WordPress Plug-In How-To Video

Discover how to quickly and easily add the latest version of this powerful new tool to your article writing and marketing arsenal.

Our new EzineArticles WordPress Plugin has been well-received by our members as a great way to easily submit new and existing blog posts as articles directly from the WordPress interface. The version we initially rolled out on March 25th triggered a flurry of comments and suggestions which led to numerous upgrades, modifications and bug fixes.

The latest incarnation of the plugin is getting rave reviews from members. The installation and operation are both relatively simple … with the operative word being “relatively” … depending on your level of experience with WordPress.

2010-04-26: Due to common issues the plugin has been updated to version 2.0

  1. Installing the EzineArticles WordPress Plugin:
    1. Log in to your WordPress interface
    2. Click on “Plugins” in the left navigation bar.
    3. Click on “Add New”
    4. Enter “EzineArticles” in the Search field
    5. Look for “EzineArticles WordPress Plugin”
    6. On the far right, click “Install”
    7. In the new window that opens, click on the orange “Install” button in the upper-right corner
  2. Activating the EzineArticles WordPress Plugin:
    1. On the next screen, click on “Activate Plugin”
    2. A small EzineArticles menu item will appear in the left navigation menu.
    3. Click on “Options” under the EzineArticles Menu
    4. You’ll need to get your unique EzineArticles API key. To do that, click on the “click here” text link right under the text entry field. (removed for v2.0 and higher)
    5. Fill out the form for generating an API key by entering your EzineArticles username and password. (removed for v2.0 and higher)
    6. Click on “Submit”. (removed for v2.0 and higher)
    7. You will receive an email from EzineArticles containing your unique API key (removed for v2.0 and higher)
    8. Copy your EzineArticles API alpha-numeric key from the email (removed for v2.0 and higher)
    9. Go back to your WordPress interface and paste your API key and enter your EzineArticles username and password. (edited for v2.0 and higher)
    10. Click “Save Settings”
  3. Submitting a WordPress Post as an Article to EzineArticles:
    1. Write a blog post as you normally would, or use an existing post
    2. Once you have your post ready, check the box within the WP EzineArticles menu in the upper-right corner
    3. Fill in and verify all items within this menu.
    4. Click the “Validate” button before you submit your article – this checks your post to see if it meets the submission requirements of EzineArticles before you actually submit it.
    5. If something does not comply with the EzineArticles submission guidelines, you will see a little yellow bar at the top of the page describing what needs to be fixed.
    6. Remember, EzineArticles does not accept images in your article. If you have an image in your blog post, you will need to remove the image, submit your post to EzineArticles, then put your image back into your blog post.
    7. Once everything looks good, you can either click “Publish” which will publish your post to your blog, or you can click “Submit” which will submit your post to EzineArticles.com. If you want to do both, click on both buttons.

When you’re sure everything’s working properly, take your new software for a test drive by submitting your next set of high-quality, original articles directly from WordPress. It’ll be a great way to learn the ins-and-outs of the interface.

Remember, this software is still fairly young, so please contact Member Support if you encounter any challenges with the installation or operation of the plugin.

And leave a comment with any suggestions you may have for added features or improvements.

Posted by Marc, Product Marketing Manager on April 9, 2010 at 9:45 am | 10,257 views

59 Comments


1
Brian writes:

Great stuff Marc … but isn’t this duplicating content? I thought EzineArticles only accepting original content.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 1:08 PM

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Brian,

EzineArticles accepts original content that is 100% exclusive and original to YOUR NAME, but we will accept articles from you that you also have on your own website before or after you submit them to us.

As for your duplicate content question… As long as you don’t syndicate or distribute 100% of your content, your risks of any perceived duplicate content worries will be very minimized.

April 9, 2010 at 1:17 PM

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2
kpearsonb writes:

You should note that the plug in cannot be used on WordPress.com, only the paid WordPress.org

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 1:12 PM

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3
fran prisco writes:

Tried it, but will not validate or submit. Any feedback?

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 1:20 PM

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Adele Berenstein writes:

I installed the plug in, activated it, got my api key, saved settings, tried using an existing blog post but it would not validate or submit just like Fran Prisco.

I have a WordPress.org blog at the most recent wordpress 2.9.2 level.

Advice please?

April 10, 2010 at 12:50 PM

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4
Sandy Shaw writes:

I have never seen anything so terribly complicated. I am smiling as I write this! What is a Blogpost? Would it not be as quick to copy it to Word and edit it and then submit it in the normal manner? Sorry, but I did not understand the various steps at all. Am I really missing something important? Or does anyone else find this mesmerising?

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 1:40 PM

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

This WP Plugin is not for beginners for sure.

It’s really aimed at intermediate to advanced WordPress bloggers or WordPress bloggers who have access to programmers who can install the plugin for them.

April 9, 2010 at 3:16 PM

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5
Social Media Consultant writes:

That was my question too Brian. It will be considered duplicate content unless the title and at least the first two paragraphs are changed…if you are worried about SEO, you may get penalized :( – Mirna Bard

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:06 PM

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6
michael writes:

HI!

I’m not quite clear about the “plugin” step.

Does it work for all WordPress blogs?

I can’t seem to find the plug in on my wordpress blog…

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:24 PM

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7
Amy Starr Allen writes:

This is great, thanks! Going over to install it now!

-A

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:26 PM

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8
Wendy Dashwood-Quick writes:

Thanks very much. All done and ready to go!
Excellent idea

Regards
Wendy

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:30 PM

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9
Michael Cohn writes:

The plugin does not activate in WordPress MU environment.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in …/wp-content/plugins/ezinearticles-wordpress-plugin/inc/eaRemote.class.inc.php on line 6

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:41 PM

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Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

Michael,

The errors appear to indicate that you’re using PHP version 4 and the plugin requires PHP version 5.1 or higher.

There are reports the plugin is not compatible with WordPress MU and our team is investigating if we will release a compatible version in the future.

April 10, 2010 at 12:00 PM

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10
Heaven writes:

I’ve been waiting for something like this when it comes to article writing. Much easier to get exposure for sure. How will this play out with content being submitted both on a website blog and on EzineArticles.com? Who will be the winner when it comes to the search engines? Duplication issues?

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:42 PM

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11
Michael Cohn writes:

Plugin does not activate in WordPress MU environment.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:42 PM

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12
Beage writes:

Yes, very good idea
I like the fact that I can submit the article right from my blog. This will same some time, and one push of the button and we are done. They should of came up with idea ages ago.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 2:54 PM

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13
Damayanthi writes:

Hi Marc and Chris,

Thanks a bunch for this tutorial. I was looking at this plug in earlier, but being a non-techie didn’t want to get my feet wet.
So, first of all thanks so much for making my life better, I installed this on one of my blogs & will try it today.

Brian, thanks for asking the question on the duplicate content, something I had in my mind.

Chris, could you please clarify this a bit more,

“As for your duplicate content question… As long as you don’t syndicate or distribute 100% of your content, your risks of any perceived duplicate content worries will be very minimized.”

What do you mean by “syndicate or distribute” ?
Is it bookmarking own articles on different book marking sites? and/or publishing on other article submission site without any changes?

Appreciate your help here.

Many thanks
Damayanthi

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 3:12 PM

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14
Christopher M. Knight writes:

Damayanthi,

Submitting an article to EzineArticles.com is the process of “syndicating” or “distributing” your articles from yourself to us and then others.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 3:19 PM

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Damayanthi writes:

Thanks Chris, now I understand.

April 9, 2010 at 11:23 PM

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15
Christopher M. Knight writes:

All,

If you’re worried about duplicate content, here’s an idea: Only submit a percentage of your blog posts to EzineArticles.

ie: No one is saying that you have to submit 100% of your blog posts to EzineArticles.

What percentage you submit to EzineArticles might be 10%, 15% all the way up to 50%+ of your total articles available on your website. Always your choice.

In fact, as much as we’d like to see you submit 100% of your blog posts to us, the reality is that many people don’t blog the same quality level in terms of word count or quality of blog entry as they do article submissions to EzineArticles right now.

That means we only expected to see a portion of your total blog posts submitted to us as articles that would most likely meet or exceed our minimum editorial standards.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 3:28 PM

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16
Mary writes:

Hi – Not sure where to look for bug fixes – tried to install on latest version of WP and when I went to activate, and got this:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /home/content/i/a/m/iam4fitness/html/wp-content/plugins/ezinearticles-wordpress-plugin/inc/eaRemote.class.inc.php on line 6

Any ideas? Any known plugin conflicts?

Many thanks –

– Mary

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 3:55 PM

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Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

Mary,

This error is due to running PHP version 4. My recommendation would be to ask your web host if they will enable PHP version 5 for your blog.

April 10, 2010 at 12:03 PM

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17
Pat & Lorna Shanks writes:

Install the plugin ok and got the API key installed and can see our EzineArticles accounts from within the dashboard.

But can’t seem to get the validation to work. When I click on the Validate button nothing happens. :(

The only suggestion that we would have for the plugin is to remove images automatically, it’s a pain to have to remove an image and put it back in again.

Thanks,
~ Pat & Lorna

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 4:21 PM

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Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

We are looking into removing images automatically and should have an update soon for that.

The validate issue sounds like you may have JavaScript disabled. We are considering releasing an update that will no longer require this browser feature.

April 10, 2010 at 12:06 PM

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18
Michelle Mangen writes:

The plugin won’t activate for me. Doesn’t give a specific error message – just a “failed to install” message.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 4:39 PM

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19
Michelle Mangen writes:

I figured out why it wouldn’t activate for me – the firewall plugin was what caused it. Once I deactivated that it activated fine. Now just have to go through the rest of the steps

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 4:59 PM

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20
Bill Parise writes:

Hello,

This plugin is a great idea and addition to my travel blog!

The only issue I have come across to date is that when I click on my different authors, I noticed that the feature does not switch to the corresponding Bio for that author.

I tried switching back and forth, and refreshing my page to see if it would change the Bio section, but it was a no go.

Possibly this will be something that’s being looked into as I’m posting this, and will be fixed in future plugin updates.

Other than that, great idea and I will take full advantage as soon as I can.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 5:42 PM

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21
Large Greenhouse Plans writes:

what a fantastic initiative! thanks for making thing easier!

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 6:07 PM

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22
Dan writes:

Excellent idea!

This will be a great time-saver. Not only can we now do everything from one interface, it will help streamline the posting tasks, such as consistently assigning the keywords for the EzineArticles articles used from the WordPress posts. All with the end goal of getting ranked for your article/post keywords.

Again, great idea – thank you.

Dan DeRoeck

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 8:00 PM

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23
Edward Waite writes:

I installed the plugin on my blog and it worked fine for my first post.

I then installed it on one of my other blogs and it installed OK. I then set up an alt author and a resource box. When I went to post it picked up the new pen name but when I selected it it did not pick up the pen names resource box. It would only show the box for my first (main) pen name.

I then altered manually the resource box via the plugin.

When I went to validate it would not validate either good or bad.

One Point: does one need a different API key for each blog one as got. If so this makes it a bit cumbersome as it would mean I would have to sign up with a different e-mail address for each subject and corresponding blog.

Wilf.

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 11:16 PM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

One API key can be used for multiple blogs.

April 10, 2010 at 12:08 PM

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24
Marte writes:

I also got this message… any ideas?

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /home/content/c/o/p/copybymarte/html/marte-cliff/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ezinearticles-wordpress-plugin/inc/eaRemote.class.inc.php on line 6

Comment provided April 9, 2010 at 11:38 PM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

This error is due to running PHP version 4. My recommendation would be to ask your web host if they will enable PHP version 5 for your blog.

April 10, 2010 at 12:09 PM

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25
Brian Bijdeveldt writes:

Installed plugin smoothly. Everything works except when I try to activate – no response or error message displayed. Same with Submit button…….

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 2:38 AM

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26
Niyi Adeoshun writes:

Thank you for this. It brings ‘killing two birds with one stone’ back to mind.

Great Job.

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 3:28 AM

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27
Bradley Davis writes:

Great plugin for saving time! Nice work EzineArticles Team!

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 7:12 AM

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28
Mike writes:

Great plugin. I want to try it but couldnt install.

I get this error when I try to activate:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /home/.sites/112/site7/web/blog/wp-content/plugins/ezinearticles-wordpress-plugin/inc/eaRemote.class.inc.php on line 6

Is anyone else having difficulties?

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 9:04 AM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

This error is due to running PHP version 4. My recommendation would be to ask your web host if they will enable PHP version 5 for your blog

April 10, 2010 at 3:25 PM

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29
Nicholas Wind writes:

Excellent tool.
Thanks for what you do!

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 10:07 AM

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30
Nancy Collins writes:

Thanks for the plugin. This will free up time to do other things, like writing more posts! Am installing immediately!

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 12:01 PM

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31
Bill Parise writes:

Hi Christopher,

Do you think there is any solution to the Author Bio issue?

I noticed some other people are experiencing this problem, and it looks like when you edit the Author Resource manually, it doesn’t allow you to have the article authenticated.

Any thoughts, feedback, and/or solutions would be appreciated.

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 12:15 PM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

Bill,

We are looking into this and will have a fix next week to address this and a couple other known issues.

April 10, 2010 at 3:27 PM

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32
Adele Berenstein writes:

I apologize if this is a duplicate entry but I too have successfully installed the plug in, activated it, got my API and saved settings.

I tried repurposing an old article, but when I hit validate, nothing happened. When I hit submit nothing happened. I also checked the special dashboard for EzineArticles and the article I tried to submit doesn’t show up in the dashboard.

From other comments on this page, I guess I am not the only one so I await your recommendation on how to fix.

Thanks for creating this plug in.

I also noticed that there is access to edit the resource box which is helpful if you are commenting on a newspaper article or another article on the web that you want to reference in your article. Being able to add it to the resource box for each article published is an excellent feature.

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 12:57 PM

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33
Les writes:

Thanks for developing this great tool! It will be a real time saver, and now I know I can post to my blog before submitting to you.

However, when I try to add keywords via the link ( Keywords: Use Post Tags Add) nothing happens. Is Post Tags a plugin I need? I use Simple Tags on all my blogs.
Thanks,
Les

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 1:23 PM

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34
Liz writes:

Hi Chris

A great idea, everything has installed correctly but I keep getting this message –

“Sorry, there was an error.

Please verify your EzineArticles API Key, Username and Password are correct.”

I used the API EzineArticles provided.

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 3:39 PM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

Liz,

This is generally caused from your email address or password not matching your EzineArticles email address and password.

April 11, 2010 at 9:02 AM

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Liz writes:

Christopher

I have checked my email address and password and they are correct as is the API key you provided but still can use use the plug in?

Liz

April 11, 2010 at 6:35 PM

[Reply]

Liz writes:

Christopher

I have checked my email address and password and they are correct as is the API key you provided but still can’t use use the plug in?

Liz

April 11, 2010 at 6:36 PM

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35
Judy Mercer writes:

Hi Chris,
I installed the plugin on 2 WP sites without any problems.

On the third site, it would not install and I get this message:
Incompatible archive PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Unable to find End of Central Dir Record signature

I have installed other plugins on the 3rd site without difficulty.
Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Judy

Comment provided April 10, 2010 at 8:13 PM

[Reply]

Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

Judy,

This is an indicator that the plugin did not download correctly. I recommend trying to download the plugin again.

Is there any difference between this blog and the others that it installed correctly on?

April 11, 2010 at 9:04 AM

[Reply]

Judy Mercer writes:

Hi Chris,
Thanks for the response.
I tried downloading the plugin several times. I also saved it to my computer and tried uploading it into WP. I get the same error both ways. The blog I’m trying to put it on is a Frugal Theme and I have several other plugins installed on this blog without problems.

It installed it on another Frugal Theme blog I have without problems. The third site I installed it on has a generic WP theme.

I’ve written the Frugal Theme developer to see if he has any suggestions from the Frugal end.

This is a corporate blog that has many original postings written by my brother (Z. Christopher Mercer). We have put a number of them on EzineArticles already and I would really like to automate the process if possible.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks!
Judy

April 11, 2010 at 1:04 PM

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36
Damayanthi writes:

Hi,

I installed the plug-in and trying to submit my blog post.

Have the same issue as couple of other people here.

When I hit “validate” – nothing happens. I didn’t submit the article, & will wait for your response.

Thanks again for this “Wonderful” plug-in.

Damayanthi

Comment provided April 11, 2010 at 1:25 PM

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37
Martin Haworth writes:

Hi there.

Excellent idea, so I decided to give it a trial run tonight. I have my blog hosted with Hostgator, so I have PHP 5.

Installation and configuration all OK, but when I try to validate nothing at all.

I use custom signatures depending on my needs so I have no ‘Resource 1’, so how will I deal with this?

BTW, you need to save and post to your blog before you fill all the EzineArticles plugin stuff or it just dumps it all.

Comment provided April 11, 2010 at 4:46 PM

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38
kirkoconnor writes:

Same thoughts as last two comments.

Great plugin but nothing happens when I click validate.

Pretty sure Javascript is enabled as I use jquery on the website so, if it was disabled the jquery stuff wouldn’t work.

WP version is 2.9.2

Comment provided April 11, 2010 at 8:06 PM

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39
RK Castillo from SEO in Albuquerque writes:

Have no idea if it actually accepted my article submission or not?

I hit validate and nothing happened. Then I hit submit and nothing happened.

Comment provided April 11, 2010 at 9:57 PM

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40
Henry Kunz writes:

This sounds like a great tool!

I’m looking forward to implementing it. However, I think I’ll wait for some of the issues, raised here, to be resolved before I do.

Comment provided April 12, 2010 at 4:09 AM

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41
Elizabeth writes:

I installed the plug in to my blog and everything seemed to work out fine, the only thing is that I went and updated my resource box and author names… and that hasn’t translated to wordpress. The new boxes and names do not show up as an option for me to pick from. How can I get my resources boxes and author names to be available?

Thanks!

Comment provided April 12, 2010 at 2:22 PM

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42
Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

All,

I want you to know that we have heard each and every one of your concerns with this plug-in.

This week we are addressing those concerns which will be released in version 2.0 of the plugin.

I assure you, the new version will address many, if not all of the unexpected challenges we’ve encountered.

For those reasons I am closing the comments for this entry so my team and I can dedicate our time to making this feature work for you. I’ll re-open with the launch of 2.0 soon.

Comment provided April 12, 2010 at 4:06 PM

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43
Christopher Knutson, VP of Operations writes:

We are pleased to announce that the EzineArticles WordPress Plugin Version 2.0 is now available. If you already have a version of this installed, WordPress will prompt you to complete the upgrade.

If you haven’t downloaded this plugin yet, login to your EzineArticles Members Account and go to “Author Tools” -> “WordPress Plugin”

** Note: This Plugin is not compatible with WordPress MU

Comment provided April 27, 2010 at 8:37 AM

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