Thread: What happens to Autoblogs if they don't limit the post count?

I think that eventually, as software becomes more advanced, it may be difficult to tell the difference between an auto blog and a low-end blogger. Now we can semi-automate article production with good grammar. So it's just a matter of time until the grammar correction engine is developed.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

I never ran an autoblog, but I watched several. For a long time they could stay ahead of Google penalties if they added enough posts every day. That is because the duplicate content filter was run separate from the ranking algorithms, so there was always a lag of weeks or months before a post was flagged for duplicate content. Continually adding new content kept the sites ahead of the wave.

From what I have seen in the post-Panda environment, once a site reaches an unknown threshold number of infractions, it no longer ranks well and Google will eventually de-index the site.

my site is auto update and currently with 400k post (max for wp), with daily 3-4k post update n delete, so far only encounter small issue with google panda effect, my traffic was increase 15-20% (monthly base), after panda it slow down to 5-10% increase but not totally de-index

btw i'm not sure is post panda issue or i start deleting old post .....

The ones I ran were highly targeted keyword wise and only received about 20 posts a day max and Google seemed to like them. But the stickied posts were original articles and they received most of the Google traffic.

If I was Google, I would ignore most of the older posts on a frequently-updated blog. So it's possible that you are wasting money on hosting if you are keeping all of the posts.

Here is the code for the WP plugin that I coded:

PHP Code:

function delete_old_posts()
{
    global $wpdb;

    $tokeep = 90;
    
    $protected = array(1); // Array of protected post ID's
    
    // Select the posts to be deleted
    $rows = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE `post_status` = 'publish' AND `post_type` = 'post' ORDER BY ID DESC LIMIT $tokeep,1000000" );
    
    foreach($rows as $row)
        if (!in_array($row->ID, $protected))
            wp_delete_post( $row->ID, true ); // Delete post and force deletion rather than trash it
}

add_action( 'publish_post', 'delete_old_posts' ); 


I ran this plugin on my blog for a few weeks now and it still ranks and maintained PR.

If I am paying ten bucks a month for hosting, and I have like 10 gigs of storage, how am I wasting money by not getting rid of old posts?

Plus old posts still may contain good information to readers.

I use on one blog a plugin Will had mentioned that randomly brings up an old post.
It works for me, as bringing up an old post each day means new visitors to that post.

And if old posts are in the serps, what do you do when people try to go and find nothing?

If I am paying ten bucks a month for hosting, and I have like 10 gigs of storage, how am I wasting money by not getting rid of old posts?

You are not wasting money since your low-traffic site is not consuming much CPU and memory on the server so your web host doesn't require you to upgrade.

Also, you probably didn't notice that this thread is about Autoblogs that create new posts sometimes 1000's of times per day.

Originally Posted by Andy101

You are not wasting money since your low-traffic site is not consuming much CPU and memory on the server so your web host doesn't require you to upgrade.

Also, you probably didn't notice that this thread is about Autoblogs that create new posts sometimes 1000's of times per day.

Don't some of those old posts still draw traffic vs. most not? Any sort of filter you use to save the good ones?

Don't some of those old posts still draw traffic vs. most not? Any sort of filter you use to save the good ones?

In my experience and others that tried auto-blogging, your web host will want you to shift over to VPS or dedicated servers if you just let it run because it will cause high server load. Hence, my decision to clip off old posts and keep only the fresh posts.

But, ideally you can keep 400K posts to get the residual traffic from older posts like our extreme blogger above did.

For filters to detect which posts are worth keeping, you would need to implement a tracker that records the recent post IDs that were hit on. Then add these post IDs to the protected array in the plugin. This is a good idea Hmm, maybe I will add this feature?

Originally Posted by Andy101

In my experience and others that tried auto-blogging, your web host will want you to shift over to VPS or dedicated servers if you just let it run because it will cause high server load. Hence, my decision to clip off old posts and keep only the fresh posts.

But, ideally you can keep 400K posts to get the residual traffic from older posts like our extreme blogger above did.

For filters to detect which posts are worth keeping, you would need to implement a tracker that records the recent post IDs that were hit on. Then add these post IDs to the protected array in the plugin. This is a good idea Hmm, maybe I will add this feature?

You should. I do loads less posting than you, so for me it is easier to track by looking at stats.

But another thing I pay attention to is trends. Posts which experience growth in traffic tend to keep rising due to new incoming links and people sharing them on social media.

I have a few more ideas, but will leave it at that for now.

I do loads less posting than you.

I don't do high frequency blog posting, also I'm not working on WP plugins right now.