How to Create an Article Directory with WordPress

Written by on June 15, 2010 in WordPress Plugins - 20 Comments

Recently I have shown you how you can use WordPress to create an arcade website, job board and a discussion forum. Today I will be showing you how you can create an article directory using the Article Directory Plugin from Article SSS.

Creating an Article Directory with WordPress

The Article Directory Plugin is free and boasts a lot of great features; you really have a lot of freedom in how articles are displayed in the directory. You can decide whether you show the number of articles in both parent and child categories, whether categories with no articles are displayed, and whether the description is showed for parents and child categories.

It is also possible to change the number of columns of the directory and change the depth of sub categories to be shown.

Article Directory WordPress Plugin

In the settings area you can determine how the plugin is integrated with your post page. For example, you can show a warning if no categories are chosen or if 2 or more categories are chosen (which is useful if you only want the article to be listed in one category on your site).

Article Directory WordPress Plugin

In order to integrate the directory with your WordPress theme you need to add one line of PHP code to your template file, be it the index.php file or a new page template called article.php (or something to that effect). Additionally you need to import the categories.css file into your stylesheet (or copy the classes over).

If editing templates sounds daunting to you then do not despair as Article SSS have also released a Directory Theme for the plugin. The theme works right out of the box with the plugin.

Article Directory WordPress Theme

In order to review the plugin I installed it on my test blog however I didn’t spend much time with it other than seeing how everything worked. If I was going to use this plugin for a live website I would either :

  1. Use the Article Directory Theme and make several cosmetic changes to make it more appealing.
  2. or

  3. Use a more visually appealing theme but refer back to the Directory Theme for reference so that I can integrate the article directory with my theme.

Overview

Article SSS is another example of how versatile WordPress is. The plugin is both free and easy to customise which is why it’s proven to be so popular.

If you’ve ever thought about starting an article website I would encourage you to check Article SSS out.

Thanks for reading,
Kevin


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About

Kevin Muldoon is a Scottish webmaster and blogger who currently lives in Bogota, Colombia. He has an unhealthy obsession with trying out new WordPress themes and plugins and spends too much time in the WordPress Forums.

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Hi everybody !

I try to use this theme and there is a bug with last version of Wordpress. You can deactivate visual editor to repair bug...

I try to find a better solution but for now visuel editor doesn't work :(

Not sure of the last time this theme was updated therefore it could be clashing with something in the new version of WordPress.

Hi Kevin,

Theme is by Dimox.

Can you help us resolve the same ?

Unfortunately I don't have time at the moment to look into why the theme isn't working. I recommend contacting the theme developer :)

Hi,

I installed wp 3.2.1 & Article Directory Plugin + Theme. Registered as User & tried to submit article. But page is not getting loaded.

Help required to fix up.

Hi jay & Kevin,

Yes I have only just found it, installed it everything was fine until I went to submit an article and the page is cutoff, it is a simply query and someone who knows PHP could fix it in a minute or two...now to find someone!

It has not been updated for some time and is not working with the latest wordpress

Thanks for letting us know Jay. Unfortunately, this happens a lot with older free themes. Most developers dont update their free designs once they have been released.

Will it work with the latest Wordpress 3.1 update? Or at least with version 3.0? Also, do you know if it's possible to integrate the plugin into a Wordpress theme into a separate page (that is, not the "blog" page). Thanks.

hello kevin,

First of all thank you such a detailed post. i really like it.
i have also created a wordpress article directory using your mentioned plugin and theme.

The site is getting almost 200 articles per day and is on autoapproval but the biggest issue i am facing is of hosting. i am using hostgator reseller hosting account to run my directory but today i got message from hostgator that site is suspended due to heavy load on the server.
they tell me that site is running 1000 processes at a time and recomended me a vps server level six that would cost me $100 per month.

it is so expensive for me and i am unable to bear that cost for a single site. They also told me that the site script or plugin and badly coded and site is getting thousands hits from the same ip.

Can you please recomend me how to solve that issue of hosting. Any suggestions to keep the site clean. you would definitetly have the solution as you seems to be expert in that niche.

please suggest as soon as possible.

Thats not really true.

You can get a good/stable VPS for about $35/mo

Look up known host

they are a good vps provider.

Hi there Kevin, just came across your blog post - wish I had've found it a few weeks back :-) I recently tried the Article Directory plugin and it works well on my site http://Article-Smarticle.com - The only thing I struggled to work out how to set up is to have the Author's Name showing on the published articles (fixed that), or to show Top Authors in the sidebar (haven't solved that, but got a widget for Author Profile working).

I'll keep reading and learning on your site - thanks! :-)

Cheers
Teena

Hi Teena,

I'm actually writing about this next week.

There are a number of plugins that allow you to list authors. You should find them with a quick search (If you can't wait until next weeks post!).

Though you can display a list of authors without a plugin by calling the wp list authors function. It's pretty straight forward - all you need to do is add it to your sidebar.

I've installed Article Directory plugin and now my website- http://perfectz.info/blog/ is capable of creating articles. I invite all of you to join with me.

I found this article a little time ago and couldn't find it this time. I am going to make my blog also an Article Directory. Hope people can enjoy. :)
Thank you Kevin for this simple and descriptive guide.

I've installed Article Directory plugin and now my website- <a href="http://perfectz.info/blog/"http://perfectz.info/blog/ is capable of creating articles. I invite all of you to join with me.

Kevin,

Thanks for the tip. I am almost complete with the setup of my directory. Check it out at http://thegeniusblog.org/ .

If anybody wants to submit articles, you get 3 nofollow links on a directory that will keep growing a lot!

Thanks again,
Sarah

Hi Sarah, I am trying to delete an article off your directory and your contact form does not work. Please email me at info@visiblewealth.com for the link. It's very important I get this deleted asap.

nice post dude, i really want to make web directory but i don't know how to do it.