Paul

Dave Goodchild

!! WARNING: Before activating this plugin, please DO NOT deactivate the previous Article Directory plugin if you have it installed !!
If you do deactivate, you will lose your settings. Once you have activated this new plugin, you may go to the plugins page and deactivate the old one. 
That way we make a backup of your settings because the old plugin is set to delete your settings automatically when you deactivate.
Please note: I’m not the original author but I’m open to suggestions on ways to add to and develop out the plugin. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the forums.
This is taken directly from the original <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/article-directory" rel="ugc">Article Directory plugin</a> last updated 3 years ago (2011-1-16), and made compatible with WordPress 3.9 and 
it’s updated database system.
Displays the structured list of categories (like in article directory), which can be easily customized with CSS. Also allows authors to publish articles and change their profile bypassing the admin interface. See an example at <a href="http://articlesss.com/" title="Article Directory" rel="nofollow ugc">Articlesss.com/</a>.
Standard features for categories list:
<ul>
<li>Showing an amount of articles in parent and child categories.</li>
<li>Showing a category description in link title.</li>
<li>Showing the empty categories.</li>
<li>Using hierarchy for subcategories.</li>
<li>Excluding a specified categories.</li>
</ul>
Special features for categories list:
<ul>
<li>Simple and handy design using CSS. The structure of categories is the multilevel list, which can be altered easily with CSS, as you need. The parent category have the <code><div></code> container to mark it out with CSS as a parent.</li>
<li>Parent category is showing amount of articles in subcategories. The character also include the number of articles in this parent category.</li>
<li>Showing a specified amount of child categories (2nd level).</li>
<li>Showing a categories in specified amount of columns.</li>
<li>Hiding all subcategories.</li>
<li>Adding an icons for each category in the list using CSS.</li>
</ul>
Additional features:
<ul>
<li>Authors can add articles and change their profile bypassing the admin interface.</li>
<li>Displaying the “Terms of article publication” on article submission page.</li>
<li>Excluding the child categories articles from the parent categories archive pages.</li>
<li>Ability to get an article source code.</li>
</ul>

Article Directory Redux

Displays the list of categories like in article directory and allows authors to publish articles and change their profile bypassing the admin area.

grandranker

<a href="https://grandranker.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Grandranker</a> is an AI-powered SEO platform that researches your niche, generates high-quality articles optimized for both traditional search engines and AI search (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini), and publishes them directly to your WordPress site.
This plugin connects your WordPress site to Grandranker so articles flow straight from the platform into your blog — no copy-pasting, no manual formatting.
What Grandranker does for you:
<ul>
<li>Researches keywords and competitors in your niche</li>
<li>Generates long-form, SEO-optimized articles with structured data (JSON-LD schema)</li>
<li>Tracks your visibility across Google and AI search engines</li>
<li>Publishes and updates articles on your WordPress site automatically</li>
</ul>
How the plugin works:
<ol>
<li>Install and activate the plugin.</li>
<li>Enter your Grandranker API token in Grandranker settings.</li>
<li>Click Save & Connect.</li>
<li>Articles published in Grandranker appear on your WordPress site automatically — with content, featured images, categories, tags, meta descriptions, and structured data all handled for you.</li>
</ol>
Plugin features:
<ul>
<li>Secure HMAC-SHA256 signature verification on every request</li>
<li>Creates and updates WordPress posts with title, slug, content, excerpt, tags, and featured image</li>
<li>Injects JSON-LD structured data (schema markup) into page head for SEO</li>
<li>Writes meta descriptions to Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO (auto-detected)</li>
<li>Configurable default author and post status (Publish / Draft / Pending Review)</li>
<li>Heartbeat-based delivery polling for near-instant publishing</li>
<li>Unpublish endpoint to remove articles remotely</li>
<li>Diagnostics panel with a manual “Test Poll Now” button</li>
<li>One-click Disconnect that removes all stored credentials</li>
</ul>
<h3>Third-Party Service</h3>
This plugin connects your WordPress site to the Grandranker API at <code>https://app.grandranker.com</code> to receive articles, schema markup, and delivery payloads from your Grandranker account.
Data is sent to and received from Grandranker servers when you:
<ul>
<li>Click Save & Connect — your API token is sent in the <code>Authorization: Bearer</code> header to exchange it for an HMAC signing secret.</li>
<li>Receive an article — Grandranker POSTs the article payload (title, content, schema, image URL, tags) to <code>/wp-json/grandranker/v1/articles</code> on your site, signed with <code>X-Grandranker-Signature</code> (HMAC-SHA256).</li>
<li>Poll for queued deliveries — the plugin periodically (via WP-Cron and the WordPress Heartbeat API while admin is open) requests <code>/api/v1/plugin/deliveries</code> from Grandranker to fetch any pending articles.</li>
<li>Click Test Poll Now or Disconnect in plugin settings.</li>
</ul>
No analytics, page content, or visitor data is sent to Grandranker. Only the site URL and authenticated requests for your own articles are transmitted.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://grandranker.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Grandranker Website</a></li>
<li><a href="https://grandranker.com/terms" rel="nofollow ugc">Terms of Service</a></li>
<li><a href="https://grandranker.com/privacy-policy" rel="nofollow ugc">Privacy Policy</a></li>
</ul>

Grandranker

Automatically publish and update SEO-optimized articles from Grandranker — the AI content platform that helps you rank higher on Google and AI search  …

Article Directory Redux vs Grandranker