$297 from BlogSolution - License for installation on 100 domains
Version 2.0 is here! After a very successful run of a couple months for version 1.0, the folks at BlogSolution have used their customer feedback to enhance and create a great blog automation tool. After comparing versions 1 & 2, it became clear to me that we can expect great things from this company in the months and years to come!
BlogSolution is an automated blog builder. Unlike most blog creators, it doesn’t build Blogger or Wordpress blogs. It uses its own proprietary blog engine, and its own blog poster and pinger. It uses a MySQL database on your server to store the blog configuration and post information. BlogSolution is installed once per domain, and an unlimited number of blogs can be built in subdomains or subdirectories, whatever your preference. Posting content is provided by rss feeds.
Setup was fairly easy. Set up one MySQL database, ftp the program files to your server, and chmod a couple directories. You then run a short setup program, where license key information is entered. If you want to create your blogs in subdomains, you will need to enable wildcard subdomains on your server. I found this to be tricky at first, but my vps provider, slhost, has excellent support that took me through the process. Now that I’ve done it a few times, it isn’t a problem.
The program comes with licensing for 100 domains. If you follow my typical model of 50-100 blogs per domain, this will give you 5,000 to 10,000 blogs per license. I don’t like the limited license, but I view it sort of like I view a monthly subscription. I’m interested in finding out if deals are provided for the second set of licenses, or if an unlimited license will be sold.
The documentation is an improvement over version 1. Also, there is an online knowledge base and an active user forum. BlogSolution isn’t unusually complex, as far as installation and operations goes. I was able to do a successful install of 100 blogs within about one hour from purchasing the product. With a little familiarity, the actual configuration and creation process is a snap.
TBS has a very intuitive and straightforward user interface. My ultimate test is whether I need the manual for anything once the install is done. BlogSolution passed this test! Of course the documentation covers more than I could see on my initial pass-through, but the fact is, the management console is very strong, and includes all important functions on one main console page.
BlogSolution version 1.0 came with a few basic, ugly templates. I will add more notes here on the version 2 templates after I work with them for a few days. The beta version I worked with just came with the minimal templates, so I don’t have a feel for what version 2 includes. All you really have to do is plug your advertising code in, and you are ready to go. As always, I would strongly suggest using some of your own templates. The good news is that the provided templates are so simple that they shouldn’t leave any footprint. The knowledgebase includes descriptions of all the available template tokens. There are dozens of tokens available, to increase the flexibility of the content included on your blogs. It is clear that the developers focused on making inter-linking easy to set up.
The actual build process is so easy and quick that at first I didn’t think it completed properly. I entered a list of 100 keywords, and clicked the “process” button. It immediately built the blogs and listed them on the page. The blog management section includes links to all the blogs to view them. In that section, there are options to manually make entries to any of the blogs, or edit or delete one or more of them. The management console allows management of all blogs on that domain.
The “aggregate and ping” section of the management tool allows you to manually trigger posting and/or pinging. This would normally be set by a cron job, but you can manually do it also. I posted several times to my new blogs, then pinged once before I set the cron’s. There is a list of about three dozen ping sites, and the list can be modified. BlogSolution offers flexibility in the posted content. To help keep resource usage low, it will “save” feeds in a pending status, to be posted later. This save having to do a full rss search every time a blog is posted to. Or, when you are first setting up the blogs, you can have all feeds post, to give your blog a quicker start. Once set up, just instruct it to post only 1-2 entries per posting session.
One of the strongest features is the “batch” process. This allows you to enter keywords for many blogs, and have them built over time. This will be particularly useful for people with marginal hosting. Set up 1,000 blogs, but put them in batch. Start with 200, and have TBS add a dozen a day. More organic growth!
This tool is a powerful way of setting up niche blogs. Since the blogs are proprietary, there is none of the hassle that comes with entering Captcha’s for Blogger blogs. Also, the templates are very simple, and don’t carry the overhead that most Wordpress templates seem to have. The keywords aren’t being diluted by a bunch of unnecessary code. My initial index testing shows that I am able to get pages indexed within a few weeks by doing nothing other than posting and pinging these once per day.
Here are some suggestions for using the strengths of BlogSolution:
Niche Adsense blogs (subdomains): It will let you very quickly build individual niche blogs in subdomains. Just enter your keyword list, and let the tool build the blogs for you. This use of the tool is so fast, that the slowest part of the process is your account setup. It is a snap to build 1,000 blogs on ten domains in an hour or two. However, since the main source of content is rss feeds, it is hard to control the keyword density and the content of the blog. This is a quantity, not a quality play.
Niche Adsense blogs (subdirectories): Build a super-site of blogs in subdirectories on a related topic, using your best keywords for that topic. The tool takes care of the interlinking for you. My first site of this design is becoming indexed, and I’m anxiously looking forward to seeing the results!
Blog & ping blogs: Again, super-fast creation. BlogSolution gives you the ability to plug links into your templates. Version 2 includes an import method to enable large link lists. This is just in the process of being documented now.
Niche article blogs: This might be the best use of BlogSolution. Enter several keyword-focused articles about a topic into “pages”, then build your blog organically over time by posting rss feeds. The pages are linked by using tokens to all of your blog’s pages.
Of course, like any blog or site, these can be used to drive traffic to your other money sites.
The new version of BlogSolution includes a ping by proxy feature. I have not used this yet, and will have to report on it later.
BlogSolution is certainly a strong addition to a web builder’s portfolio. With it’s ease of use and super-fast setup, it will add another turnkey source of income to your internet enterprise! In today’s fast-changing internet environment, diversification of income sources is critical. This solution will bring you a set of sites completely different from anything else you have!
Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments about the current version.
Build away!
David