Today we’ve released an update to CSVPiG, our WordPress datafeed import plugin.

The new features only apply to the Pro Version but the Free version should be updated too.

• Brand new post templating option replaces column mapping, now just paste tokens into the WP content elements you want. Post Content areas can contain tokens and HTML!
• Clone settings now includes your BlogPiG API key so that CSVPiG is ready to run with all your custom settings as soon as the plugin is activated
• You can now use commas inside text delimeters in the header row e.g. column1,column2,”column2,b”,column3
• CSVPiG now keeps the case of column headers (previously it changed headers to lowercase)

The last two features were added as a result of user requests.

Please don’t forget we’re a community driven development company. We build features and product that YOU ask for! So don’t be shy drop us a note with anything you think will help you work faster and make you more money.

You can download the updates of CSVPiG Pro & Free inside the BlogPiG members’ area.

CSVPiG Free can also use the auto plugin update in WP Admin.

More features coming soon.

CSVPiG Free has been one of our most popular plugins to date, now we’re very excited to announce the launch of our newest WordPress plugin CSVPiG Pro!

This plugin forms the core of my autoblog business, I use it for every single blog I build, it really is an essential bit of kit.

With CSVPiG Pro you can:

• Unlock unlimited sources of free high quality content
• Import thousands of content rich posts to your blog easily & quickly
• Schedule those posts to appear naturally over time so search engines come back day after day
• Build automated blogs that last for years with no further intervention from you
• Even clone your custom settings across all the blogs in your network

Watch our 2 min CSVPiG Pro video promo here.

CSV feeds are a blog builders dream, imagine thousands of rows of content from every niche you can imagine just waiting to be imported and monetised on your blogs.

You can install any CSV file, with unlimited rows and unlimited columns, columns can have any headers and even be in any order! It doesn’t matter which affiliate network or merchant you’re downloading datafeeds from, CSVPiG Pro can import any of them.

Here are the basic steps:

• Download a CSV affiliate data feed from CJ, Buy.at, Sharesale etc.
• Upload the CSV file using CSVPiG
• Schedule the number of new posts you would like auto-posted per day
• Map the CSV column headers to the WordPress content elements such as title, post, categories, tags
• Publish the CSV file with one click

CSVPiG Pro is available as an instant download from the BlogPiG.com Members’ area. Here’s what is included:

• An unlimited license to use CSVPiG on as many sites as you own
• Free CSVPiG updates for life
• A comprehensive PDF user guide
• Full support from the BlogPiG team & community

CSVPiG is available in 2 versions – Free & Pro. The Free version is okay for small projects or just dumping CSV files into a WordPress blog. For serious power users we highly recommend CSVPiG Pro so you can really take full advantage of every advanced feature e.g. scheduling, mapping, ftp upload & cloning etc.

Watch our 2 min CSVPiG Pro video promo here.

• Asking: Tags not created in all posts – tag pig is showing tags on some posts but not all .. why? http://gsfn.us/t/pk3y #

• I've just released our Comment Extractors for YouTube, FriendFeed, Twitter & YahooAnswers – download the here http://blogpig.com/1133 #
• Asking: Posts won't move to admin area of WP install. – Can't see posts in admin after 24hrs. Have tried uninsta… http://gsfn.us/t/pg9j #

Today we’re releasing 3 new desktop applications and re-releasing one existing one.

They’re all completely FREE to download and use with your BlogPiG API key.

The 4 apps are comment extractors for YouTube, FriendFeed, Twitter & Yahoo Answers. I had them built to compliment CommentPiG, our automated blog comment simulator, but you don’t have to be a CommentPiG owner to use them.

The instructions are the same for all 4 apps and they are really simple to use:

- If it’s the first time you have ever run a blogpig desktop app you’ll initially be asked for your BlogPiG API Key. This will then be stored on your PC and you won’t be asked for it again for any BlogPiG dektops apps. If you don’t already have a BlogPiG API key you can get a free one by clicking on the link at the top of the page.

- Once the app has loaded just a enter the keyword or key phrase for which you wish to find associated comments

- If the app allows it choose whether it should be phrase matched for the comment search (returns less comments but more accuracy)

- Choose how many comments you would like returned (obviously more comments will take more time)

- Check the box for a “delay between requests” if availabe. Whilst this will slow down the comment extraction it will prevent your IP getting a potential temporary ban

- Browse to location you would like to save the resulting file, it defaults to the file extension CSV, I prefer to change this to TXT as it makes the Excel import easier.

And that’s it, couldn’t be easier…

You can download the apps from here or inside the BlogPiG Member’s Area:

Download YouTube Comment Extractor
Download FriendFeed Comment Extractor
Download Twitter Comment Extractor
Download Yahoo Answers Extractor

How I Use the Extractor Apps

I use these 4 extractor apps in conjuction with CommentPiG to preload my autoblog networks with a database of cleaned comments. Once uploaded CommentPiG autoposts these comments onto all the blog posts at regular intervals giving the blogs a natural popularity and content boost over time.

Let’s see an example:

- I’ve decided to build a 10 site autoblog network for the “singing lessons” niche, which is a great niche btw!

- I run all 4 extractor apps and set them to extract 5000 comments for the key phrases “singing lessons”, they won’t all extract 5000 comments it’s just a ceiling.

- When naming the save file locations I make sure I put the source name in the filename for each app and I also like to change the extension to .txt as Excel gives you more options later. e.g. “singing lessons comments twitter.txt”

- Once complete (it takes a little while to run through) I repeat the searches for more key phrases, I chose “learn to sing” & “singers” (this last one is more generic) [make sure you choose new filenames for each new search]

- Now I have 12 txt files containing thousands of potential comments, now we need to combine and clean them.

- There are several specialist tools out there than are really powerful for cleaning extracted content, I particularly like Text Pipe Pro. That being said you can easily & quickly clean comments in Excel.

- I open all of my .txt files in Excel, whilst opening it should ask you how you wish to import, be sure to choose NO delimeter character and leave the text delimeter as ”

- I now copy all of the files into one new Excel worksheet so they are all in column A. I currently have over 10k comments. (If you don’t already now about keyboard shortcuts in Excel this would be a great time to learn as it can really speed up your blog building. I particularly like SHIFT+CTRL+{ARROW_DOWN} to select a whole worksheet of row then CTRL+C to copy followed by CTRL+V to past into the new sheet. Then CTRL+{ARROW_DOWN} to zoom down to the last row. I also tile the windows so I can see them all at once but I do have a pretty big screen.)

- Now I clean the comments, I start by using Excel 2007 to remove the duplicates, this is in the Data menu

- Next I add the formula =len(A1) to cell B1 and drag it down to fill all of the b column giving the length in characters of each comment. I chose to delete all comments with less than 20 chars or more than 500 chars

- Now I sort by column A1 so the comments appear in alphabetical order and scroll through them quickly, this gives a very good overview of comments that are very similar or comprised of the same inital groups of words but where not caught by the duplicate filter.

- I also used Excel’s search & replace wit “@* ” in the find box (do no include the quotes but notice the space after the asterix). This removes all the Twitter usernames in the comments.

- You really can be a brutal as you want here don’t be too fussy about deleting the comments. If want to be really picky you can even put a formula like =IF(SEARCH(”singer”,A1)>0,”yes”) into B1 and drag it down all the comments then sort by “yes” in column B and delete those that don’t contain your keywords. Obviously this will eliminate a lot of comments and also reduce the amount of stemmed keyword comments you get, but it is a good way to keep comments on topic.

- I keep cleaning until until I’m happy with the balance of quality vs. quantity of my comments. I use a combination of filters, sorts, formulae and search & replace to get rid of any rows or words I don’t want.

- After about 20 mins of cleaning I still have just over 5000 comments left

- I import these 5000 comments into each of my 10 autoblogs using CommentPiG and let it post on random to my blog posts as they appear. I can use random comment selection as they a pre-cleaned and reletively on topic.

- I also personally don’t worry about the same comment appearing on different blogs as there is such a big pool, but if you are concerned simply divide the cleaned comment DB by the number of blogs you want to use it on

Get the apps now and start turning your autoblogs into communities!

The CommentPiG launch is going extremely well this week, I’ve had some repeated pre-sales questions come through so I’ve posted the answers here for everyone to see:

I’m interested in buying commentpig but I’d like to try it for a few days. Is it possible?

We can’t issue a trial license at the moment. We do of course offer a full no questions asked money back gaurantee for 30 days after purchase which is much better than trialling it for a couple of days.

Where do the comments come from?

The comments come from a variety of sources. When running in full auto-pilot uses your selected matching criteria (probably a tag from your post) to find comments from:

• YouTube – videos that are tagged with the keyword
• Twitter – using your keyword to search for tweets
• FriendFeed – using your keyword to search for comments
• Yahoo Answers – using your keyword to search for questions and using answers as comment
• Own Comments – you can harvest comments from any source and clean them yourself before uploading as DB to CommentPiG, this is the most powerful way to use CommentPiG

Do you happen to have a demo blog to see this working?

Not currently only live sites that I’m not keen to expose, I’ll put up a demo site asap and post the link.

Can I install the plugin on several my blogs?

Yes you can install CommentPiG on as many sites as you own.

Do you guys do installations?

Not officially, i.e. we don’t have installs on the price list but we’re more than happy to help out if you have any problems. Installing CommentPiG really should be as quick as uploading and activating and WordPress plugin. The only that occasionaly requires a little extra work is the ioncube loaders as about 1/10 hosts don’t run them by default. Most will add them if requested.

You can read all about CommentPiG here

Just click the support tab at the top of the page if you have any more questions.

• Back after xmas break. That was a busy one! Note to self. Buying a house with a new baby and seeing family at the same time is a no go! ^G #
• Just released CommentPiG Pro a WordPress Comment Simulator plugin that transforms AutoBlogs! Check it out now at http://blogpig.com/102 ^G #
• CommentPiG Pro – WordPress Comment Simulator Released! http://blogpig.com/1110 #
• TagPiG Pro is out of testing and ready for launch, I'm updating the documentation today. Loads of great new features! Stay tuned ^G #

• Back after xmas break. That was a busy one! Note to self. Buying a house with a new baby and seeing family at the same time is a no go! ^G #
• Just released CommentPiG Pro a WordPress Comment Simulator plugin that transforms AutoBlogs! Check it out now at http://blogpig.com/102 ^G #
• CommentPiG Pro – WordPress Comment Simulator Released! http://blogpig.com/1110 #
• TagPiG Pro is out of testing and ready for launch, I'm updating the documentation today. Loads of great new features! Stay tuned ^G #

We’ve just launched CommentPiG Pro our comment simulator plugin for WordPress. With CommentPiG Pro installed you can take your autoblogging to a new level and turn any blog into a hive of user generated content.

What does it do?

CommentPiG harvest relevant comments from around the web and adds them to your posts. Comments add relevance, confidence & keywords to your posts.

What’s the point?

One of the biggest footprints for any autoblog is the lack of any comments! All ‘real’ blogs have plenty of comments, autoblogs don’t. CommentPiG solves this by adding relevant comments to your blog posts.

What else does it do?

Glad you asked. CommentPiG can also your hide autoblog network links within comments and mix in random authority links to place your blog smack bang in the middle of a on-topic link neighbourhood.

Does it only work with new posts?

No. CommentPiG adds comments to all of your blog’s posts, new an old. In this way you can ensure that new posts get indexed quickly whilst archived posts have their content refreshed and get re-indexed regularly. You maintain complete control over which posts have comments added and how often.

How much work is involved?

CommentPiG takes about 5 minutes to install and setup after that it runs completely automatically for as long as your blog is live. You can add 1 comment per day per day or 100, it’s your call.

Where can I find out more?

Just head on over to the dedicated CommentPiG page find out more and download CommentPiG Pro today.

• Modifying the existing and adding new auto-tests for CSVPiG & CSVPiG Pro. ^A #