4 Ways To Use Local Syndication
(the WordPress Plugin)

The Local Syndication WordPress plugin has lots of functionality, all having to do with publishing content into posts or pages that is obtained from a URL. This article presents 4 ways to use it.

1. Publish output from scripts.

2. Publish content as JavaScript to prevent SE indexing.

3. Syndicate content to other websites.

4. Publish identical content on multiple wordpress installations.

The information about those 4 ways to use Local Syndication are below the installation notes.

Installation Notes

To install the Local Syndication plugin, either

• Use your WordPress dashboard to install the plugin.

  — or —

• Download the plugin from willmaster.com and then install it.

  1. Download the plugin from the Local Syndication page.

  2. Decompress (unzip) the file contents.

  3. Upload the local-syndication folder to your WordPress plugins directory (/wp-content/plugins).

  4. Activate the Local Syndication plugin from the WordPress dashboard.

4 Ways to Use Local Syndication

1. Publish Output From Scripts

Here is real power. Specify the URL of a script in the shortcode and the script's output is published into the post or page in place of the shortcut.

The script can be any PHP or CGI script running on the server that is also at a http://... URL. Examples to stimulate ideas:

• Rotated images or other content.

• List of most popular pages.

• Content obtained live with permission from other sites.

• Ad delivery software. (Like Carefree Ad Manager)

Specify the URL of the script in the shortcode and you're good to go. Example:

[syndicate_local url="http://example.com/yourscript.php"]

2. Publish Content as JavaScript to Prevent SE Indexing

When content is published with JavaScript, robots and spiders are more likely to ignore it than they will regular content.

Here is example source code for regular content:

Hello, World!

Here is example source code for JavaScript-published content:

document.write("Hello, World!");

The JavaScript publishes Hello, World! just like regular content. But the JavaScript-published version is more likely to be ignored by robots and spiders.

Some things are best ignored by SE spiders. Ads, for example, especially if they are not relevant to the topic of the page. And any content that may contribute to the SE algorithms coming to wrong conclusions regarding what your page is about.

For example, if your web page is about Siamese cats and on the page you tell a story about a neighbor's poodle, the search engine may incorrectly conclude your page is about poodles. The page may then rank for poodles and be nowhere for Siamese cats.

(Not that I am an SE expert. Far from it. It's just that I've seen how off-topic content can give search engines an incorrect idea regarding what a whole website is about.)

Publishing content as JavaScript is actually quite easy. Add the js="yes" attribute to the shortcode.

As an example, here is a shortcode to publish content from a URL the regular way.

[syndicate_local url="http://example.com/yourcontent.html"]

This short code publishes the same content but uses JavaScript to do the publishing:

[syndicate_local js="yes" url="http://example.com/yourcontent.html"]

Publishing content with JavaScript does not guarantee the content will not be spidered or that the content will stay out of SE indexes. But it does make it more likely that robots and spiders will ignore the content.

3. Syndicate Content To Other Websites

Other website owners may wish to syndicate some of your content.

Create a separate file with the content to syndicate. Provide the URL of the content for website owners to plug into the Local Syndication shortcode.

Any website owners who haven't yet installed the Local Syndication plugin, let them know how to get it.

The shortcode will be something like this.

[syndicate_local url="http://example.com/yourcontent.html"]

Replace http://example.com/yourcontent.html with the URL to the content you are syndicating. Let website owners know the shortcode needs to be on a line by itself.

Let website owners know how often your content will change. Let them know if they no longer want to publish the syndicated content, they can remove the shortcode from their blog post or page.

4. Publish Identical Content On Multiple WordPress Installations

If you have more than one WordPress installation, even if they are on separate domains, and each installation has some content identical to the other installations, the content can be retrieved from one central file with a shortcode.

Examples to consider (any of which may be a static page, a dynamic page, or the output of a script):

• Contact information.

• Download instructions.

• Daily photo.

• Current specials or sale prices.

• Paid advertisements.

• A countdown for something.

Whenever the central file is updated, all posts and pages that contain the shortcode in each installation will be updated.

Those are 4 ways to use the WordPress Local Syndication plugin. See the plugin's instruction page for information about how to use the it.

The Local Syndication plugin is actually quite sophisticated.

Will Bontrager