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Import existing content into Content Editor

Import existing content into Content Editor

Scrape content from a URL. Optimize your existing piece with Content Editor right away.
Patricia O'Maroro avatar
Written by Patricia O'Maroro. Updated over a week ago

☝️ You can now create Content Editors out of an existing URL.

  1. What's in it for you

  2. How it works

  3. Use this feature

  4. Sample use case

  5. Problems you might encounter with Fetch URL

With this feature, you get to:

  • Start optimizing an existing piece right away without copying and pasting

  • Import content from URLs you previously ran through the Audit tool. All that so you can act on audit suggestions right off the bat.

When you enable the *Import Content From URL* toggle, Surfer will:

  1. Scan and scrape the content of the inserted URL

  2. Import the content into a newly created Content Editor

  3. Score the content and tell you how well it meets Surfer's guidelines for the inserted keyword

This means you’re able to import the content of any given URL in one quick click. And start optimizing that piece right away. 🎉

🔌 To use this feature:

  1. Enable the *Import content from URL* toggle when in the Content Editor

  2. Insert the URL from which you want to import content

  3. Insert the keywords you want to target

  4. Hit *Create Content Editor*


💡 Sample use case

  1. Audit your blog post with the Surfer Audit tool. This way, you’ll identify where your content might be lacking

  2. Head over to Content Editor, enable the *Fetch Content From URL* toggle

    insert the previously audited URL, type in the audited keywords, and hit *Create Content Editor*

  3. Roll up your sleeves and start optimizing the imported content right off the bat. Leverage Surfer’s suggestions to propel your piece to higher rankings!


Problems you might encounter with Fetch URL

Since Fetch URL feature tries to grab content from the Internet, sometimes it might result in query failing on dashboard or unexpected text being imported.

If your queries fail with "We were unable to retrieve content from the page.", then most likely reason is:

  • your server served us no content to copy (for instance when your page did not respond in time or copy-protection is enabled)
    alternatively

  • we received a generic HTTP response error like 403,404 or 500, which means that our crawler couldn't access the specified URL (due to typo in URL, bot block or temporary domain issues on your end)

In such cases - query will be automaticly canceled and the credit refunded.

If your queries complete but bring in unexpected results it may be a sign of:

  • our crawler being redirected based on your sever settings to another page instead of desired URL
    or

  • we were served with a custom error or intermediary page instead of your desired content (like CloudFlare's timeout or bot challenge page)

For such cases Editor query will complete as we did receive a response from your server.
Fetch URL feature currently can be only used when creating query - we advise you manually copy-paste content if any problems arise.

You should review your server/webpage settings to avoid crawling issues in the future.

Please note that Fetch URL only runs once - using this feature won't synchronize nor update your draft based on the specified URL and changes you introduce from your CMS admin page.

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