Automated Video Sites

Posted on November 23rd, 2008 by DK1 in Coding, Internet, Make Money Online, Webmaster

(updated 24/10/09)
Recently a discussion over at bloggingtips.com on automated sites made be think about an earlier project Automated Sites; The real cash? and I thought are these kind of sites still a viable option?

So I rustled up my old wordpress setup files (as wordpress has a tendency to rank very quickly) and grabbed some Vital Plugins:

Keep the juice in the fridge! – Get High PR Auto Blogs

Platinum SEO Pack
SEO Friendly Images
SEO Smart Links
Redirection (use this on your 404 pages etc. and redirect back to your homepage)

These help prevent link juice flowing out of the site; which for an automated sites is a vital money maker.

Stay here…and there …and comeback! – Keep visitors on your auto blogs!

MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad
WordPress.com Popular Posts
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

One other thing vital for a ‘automated site’ is to make the people who land there stick around a while. This does two main things; increases pageviews which in turn increases your alexa rank and secondly the more people that visit the better it is for your PR

Crawl My Pretty Crawl! – Get your Auto Blog Indexed

Dagon Design Sitemap
XML Sitemap Generator
Breadcrumbs
Page Numbers
Ping Crawl

An automated site such as this may be created to a mass size in a relatively shorted amount of time, and while the aim is to monetize the size not quality of the site the PR is not to vital. However it should not be ignored either. So the plugins listed help in two main the first 4 increase the amount of links visible on or linked to your front page.

What this means is that every time a SE bot visits you it will crawl all the links (some argue first 100/300) and so re-index or even index the posts, some of which we hope get nice ranking in the said Search Engines.

The other plugin is a bit more devious. It will create trackbacks based on the post tags and therefore garner incoming links to the post, and we all know incoming links are good.

Automate me!

There are many a plugins around that automate building sites by pulling from rss feeds etc. but as this is a planned to be a video site… I thought youtube! After a bit of hunting I found the following plugin:

TubePress.Net

Now your thinking hey wait a minute this plugin while waaaaaaay cool is not automated at all…well to you say seek and ye shall find.

By share coincidence I cam across this code in my daily rounds (credit goes to rograndom)

 
<? 
if (!empty($_GET['wpcat'])) {
$wpcat = urlencode($_GET['wpcat']);
$keyword = urlencode($_GET['keyword']);
 
$url = 'http://YOURSITE.com/wp-login.php';
$url2 = urlencode('http://YOURSITE.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tubepress-tag.php');
$post = 'log=WORDPRESSLOGIN&pwd=WORDPRESSPASSWORD&testcookie=1&redirect_to='.$url2.'&submit=Login';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "/tmp/cookies.txt"); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 10);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
echo curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
 
$urlb = 'http://YOURSITE.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tubepress-tag.php';
$postb = 'tag='.$keyword.'&per_page=50&page=1&cat='.$wpcat.'&update_tp=Import+Videos+%C2%BB';
$chb = curl_init($urlb);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "/tmp/cookies.txt"); 
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 10);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postb);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
echo curl_exec($chb);
curl_close($chb);
 
} else {
?>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<form method="get">
<p>Category: <input type="test" name="wpcat"></p>
<p>Keyword:<input type="test" name="keyword"></p>
<input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
<? } ?>

What this does is well automate the process with a very simple cron job!

1	curl --output=/dev/null "http://YOURSITE.COM/SCRIPTLOCATION.php?wpcat=WORDPRESSCATEGORY&keyword=KEYWORD"

Now while this is all and well it doesn’t work for shared hosts (some of the time) and as the vital point for automated sites it to have minimal expenditure so I rustled up a few amendments:

 
<?php
$wpcat = 'DEFAULT CAT';
$keyword = 'DEFAULT KEYWORD';
$number = rand(1, 6);
 
switch ($number)
{
case 1:
  $keyword = 'funny'; 
  $wpcat = 'primarycat';
  break;
case 2:
  $keyword = 'funny videos'; 
  break;
case 3:
$keyword = 'lol';
  break;
case 4:
$keyword = 'rofl';
  break;
case 5:
$keyword = 'wtf';
break;
case 6:
$keyword = 'standup comedy';
default:
  echo "FAIL!";
}
 
$url = 'http://WEBSITE.com/wp-login.php';
$url2 = urlencode('http://WEBSITE.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tubepress-tag.php');
$post = 'log=USER&pwd=PASSWORD&testcookie=1&redirect_to='.$url2.'&submit=Login';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "/tmp/cookies.txt"); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 10);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
echo curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
 
$urlb = 'http://WEBSITE.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=tubepress-tag.php';
$postb = 'tag='.$keyword.'&per_page=3&page=1&cat='.$wpcat.'&update_tp=Import+Videos+%C2%BB';
$chb = curl_init($urlb);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, "/tmp/cookies.txt"); 
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, "/tmp/cookies.txt");
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 10);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postb);
curl_setopt($chb, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
echo curl_exec($chb);
curl_close($chb);
 
?>

This enabled firstly to add more categories and ‘tags’ and to add them in a random manner to prevent it looking to much like a automated site. It can be easily done by adding an extra number on the random and adding something like this after the latest ‘case’:

case 7:
   $keyword = 'monty python'; 
  $wpcat = 'Monty Python';
   break;

This would enable to run the cron job using something like:

1	/usr/bin/php /home/username/file.php

Alternate Auto Blog Plugins

However If you don’t like to mess about with all of this check out RealVMS Plugin …it does all of the above as well as porting comments etc and is only $1!!!.

Another Alt is Caffinated content though this is a bit more expensive, though it has a lot more cool functions.

The Last viable alternative I have found is WPVideoTube. This is similar to VMS (arguably inferior) but there is a demo version of it that you can play with.

Links!!

Links to the site are always useful (we can hope for PR and the extra pay boost) however going with the full flow of Automated Video Sites we want the links to be automatic as well.

The aforementioned PingCrawl plugin can help you get some links however it is not ‘guaranteed’ to find links for every post.

So we turn a quick and simple link source that can be automated with ease and has other benefits. Namely Social media.

Now there are a number of tools that can do this but the one truly ‘automated’ one is Traffic Android. Essentially after the update what it will do is grab posts via RSS feeds and bookmark them! Simple as cheese and with the added bonus of traffic!

Continuing with social media I suggest you check out Alex Kings Twitter plugin. This will ‘auto tweet’ your posts.

Lastly as an alternative to Traffic Android I will point you to Auto SocialPoster plugin for wordpress. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles like Traffic Android, but it is a one of cost as opposed to the monthly costs of traffic android.

Target the longtail! – Getting traffic to your Auto Blog

Now as the site is automated we can’t hope to topple the number one in the niche for ‘poker’ or ‘health’ etc etc. However for us to make an impact and any cash with a CPC/M campaign we have running on it we have to get some interested traffic in.

The one (and easiest) method to do this is to target longtail keywords. Now this is not the location to define what such a keyword is (google it) but for our purposes at the moment we’ll assume you know what they are and you have a few for your niche.

Now as we want this to be an auto blog / automated site we dont want to write content for it like we would for a niche site we want this all automated.

Yahoo Answers

Question google and you are bound to find a Yahoo answer in the topic. With this plugin (free version) just plonk in 5 of your long tail keywords, allocate a category (Q&A works well ) and then let it do its thing.

This will help you in three ways
1) It targets those obscure keywords getting you SE rankings.
2) Builds ‘authority’ on your primary keyword.
3) Fresh content so the auto site is always being crawled!

Now there are other plugins you can use like:

Article Autoposter for extra content or the all singing dancing WP-Robot / Caffinated Content, though that is truly up to you, A video / QA site will work fine as well.

Pay me! – Make money from your auto blog

Now with the site essentially setup all we need to know is to make some money!

As always we do not want to worry about our automated sites and just want it to make us some money or give us link equity!

Firstly we do not want to use adsense etc as it is trackable! and well may cause more problems then money.
Saying that if you DO decide to use a CPC service make sure you install all in one adsense to help CTR by putting it IN the posts and Privacy Policy Plugin to keep you on the right side of the provider and help yu not get banned!

However for this article what we are focusing on is the one thing an automated site has a plenty of….pages.

Assuming you have 10 new ‘posts’ every day that is an extra guaranteed ‘$0.03′ per day using TNX (for a non pr page) to sell links. TNX is very simple to use, as it automatically crawls the site and sell links for you.

The optimal place in my opinion is to place the links is the footer…add a pre-text saying ’sponsored by’ and no-one is the wiser.

Another way you could utilise your sites and make a little more cash is using oiopublisher while yes this does cost a little bit the benefit can outweigh the initial cost. one link sale on your automated site even at $1 is an extra dollar per month!

As with all automated sites you have to play the numbers games, you have build loads; make them seo friendly (plugins should help) and get the odd stumble / digg etc on some pages to drive a bit of traffic to it. Then just wait for TNX do to its job.

Results

After setting up the site and with one week gone…the site is bringing in about 50-60 people per day and TNX just sold 1/3 of the links on the site giving me a $5 payout! Add the fact that I have sold 1 link via OIO that is a $6 income from a site that took a little over 30mins to setup.

If the site was to sell all its links that would be a $15 income stream per month; and as the content is automated the page number would grow daily and provide more revenue potential.

As a domain only costs $10 at the maximum and the fact you can buy cheap hosting Use Promo code ‘Jury’ for $0.01 at Hostgator. Your initial expenditure is not high.

In conclusion if we allow each site to grow and replicate the sites; the possible income from these sites still is a viable option for some nice and easy cash.

Don’t just take MY word for it check out this Case Study conducted using this method.

For a bit more detail on how you can further utilise your automated sites for SEO and Affiliate marketing have a read of:

SEO empire by blue hat SEO
and

SEO empire by glowleaf

feel free to ask any question queries or if you need any help….and ofc I welcome your opinions.

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25 Comments
Tags: auto sutes, automated, automated blogs, automated sites, automated video sites, make money online, MMO, splogs, wordpress

25 Comments

At 2008.11.24 12:00, Make Money Online said:

This is awesome, mate! So basically, if you make 10 of these sites, that should be an extra $100/month.

[Reply]
- At 2008.11.25 08:47, Donace said:
  
  In theory … throw in a aged domain to boost first months revenue…and as long as TNX sell the links your good…but remember these sites have ‘SEO’ value as well…ideally you want them to make enough revenue to cover their costs….i.e. domain name and their share of hosting costs.
  
  [Reply]
At 2008.12.09 08:19, narendra.s.v said:

well thats a nice concept but i already have a video site with a youtube script but it doesnt make much of money even not enough for hosting

[Reply]
- At 2008.12.09 08:32, Donace said:
  
  Have a look at Update – Links – Love Aqueitas released a new plugin that makes it even easier, and add linkxl, it makes things a little easier on your wallet, The one test site I made Now pay for its own hostgator hosting and then some.
  
  [Reply]
At 2009.01.07 10:01, Donace said:

The URL for the plugin is http://www.wickedfire.com/design-development-programming/45154-auto-video-site-using-wordpress.html

[Reply]
At 2009.01.11 05:23, tutorialand said:

Tutorial added

http://www.tutorialand.com

[Reply]
At 2009.01.11 05:39, Donace said:

Thanks man! hope it was useful to you.

[Reply]
At 2009.02.07 09:35, Scott said:

hey have you ever checked out techmeme.com?

wondering if you know anything that could create something similiar like that.

grabbing RSS feeds is easy. but how to cluster them together and rank them.. that’s
the hard part.

[Reply]
- At 2009.02.07 09:37, Donace said:
  
  Hey Scott
  
  Thanks for dropping by; regarding techmeme; I had a quick 30 sec look and
  a quick replication could be done;
  
  Basing this on wordpress for ease; install wordpress; grab a content
  syndication plugin such as smart rss etc, this will enable you to set
  different feeds to different categories.
  
  The grab ‘ping crawl’ (http://joshteam.wordpress.com), this will grab
  related articles of the net ‘automagicaly’ based on the tags set for the
  post.
  
  Lastly grab a ‘related plugin’; this will interlink your posts and
  categories.
  
  If you need further help hit me up on msn
  
  [Reply]
  - At 2009.02.07 09:38, Scott said:
    
    Hi Don, thanks a lot for the tips!!
    
    Hmm… techmeme.com has some sort of secret algorithm that updates every 15
    mins and ranks articles based on popularity somehow. Wonder how they do it.
    It used to run by one guy. how could the wordpress solution be built to
    automatically rank articles based on popularity?
    
    Another site similiar to it is megite.com
    
    I like to build something similar to it but for different
    
    scott
    
    [Reply]
    - At 2009.02.07 09:40, Donace said:
      
      Hey Scott
      
      re: autoupdate every 15 mins a simple cron job will achieve that;
      regarding sorting by popularity; i recently came across smartsort plugin
      http://wpsmartsort.dyasonhat.com/, have a look at that.
      
      Also the second site you mentioned actually sells their script so do check
      that out.
      
      [Reply]
      - At 2009.02.07 09:41, Scott said:
        
        thanks don.
        
        yeah megite.com has license but it’s like $100K. bleh…
        
        i’ll check out those links.
        
        scott
        
        [Reply]
At 2009.02.19 07:33, Free Article Directory said:

Great tutorial, though as a first time blogger all those plugins took some time to work through.
I’ve now got my first autoblog set up and am anxiously awaiting the results.

[Reply]
- At 2009.02.19 08:01, Donace said:
  
  Glad it was of use! don’t forget to sign up to TNX etc and feel free to leave a message if you need any help.
  
  [Reply]
At 2009.05.24 04:44, The Work At Home Blog said:

this is really cool. Who knew making money could be so easy as automatic. Great tutorials here!

[Reply]
- At 2009.05.24 12:50, Donace said:
  
  Indeed it is fairly easy to do; if you need any help setting up your first few just give me a shout.
  
  [Reply]
At 2009.05.28 04:39, Jamal said:

well, Can I use this on a blogspot domain ?????

[Reply]
At 2009.05.28 05:37, Donace said:

No this method is for a wordpress site; you will have to get your own domain name and host for it work.

[Reply]
At 2009.05.28 09:27, Jamal said:

thanks for the info.

[Reply]
At 2009.05.29 18:29, joek said:

Thanks for the detailed info. I have to pick up several plug ins now.

[Reply]
At 2009.06.10 03:28, r4 ds said:

Awesome information!
I’ll try it out as soon as I’ve gotten the stuff needed.

[Reply]
At 2009.07.01 07:26, Eujenio de la Garcia said:

Thanks, DK1. Great info. The tubepress link does not seem to work for me. I will try to find it from an alternative location.
Edit: Seems like they have switched over to tubepress.org

[Reply]
- At 2009.07.01 08:44, Donace said:
  
  glad it was of use; though the .net seems to work for me
  
  [Reply]
At 2009.07.01 09:16, Eujenio de la Garcia said:

Thanks Donace for getting back. TubePress.Net does seem to work or me now. Must have been a temporary glitch.

[Reply]
At 2009.07.04 09:27, Love poems & Love Quotes said:

Blue hat SEO does lay it out on a table for us. He really knows SEO hands down! Thanks for mention here!

Regards,
Jermaine

[Reply]