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Posted by Rochelle in Previously I wrote about the Search2Post plugin. This plugin works with phpBay Pro, phpOStock, and phpZon. What it does is, when activated, allows users to search for items and creates new pages based on what was searched for.
I installed Search2Post on a few of my new sites. I would have installed it on my older, well trafficked sites, but those are all BANS sites and this plugin won’t work with BANS.
Well, last night, someone used it for the first time. I knew this happened because I had it set up to send me emails whenever a page was created. Someone went to town searching on my site and created 28 new pages for me! Of course, some of them were misspellings, so I will need to delete those, but the majority of them were for actual products. Better yet, there were eBay auction results for most of the searches.
It may be a small thing, but I am truly excited by this. The visitor to my site came up with some really good searches, items I hadn’t thought of on my own.
Like I said in my prior post, if you have any of the plugins this works with (as stated above), then you need to spend the little bit of coin and get Search2Post.
Rochelle
Rochelle –
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this plugin – but you need to make sure you have prepped your site for it!!
1 – Make Sure you are using the ping optimizer plugin so you arent pinging those results out through your RPC every time a search is done.
2 – I think I may have posted about this recently, but I wrote some code to make sure the newly created pages are NOT indexed in search! They are noindex, nofollowed, every time a new page is created. This keeps them somewhat hidden to search until you get the chance to review and complete them.
When Alan released the latest versaion of the plugin, he included that code in it… so as long as you are using it, just check off the option in the settings of the plugin.
Aside from that… free content, user generated, its the bomb!
Rochelle,
Do no underestimate the usefulness of mispellings. Do not go overboard with them, but, using common mispellings of keywords can help you with a few more visitors.
-Ross-
I purchased the plugin and have yet to set it up.. i have a new site i’m thinking about trying it on..
Maybe i’ll go do that now while it’s fresh on my mind!!!
Is there a demo for this available?
@Ross,
You are right about the misspellings. I often include them in my content for any given page.
@Harry,
I don’t know. Just imagine that you use the search feature found on just about any website. Instead of seeing results that already existed on that site, such as what would happen if you search here, you see eBay auction results (and/or Amazon results, and/or OverStock results). The items you see are on a brand-new page that the plugin creates.
You, as the site owner, can keep this page or delete it. If you keep it, you can modify it by adding some relevant content. Voila! Instant new page that you hadn’t thought of.
Rochelle
I used this and someone started searching swear words on my blog!
@Need to be careful,
Yes, that is a concern. The plugin does have the option of censoring words that you specify. I added a huge list of obscene words that I don’t want results for and recommend that every one using this do the same.
Rochelle
Just bought it. Gonna give it a whirl…
Simon,
Good luck with it! Feel free to share your opinions of it here after you’ve got it up and running.
Rochelle
Hi Rochelle,
I’ve been using S2P for a while now, I have it on all my phpbay/phpzon/phpostock sites. I do a fair bit of beta testing with Alan (the S2P author) and I have to say that this is one of the most useful plugins available anywhere for getting your site up the SERPS. I’ve had to create a separate gmail account just to handle the quantity of emails I get from the plugins each day.
I use it in 3 very different ways, on some “set and forget” sites I just let it run and don’t change anything (swear words excluded obviously). The pages get created and the SEs see the site growing. On my better sites I edit each new post to be appropriate and list them in a “Latest Searches” widget.
And thirdly, on new sites, I enter my own searches 2-3 times a day to build content as simply and efficiently as possible.
Note: It always pays to tune the self generating descriptive text for the particular site and not to just use a default block.
Kev
I’m new to building sites and have just bought this plugin to help me build up some content quickly and easily while I’m still learning the ropes. I’m just stuck though on how to get the results to post on the homepage… the only options for where to post the results seem to be on created pages. Can anyone offer a suggestion?
Thanks so much,
Jo
Jo,
It sounds like your blog may be setup to show a static (non-changing) page. If you want your blog posts to show on your Home page then log in to your blog’s Admin and do the following:
- Click on Settings / Reading
- Select ‘Front page displays’ = Your latest posts
- Save changes
Rochelle
This plugin does sound good, but I have already changed my WP template so that when someone searches, the phpbay or even ReviewAZON plugins will list some items above the post results.
All I need to do then is to pop into my google analytics now and again and find the things that people are searching for to make fully content enabled posts.
Job done!