BlogPiG plugins now update automatically!

The auto-update feature of BlogPiG plugins was introduced just recently so that the process of updating to the latest versions of our products is much easier for you!

Plugins that now have the this feature are:

• CloakPiG 2.2
• CommentPiG 2.1.5
• CSVPiG 2.4.12
• TagPiG 2.2.7

How This Affects You

We’re updating our products all the time based on your feedback so take a moment to read the information below on how you can upgrade your product versions in a couple of clicks:

Update notifications will be visible in the admin sidebar (Updates, Plugins) as well as in the Plugins list table.

Users can then view info about the latest version and can perform the update from within WP-admin.

The update is performed by WP via FTP. The user is then required to enter her/his credentials (for her/his FTP server).

Users should note that that when entering information into the “Hostname” field (on the FTP credentials page), they should enter “localhost” (not the domain name).

Below are some screen grabs to illustrate the update notifications:

Update Notification in Plugins List Table

Update Notifications in Sidebar and Updates Page

Status Box in BlogPiG Plugin with Auto-update Feature

Plugin Info Modal Window

FTP Credentials Page

Tags: CommentPiG, WordPress Plugins, CSVPiG, BlogPiG products, WP plugin, BlogPiG Plugin

One of our members, Erika, asked for a new feature to be added to CloakPiG and a week or so later we delivered it.

One of the current features of CloakPiG is its PageRank hoarding functionality. PageRank Hoarder solves one of the key problems with affiliate and datafeed websites – too many outbound links. Every outbound link on your website bleeds a little bit of your PageRank away. PageRank Hoarder prevents this by giving you complete control over exactly how many links you display to search engine spiders. A human visitor would see all 20 of your outbound affiliate links on a page but Googlebot would see only three.

Erika wanted more control over exactly which links were visible to search engine spiders and human visitors, so we developed a the new Spider Safe feature within the PageRank Hoarding functionality of CloakPiG.  By marking your existing or new links as Spider Safe you ensure that they are always shown to both human users and search engine spiders even if PageRank Hoarding is active.

You can download the latest version of CloakPiG from your member’s page.

TagPiG

A few weeks ago I posted some helpful tips on how to get the best out of TagPiG, our auto tagging plugin.  What I didn’t do was tell anyone I’d posted these tips. Not so helpful. Anyway, I’m telling you now. If you use TagPiG already or plan to in the future, take a look at the blog post.

Change to BlogPiG Affiliate Program

You probably know that BlogPiG products are sold via ClickBank. BlogPiG has been running an open affiliate program via ClickBank since we started, so it’s easy for anyone to sign up and promote our products and make some money.

ClickBank provide a great service to affiliates with accurate and punctual payments. We will continue to offer our affiliate program via ClickBank but the program is becoming a ‘closed’ program, i.e. new affiliates will have to be ‘white listed’ by us before they can promote our products.

Why have we opted for a closed program?  Because our affiliates work really hard for us and they deserve to be paid the commission they have earned.  By operating a closed program, we can ensure that hard working affiliates get credit for the sales they have generated.

The partner page is currently being updated so if you would like to promote BlogPiG products and earn 50% commission, just ping me an email and we’ll get you set up.

Customer Support

Customer support is a key area of the BlogPiG business. We want our customers to be happy with their BlogPiG product or products plus we are a community driven organisation. We aim to develop our products based on customer feedback and input.

I’m pleased to introduce you today to a new member of our team, Benjie, who will be responsible for the smooth running of customer support.

Benjie is a technically minded but supremely friendly and helpful chap, so I know he’ll be a great asset to the team here and to our customers. You can check out his smiley profile pic in Support!

So, that’s all the news I can share with you for now. Forgive the slightly loose use of the name ‘SpiderPiG’ at the start of this post but being the high-brow individual that I am, I took inspiration from Homer.

Tags: auto tag, BlogPiG product, pagerank hoarding, BlogPiG business, pagerank hoarding functionality, CloakPiG, Spider Safe feature

Spiffing! Splendid! Hurrah!

Now, I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but here in Blighty we’ve gone Royal Wedding crazy.

Flags are waving, cardboard cut-outs of Wills and Kate adorn seats in cafes and stools in bars (I know, I’ve seen the photos on Facebook), street parties abound and the UK has even been given the day off work!

William and Kate do seem an ideal couple.  Kate brings to William the warmth and stability of a normal family background, home cooked meals and trips to the supermarket.

William brings to Kate the ultimate little girl’s dream-come-true of growing up to be a princess!  They are a perfect match.

WARNING: You are about to be exposed to the gratuitous shoe-horning of a marketing message into a topical item of world interest.

And here it is: Just as William and Kate are an ideal match, so many of the BlogPiG products are ideal partners.

Take the industrious CommentPiG. This busy plugin benefits no end from the guiding hand of TagPiG as its partner.  Like any good husband should, CommentPiG will take orders from TagPiG and do a much better job of its task as a result.

Likewise, CSVPiG, with its awesome store building strength, needs a good partner to look out for its best interests. CloakPiG will protect the commissions due from all those product listings on the online store, and will make sure CSVPiG’s hard work is not wasted.

So, if you have one of our products and think it would benefit from a partner (or more than one partner, as far as I know PiGs are not monogamous creatures), then consider our rippingly royal herd of prospective companions:
Simply click on the links below to find out more about each product:

• TagPiG – Tag your blog posts instantly

• CloakPiG – Cloak your affiliate links and increase your revenue

• CommentPiG - Get comments on your blogs instantly

• CSVPiG – Build online stores from datafeeds in minutes

Don’t forget that you can trial the products for just $7 for 7 days and if you go on to buy a full license, it comes with our 60 day money back guarantee.

Now, I’m off to put in my order for 10 of those delightful commemorative tapestry cushions – one’s parlour can’t be too regal, you know.

Royally warm regards,
Fiona

Tags: affiliate link, online store, Catherine Middleton, BlogPiG products, UK based company

We all know by now that Google’s Farmer update was a large-scale cull – everybody’s been talking about it and blogging about it.  Some big names have taken a hit, not to mention the swathes of smaller players who are just trying to make a buck.

So how can you help protect your sites from Google’s scythe?  Well, we have some proven theories and tools to put to you but first look at the context:

Who is Google aiming its scythe at?

Google is clearing out content which it deems to be of low grade.  Google wants to serve the best content it can to its users so it can keep hold of its share of the search market (erm, that’d be total domination, then?).

What defines low grade content?

Content which is shallow or duplicate or, critically, which looks software-generated rather than human-generated.  This is because Google thinks auto-generated content is not as useful to its users as hand-crafted, human-generated, unique content.

How does this affect you?

If you’re a BlogPiG customer, chances are you run multiple blogs, or one or two very large and critical blogs.  Some of our customers have hundreds and hundreds running at any one time.  Let’s be honest:  it’s an impossible to task to have totally human generated content on that many blogs.

So if you use content that hasn’t been bespoke-written for your site by a human, how do you not look like a content farm?

Actually, the question to ask is: how to I make my blogs or websites look human generated and human managed?

The key is to go and take a look at the sites that are still ranking high in the search engines. We’ve been doing this for years and we’ve noticed five major trends.

Comments

Comments are like votes.  Blogs only attract real comments if their posts are of value to the readers and in most cases this means they are not automated. Google knows that comments are difficult to get so a post with lots of comments is a trust indicator.  In general Content Farms do not have comments. We’ve always considered this to be a big footprint which is why we developed CommentPiG. CommentPiG gradually adds on-topic comments automatically to your posts removing the very obvious “no comments” footprint.

Read more about CommentPiG’s comment simulation here.

Tags

Most people who hand craft their blog posts will also spend a bit of time adding appropriate tags to it before publishing them. Tagging is very beneficial but also very manual process which is why it is another trust indicator.  In general we’ve noticed that Content Farms do not tag their posts like real bloggers do. Again we consider this to be an unnecessary footprint so we developed TagPiG to totally automate the tagging process and wipe out another obvious footprint.

Read more about TagPiG’s auto tagging here.

Site Growth

Most real blogs grow gradually over time, maybe a few posts per week on average. This is often termed ‘organic growth.’  For years now it has been possible to simulate a site that grows automatically over time – every autoblogging tool worth its salt has auto growth built-in including our own CSVPiG.  In fact, you don’t even need a plugin as WordPress’ own Schedule Post feature gives you the ability to completely automate organic growth. Content Farms often publish new posts & pages over time. Given the ease of automation we no longer consider organic site growth a reliable trust indicator.

Page Freshness

This is a very different concept to site growth. Real blog pages tend to grow and change over time as more and more comments are added. This keeps the pages fresh.  If each time Google visits a page on your site it appears exactly the same as the day you published it then Google is eventually going to stop coming back. Studies have shown that Google tends to visit static pages once every 25 days whereas it will visit daily for regularly updated pages. Content Farms tend to publish static pages that receive no comments and so become stale very quickly. This is another reason we developed CommentPiG to add fresh new comments to your pages on a regular basis just like a real blog.

You can read more about CommentPiG’s page freshness feature here.

Social Voting

As well as being commented on, real blogs are also talked about elsewhere. People will tend to bookmark, Like, retweet, vote, crosspost, trackback, pingback.  Call it what you want it’s all effectively the same thing – a social vote of confidence in the site and its content.  People will not bookmark, vote or retweet Content Farm posts & pages.  Simulating social voting naturally is very, very complicated and costly so it is a very accurate trust indicator. We’re currently developing SocialPiG our very own social backlinker so we know exactly how hard it can be to achieve this.

You can register for more information on the SocialPiG launch here.

So, you see that BlogPiG’s product development path has always been, and continues to be, about automating the tasks which a human would perform in as accurate and efficient a way as possible.  Our plugins create the clues or ‘trust indicators’ which Google is seeking when deciding whether content is of good quality.

• What methods do you employ to present Google with the content it demands?
• Are these methods automated or manual?
• Have you seen drastic changes in your rankings since the end of February?
• Have you changed tactics in recent weeks?

As ever, we love to hear from you, so let us have your thoughts.

Tags: CommentPiG’s page freshness, critical blogs. , blog posts, content farm, general content farms, organic site growth, SocialPiG launch, BlogPiG products, trust indicator. , auto tag