Support » Networking WordPress » Category Feeds on Subsites

  • This could be viewed a WPMU question/issue, or just a general multiple WordPress question/issue.

    I have a main site, I have multiple categories and bloggers submit content to those categories with images etc, I then need to get the same content posted to that category onto a page on another site (or sub-site in WPMU) but keep the nice WordPress formatting and images.

    I’ve managed to use an RSS feed to get the content into other sites, but it looses formatting and images do not come across.

    Any solutions?

    Thanks

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Even though it might be pulling from your main site it would still use the styling of your child site (sub-site) so you would have to fix its css for it or have a common css classes which u can replicate on every sub site

    Secondly you could try autoblog from wpmudev.org, see the demo and it might workout in your case

    I have used it to do exactly what you are doing, but my posts did;nt had photos so not sure if photos also pass along (they should as such)

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    I’ve managed to use an RSS feed to get the content into other sites, but it looses formatting and images do not come across.

    DO NOT USE RSS IN THIS MANNER! IT IS A BAD IDEA.

    Yes I am shouting about that. Bad idea. Baaaaaaaaad idea. If you have too much traffic, or too many sites, you will crash your site. Been there, done that. If you use RSS, for every single request, it goes back and asks your WP install ‘And this one?’ You end up tripling your usage.

    I then need to get the same content posted to that category onto a page on another site

    Now that in and of it self is also a bad idea, though for SEO reasons more than anything else. Why are we trying to cross-post?

    Hi mika, i know we have some how been on this discussion in lot of posts lately, and i know it is bad for seo, but sometime we dont want seo aspect,
    Secondly i have used it and i know u must have used it 100’s of time too,
    i dont see it crashing
    i am not sure how u have used it in particular, but how autoblog does it for me is it populates my categories on sub site and than (i am assuming it becomes content of that particular site and i have used that content/category post in number of ways to be displayed)

    can u put a workflow why is it bad other than SEO ?

    It can cause a loop condition which eventually consumes all resources and crashes. Here is a nice and timely writeup:
    http://bavatuesdays.com/a-ghost-in-the-wordpress-machine-the-self-referential-rss-feed/

    John, what i am assuming from that link is, that they r constantly pulling feed in widget,may be caused it to get into a loop.

    My reasoning was may be people r using rss feed for some other reasons as well which would not put it into loop or so do i think

    In my case, using autoblog i get the feed from particular category on my main site to populate the same category on my sub-site. and 90% chance is the main site content is not going to be updated in months and secondly even if it is updated every day i dont pull feed every time it is updated (autoblog gives u option to control that)
    in my case we r using this system as knowledge base for agent/sub sites as to not writing the same info again and again, and i dont see it getting heavy/ or ending in loop. (and its on a pvt network so no worrying about SEO)

    So just putting in perspective before we jump on saying oh its bad dont do it, we might want to first understand what the need could be, it might not be that server heavy or it might be one time pull.

    That was one example, Ipstenu was referring to another situation where it is simply inefficient and re-processes requests. I’ve used techniques like you are describing at various times too, you just have to know that you are behaving in a risky manner and there may be consequences. On a private, low-traffic site you are not going to be susceptible to some of those conditions, but when proposing the solution to others, it helps to have a giant asterisk next to it saying “here be dragons” which is what Mika was doing. If it blows up, they were forewarned.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    Sure, but you’re just as bad you know 🙂 You make an assumption that your solution, which can work on a small, very limited, basis, will work for everything.

    The fact is this: You’re the odd man out.

    I don’t mean it in a bad way, but you’re the guy doing a very special thing. For most everyone else, who does not do that, and who do not know the risks therein? You just put them at a huge risk.

    You have to be aware of the big picture with this stuff.

    If you want all the categories from all the sites to collect to one site, grab WordPress MU Sitewide Tags.

    It can handle the load.

    Got it 🙂

    So two cases while answering any of the question related to rss feed

    1: Bad totally bad, bad for seo, server could crash, endless loop, site crash, db crash “NO dont do it ”

    2:have a dedicated server, dont care for seo, have database management, are not extensively pulling feed on every minute bases. Than you can use wordpress MU sitewide tags or autoblog 🙂

    :))

    Thread Starter michaeljdornan

    (@michaeljdornan)

    You guys have been busy while I’ve been asleep (in Australia).

    I understand duplicated content is bad for SEO, is this still the case if it’s on a subdomain of the main domain? I believe so..

    As for why i need it, I’ll provide my situation, see if that helps, I’m not sure WordPress MU Sitewide Tags will work for me.

    I have a main site, a sports news site, the top of the WPMU tree is where all my content is submitted, the main blog/news site, I have about 40 categories all nested nicely, and I display what I want from the top of the (category) tree and down at specific sections, the news can be about a sport or within that tree about a specific league and within that tree about a specific team, there are links to various parts of this category tree displaying the content all over the main blog, depends what is popular in the sport world right now, some linked from the homepage etc

    The Subdomains in my WPMU site are all sports leagues or teams,if people wish to go direct to a subdomain and only focus on one team they can, instead of duplicating my content from the main blog, I would like to also have the category of that team or league, pull the contents into the sunbdomain (not just one category either, on the sub-site for a team I pull the team category into a page, and each of the leagues they are involved in into there own pages linked locally from the sub-site)

    One option is to just link them back to the main blog, would be easier, but then they get pulled away from that sub-site and loose focus.

    Hope that explains things and someone has a solution?

    Many thanks

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    You can use Sitewide Tags on any server, any setup. It’s mostly harmless 😉 The RSS thing causes a loop when you use it ‘too much’ and the real problem there is defining ‘too much.’ I can crash a single site with one of those, if I hammer it enough :/

    So … back to the topic at hand.

    Yeah. That’s a really complex set up :/

    Subdomains for leagues, and categories on the subs for the … er teams? Gosh, it’s hard to visualize that. I take it the site’s already built out as a single instance?

    Sports
    Leagues
    Teams

    So …

    baseball.yourdomain.com
    baseball.yourdomain.com/american/
    baseball.yourdomain.com/american/clevelandindians/

    Yeah, that’s something I’d have done backwards. That is set up the sports as subdomains, and then custom post-type out the leagues and teams. Use WordPress MU sitewide tags to pull the new posts into the main site.

    Thread Starter michaeljdornan

    (@michaeljdornan)

    Thanks Mika, sorry but I’m still confused, my understanding of WordPress MU sitewide tags is that it pulls from all the subdomain/sites into the main domain, but my content is already on the main domain, I want to push certain things out to my sub-sites?

    You might find some use in this plugin, I haven’t used it myself, but it allows you to publish from one site and broadcast it to others on the same network.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    Thanks Mika, sorry but I’m still confused, my understanding of WordPress MU sitewide tags is that it pulls from all the subdomain/sites into the main domain, but my content is already on the main domain, I want to push certain things out to my sub-sites?

    Right, what I’m saying is you need to do it backwards from now on 😉

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • The topic ‘Category Feeds on Subsites’ is closed to new replies.