Inside Look at WordPress Data Feed Import Script

By Vlad Zablotskyy March 23, 2007

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Since practically my first day in affiliate marketing, I was always fascinated with data feed driven websites. Unfortunately without good knowledge of MySQL and PHP, I had to rely in the most part on service like GoldenCan or DataFeedFile. Using these data feed services is very easy and you can create websites to feature hundreds of products in short time. The downside of using these services is that even if you chose to feature a single category for a single merchant, you are likely to end up with a website that will have hundreds of pages. This can cause a big delay for your site to be listed in the search engines, and even if you get lucky, big part of your website may end up in Google’s so called “Supplemental Results”. Another downside is that these data feed solutions do not give you freedom to modify your data and your website will contain duplicate content found on hundreds of other affiliate websites.

WordPress Data Feed Import Script.

After discovering WordPress I realized that it can be used as a building tool for your affiliate websites. But it can take long time to build larger websites if you were to enter each post manually. With WordPress Data Feed Import you can build large sites in short time using data feeds from your merchants and and instead of constantly writing content you can dedicate some time to promote your website, or even work on multiple websites at the same time.

The script imports the product information such as product name, description, price along with your affiliate link and creates a post for each product, while giving you control if you want all your products to appear at once (I highly discourage this option) or space them to appear on your site over certain period of time. In the next few steps I will show you have I imported my first data feed with this script.

Preparing Your Datafeed for Import.

After your successfully installed the script, running it will bring you to the following window:

WordPress Data Feed Import

Before proceeding you have to make sure that your data feed file is in the “import” directory. Also this would be a good time to make sure that you datafeed’s fields correspond to the fields in “conent.txt”. In my case I had to change following fields ProductName>>Title, SmallImgUrl>>Image, ProductLink>>Link. This is an important step and you should take some time to set it right. Also this is a good opportunity to work on the description fields to modify your content and make it unique. You will be surprised how one sentence can set you apart. In my first import I took shortcut by adding few words in the “content.txt” file:

WordPress Data Feed Import

While this data feed contained only golf clubs, I simply added “Drive your ball home with” before %title%. Disadvantage of this approach is that this sentence will appear in every single post and if you have more than just one category of products in your data feed this will not work well.

In the first image you see that I have set my posts to appear on the website every 3 hours. This is probably one of the best features Datafeed Import Script comes with. What it does is it schedules your posts and if you log into your WordPress Dashboard you will see all the scheduled posts:

Scheduled Posts

So now that WordPress is working for you you can spend more time building incoming links to your website or optimizing your PPC campaigns or start importing another data feed.

In my first attempt I have imported data feed from Overstock and this particular data feed features only golf clubs. Here is an example how the each individual post will look like:

Product Post

Using WordPress Data Feed Import Script is much easier than I thought it would be. Once you become more familiar with it’s features you can create websites in minutes.

WordPress Data Feed Script (aff link).

40 Comments

By Mark from Bloglyne.com, March 24, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
Interesting article Vlad -
I think I will check this out in due time. Thanks for the “heads up”
By Mark from Bloglyne.com, March 24, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
Interesting article Vlad -
I think I will check this out in due time. Thanks for the “heads up”
By Vlad, March 24, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
Thanks Mark,
I had my eye on this software since it was released but could not afford it at the time. I am planing to do some screencasts about it in the future.
By Vlad, March 24, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
Thanks Mark,
I had my eye on this software since it was released but could not afford it at the time. I am planing to do some screencasts about it in the future.
By ClarkeW, March 29, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
I downloaded the demo the other day and I am actually planning on putting it to use this evening. If all goes well, I plan on getting the full version. I know it is going to save a ton of time.
By Vlad, March 29, 2007 @ 7:15 pm
Tanks for stopping by ClarkeW,
One think you should consider is to slightly modify the datafeed. You can do wonders with excel or other spreadsheet… A sentence or two can make a huge difference.
By ClarkeW, March 29, 2007 @ 8:03 pm
I downloaded the demo the other day and I am actually planning on putting it to use this evening. If all goes well, I plan on getting the full version. I know it is going to save a ton of time.
By Vlad, March 29, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
Tanks for stopping by ClarkeW,
One think you should consider is to slightly modify the datafeed. You can do wonders with excel or other spreadsheet… A sentence or two can make a huge difference.
By lutfi allail, December 4, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
Is there any data feed importer that free of charge?
Btw thank for the article
By lutfi allail, December 4, 2007 @ 5:32 pm
Is there any data feed importer that free of charge?
Btw thank for the article
By richie, March 27, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Thanks for the interesting article. I bought this software and it is working fine, the only problem is I can't figure out how to get the feeds to automatically categorize when importing to wordpress. The posts keep getting listed as numbers – '3481' etc. which means I have to manually categorize all the feeds. My excel files are clean and no such numbers exist in them so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried playing around alot with the content.txt file but can't figure it out. I'm sure for the more technically gifted people this is not an issue but I am having problems…any advice would be much appreciated.
Thx.
By richie, March 28, 2008 @ 3:20 am
Thanks for the interesting article. I bought this software and it is working fine, the only problem is I can’t figure out how to get the feeds to automatically categorize when importing to wordpress. The posts keep getting listed as numbers – ’3481′ etc. which means I have to manually categorize all the feeds. My excel files are clean and no such numbers exist in them so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I’ve tried playing around alot with the content.txt file but can’t figure it out. I’m sure for the more technically gifted people this is not an issue but I am having problems…any advice would be much appreciated.
Thx.
By Vlad, March 28, 2008 @ 3:44 am
Richie,
Are the numbers become what we now the “title” of the post or are they only show as part of the URL?
By Vlad, March 28, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Richie,
Are the numbers become what we now the “title” of the post or are they only show as part of the URL?
By richie, March 28, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
Thanks for the reply.
The title of the post is the number itself – for example '3481'. When you click on the post, the URL looks like this
http://top40musicsites.com/category/3481/
By Vlad, March 29, 2008 @ 12:03 am
Richie,
It has been a while since I used this script. Way before WP 2.3.x. To be honest I was under impression that this script will be discontinued. In the past Teli was very good with the support. Sorry.
By richie, March 29, 2008 @ 5:54 am
Thanks for the reply.
The title of the post is the number itself – for example ’3481′. When you click on the post, the URL looks like this
http://top40musicsites.com/category/3481/
By Vlad, March 29, 2008 @ 6:03 am
Richie,
It has been a while since I used this script. Way before WP 2.3.x. To be honest I was under impression that this script will be discontinued. In the past Teli was very good with the support. Sorry.
By Beego, April 28, 2008 @ 8:39 am
Hi Vlad, good stuff. I wonder how well it works SEO-wise. Is it SEO friendly? Do you get visitors from the search engines?
By Beego, April 28, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
Hi Vlad, good stuff. I wonder how well it works SEO-wise. Is it SEO friendly? Do you get visitors from the search engines?
By Vlad, April 28, 2008 @ 11:49 am
Beego,
It's difficult to rank well with a datafeed that hundreds of other affiliates are using. I found it difficult get the “datafeed” websites to rank well.
But this particular is as SEO friendly as any WordPress powered blog.
By Vlad, April 28, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
Beego,
It’s difficult to rank well with a datafeed that hundreds of other affiliates are using. I found it difficult get the “datafeed” websites to rank well.
But this particular is as SEO friendly as any WordPress powered blog.
By HopY, November 19, 2008 @ 5:48 am
well, a bit of editorial enhancement on each post should probably make the difference for SEO. More work indeed but more revenue on the other hand. Any more feedback ?
By david, March 8, 2009 @ 10:08 am
the file datafeed failed to load
By Vlad Zablotskyy, March 8, 2009 @ 10:14 am
David,
This post was written a long time ago. I have stopped using the script since. Not even sure if the support is offered any longer.
By Ken Savage, March 21, 2009 @ 5:27 pm
Vlad, did you stop using it because it wasn’t any good or you found something better?
By Vlad, March 21, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
Ken,
I actually switched to Affilistore for my some of my websites. I also don’t think the author of this script provides support any longer- main reason I moved to Affilistore.
By Website Backlinks, April 6, 2009 @ 6:12 am
Unfortunately without good knowledge of MySQL and PHP, I had to rely in the most part on service like GoldenCan or DataFeedFile
“Importance Of Knowledge”
By Jay, July 6, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
I used Affilistore for a while last year however have since switch again to Price Tapestry which is an amazing product.
By Vlad Zablotskyy, July 6, 2009 @ 12:53 pm
Price Tapestry looks a bit “pricey”…. Although I am using Datafeedr now which in long run may be more expensive than Price Tapestry. But at least with Datafeedr I don't spend any time fixing and adjusting datafeeds to my liking as I did with Affilistore.
By david465456, September 11, 2009 @ 3:37 am
Mmm! I'm weighing up this against others and theres a very new one called CSV 2 POST which so far looks to blow all others out of the water.
The price from the UK was £39.99 but it was just increased however it seems easy to get 50% discount which is amazing.
Whats holding me back about http://www.csv2post.com plugin is why is it so cheap compared to these ones. It still looks genuine and far easier to use.
Prob worth the chance eh! lol
By christie, October 3, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
David i think since you left that comment i think the author has created new packages they range from £29.99, £59.99 and £99.99.
By quick cash, October 15, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
It use to take me hours to fall asleep as I am a hyper person (which I guess makes sense being a personal trainer), I find it hard to relax. In a weird way this music open’s up my mind and I feel like I am in some natural dream land of complete peace. All I know is that then next morning I am refreshed and energetic for my clients.
By jayne, November 1, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
hi i tried youre software and thought it was good. try this out http://www.webtechglobal.co.uk/?apid=abiswift92
By Ryan, April 8, 2010 @ 11:07 pm
That plugin is ok for short term use but no professional or anyone wanting to make progress on a large number of blogs should buy it.
Best plugin on the market for this task is Easy CSV Importer but its meant for professional use, lots of data and lots of blogs.
http://www.webtechglobal.co.uk/services/wordpress-support/premium-plugins/easy-csv-importer
Get WordPress Easy CSV Import for only £29.99 now before it increases to £99.99 later, it’s worth £99.99 maybe more check it out and see.