How to Install and Use Pligg’s “RSS Importer”

“RSS Importer” was dropped in Pligg 1.0.2. The website forum says that it

Step 1 – Download

For release 1.1.5, I found the most recent install in a link in the “online store” for Pligg. The product “My-RSS” apparently relies on “RSS Importer” to be installed. So the following link worked for me: Download RSS Importer 1.1.2 for Pligg 1.1.5

Step 2 – Install

To install it, 1) Unzip, 2) FTP the rss_import directory on your PC to the modules directory on your server, 3) Go to the “Admin/Modules/Uninstalled Modules” screen and click the “Install” button next to “RSS Importer”.

What is “RSS Importer”, and why do you need it? Most sites and blogs now publish what is called an “RSS feed”, to allow their content to be “syndicated” to sites like yours. Why do you want this? If you just put up an empty Pligg site, it will be indeed

be empty. Nobody will want to add new links, because they won’t think the site is active. So you can jump-start your site with lot’s of interesting links by automatically adding links and contents to the most popular RSS feeds in your content-area.

Step 3 – Settings / Add a New Feed

To use “RSS Importer”. From the Admins panel, go to “Modules” then “Installed Modules”, scroll down to “RSS Importer” and click “Settings”. You will need to then maually add and configure each feed. You might consider adding 5 to 10 RSS feeds. If you need some to add, just go to Google and search for “your topic blog RSS”, with whatever “your topic” is. Try to find the best blogs. On the blog, find the “RSS” icon, click it, then copy the URL from the browser. This is the link to the RSS feed.

Click “Add a new feed” in Pligg/Admin/RSS Importer/Settings.
Paste in the URL that you copied above.

Step 4 – Configure the New Feed

The frequency (in hours) indicates how often you want your site to go read the RSS feed and update your site. If you want to make your site look like people have been voting on the links (instead of all the links having a rating of zero), then configure “RSS Importer” to assign random votes (between min/max “Feed Votes”).

The last step might be the trickiest. You need to map the RSS field names to the Pligg field names. Not all RSS feeds are the same; there are several formats, and they use different names. So you need to click “Add new link field” at least 2 or 3 times. You must map a minimum of two fields: 1) the URL, 2) the title. Most likely, you will also map the summary or content, and/or tags/categories.

Step 5 – Import this Feed

Click the “Import this Feed”. In other words, no need to wait the 12 hours until the next import happens, you can manually do it immediately. This will allow you to test your feed.

Step 6 – Verify Results

Go to your home page, and see the new imported feeds. Make sure the everything looks good (i.e. that you didn’t incorrectly map any of the fields).

Step 7 – Setup Cron Job

If you want the RSS content to automatically be “fetched” every x hours, then you also have to use your website “CPanel” to set up a cron job. The site below explains this:
http://enbeeone3.com/how-to-setup-cron-job-for-pligg-rss-importer-module/

Someone else created this video on You Tube, it’s an older release, but it will give you another good overview. Just note that the screens in the newer releases will probably look slightly different.


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