How to Create an Autoblog in WordPress

We will be discussing a topic that is becoming increasingly popular among WordPress users: autoblogging. 

But what is an autoblog, and How to Create an Autoblog in WordPress?

In short, an autoblog is a type of WordPress website that automatically generates and publishes content from external sources. This allows users to easily create and maintain a blog or news website without having to write or curate content themselves.

Autoblogging can be done using a variety of methods, such as importing content from RSS feeds or scraping content from other websites. It can also be done using specialized plugins or services that handle the content generation and publishing process automatically.

While autoblogging can be a convenient way to quickly create a content-rich website, it is important to keep in mind that it also has its limitations and potential risks. In this post, we will take a closer look at autoblogging and discuss the pros and cons of using this approach to building a WordPress website.

What is an Autoblog?

Websites which pull content from other websites automatically are called “autoblog” or “automated blog”.

Generally, the term refers to content-scraping programs and spam blogs. But there are many good ways to use autoblogging tools that further can be quite profitable.

If you want to create a curated website that features news on a specific topic, you can use an autoblog to do the heavy lifting for you. Additionally, autoblogs can be used on internal company networks and personal websites.

In any case, let’s check out how to make an autoblog in WordPress.

Creating an Autoblog in WordPress

Basically, there are two plugins for WordPress at the time of writing who make it easy to create an autoblog: WPP RSS Aggregator and RSS Aggregator by Feedzy. We will cover in the following WPP RSS Aggregator.

Installing and turning on the WP RSS Aggregator plugin is the first thing you need to do. Check out our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for more information.

The basic plugin is free. For this tutorial, you’ll need paid add-ons from the Advanced Feeds Bundle. The price starts at a whopping  $139 for a single site license. This includes one year of support and updates.

Once you have installed and activated, you can add a new feed source by going to RSS Aggregator » Add New.

Give this feed source a title and then enter the URL of the RSS feed.

Next, you need to move a bit further down until you see the “Feed to Post” section. 

By default, the plugin will import posts as draft.

If you enable the box next to the ‘Force full content’ option, WP RSS Aggregator will be able to get the full text of posts.

Next, you need to set up the section “Feed to post – images.” This is where you tell your autoblog how to deal with images.

It can automatically import images from feed sources and store them in the media library of your WordPress site. It can also get the first image in the content and use it as the featured image. You have to set these options up so that they meet your needs.

There are many other choices on the page for “add new feed source.” You can look them over and change them to suit your needs.

You can import or leave out content that matches certain keywords or tags by using keyword filtering. Furthermore, you can also add content before or after the source article.

When you are done, click the Publish Feed button.

You can now go to your posts page to see the feed items that have been added to your WordPress site.

Repeat the process if you want to add more feed sources. 

Quickly Adding Multiple Feed Sources For Your Autoblog

It can be time-consuming to add and set up each feed source one at a time. Here’s how to quickly add several feeds at the same time using the same settings.

Under Settings in RSS Aggregator, click on the tab called “Feed to Post.” You can change how the feed to post addon works by default right here.

When you add feed sources in the next step, these settings will be used for all of them.

Next, go to RSS Aggregator » Import and Export. Put the name and URL of the feed sources you want to add in the “Import” box.

Put a comma and a space between the name and the URL of the feed. Add one feed source per line. Then, click the bulk import button to quickly add all the feed sources to your WordPress autoblog.

Conclusion

We hope that you were able to construct an Autoblog in WordPress with the aid of this little tutorial.

A Word of Caution

If you wish to make your autoblog public, please do not scrape the complete content or photographs from other websites.

If you do so, you risk infringing upon someone else’s intellectual property rights. Further, in the last few months Google has regularly released new updates for their search algorithm where especially autoblog websites have been regularly devalued.

The most effective utilization of an autoblog occurs when it is included into the intranet of a corporation. If you are going to create a news aggregation website, then you should pull in summaries and link to the original source for the complete articles.