,
The feature I’d like to see is elimination of duplicates. That’s worth paying for. BTW, I think you’re crazy for giving this away free. This is a quality plugin and you should be selling it.
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BoB
Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Beth, thanks for the kind words. It’s too late to make it a premium plugin. If you think it’s good, please donate to support it.
The plugin already tries to avoid duplicates by checking for posts of the same title. Let me know if this doesn’t work.
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BoB, I’ve sent a donation and tell everyone I recommend the plugin to that they better make one too! I’m seeing duplicates with the same title.. am I doing something wrong?
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BoB
Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Thanks Beth.
Unless there’s a bug in the code, posts with the same title should never happen.
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Thanks for the plugin. Maybe one day the option can be added, in addition to Ezine Article. That we are not a problem anymore with the restrictions on 25 articles
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Ya know.. this obsession about the 25 article restriction is kind of silly. BoB fulfilled the Ezinearticles TOS by providing the option to limit to 25 but it’s silly to be worried about this. Keep the author links and your good. Do you think the ezinearticle authors don’t want their articles on all of these sites? Of course they do! The 25 article limit doesn’t benefit them. The limit is solely for the benefit of the ezinearticles WEBSITE. So my advice is to not be a pollyanna and go build your business.
)
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It’s telling me it can’t find any articles but there are plenty on my topic. I just downloaded the newest version from WordPress.
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BoB
Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
What’s the keyword do you use?
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Carlos Scarpero
daytonpulse.com Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
I was using the business category and human resources sub category and used employment as a keyword. Tried again with the keyword blank and it still didn’t work.
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BoB
Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Try “All category”. It works for me.
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