Replace broken DDG search with AI thumbnail generation fallback

DuckDuckGo's HTML search endpoint now requires vqd session tokens,
making server-side search-based URL resolution unreliable. Simplified
the thumbnail pipeline:

- OG scrape only for non-aggregator URLs (direct publisher pages)
- AI image generation via OpenRouter for aggregator articles (Google News)
- Added Image Model settings field in admin UI
- Added thumbnail_local column for AI-generated images
- Updated public/admin display to check thumbnail_local as fallback
- Removed all DuckDuckGo search code (find_article_url_via_search,
  extract_ddg_url, resolve_article_for_scraping)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Terence Ong
2026-04-06 20:29:32 +07:00
parent de35f2d684
commit cd8eee11b8
7 changed files with 118 additions and 228 deletions

View File

@@ -211,6 +211,7 @@ class Peptide_News_Admin {
$this->add_setting( 'openrouter_api_key', __( 'OpenRouter API Key', 'peptide-news' ), 'render_openrouter_key_field', 'peptide_news_llm_section' );
$this->add_setting( 'llm_keywords_model', __( 'Keywords Model', 'peptide-news' ), 'render_llm_keywords_model_field', 'peptide_news_llm_section' );
$this->add_setting( 'llm_summary_model', __( 'Summary Model', 'peptide-news' ), 'render_llm_summary_model_field', 'peptide_news_llm_section' );
$this->add_setting( 'llm_image_model', __( 'Image Generation Model', 'peptide-news' ), 'render_llm_image_model_field', 'peptide_news_llm_section' );
$this->add_setting( 'llm_max_articles', __( 'Max Articles per Cycle', 'peptide-news' ), 'render_llm_max_articles_field', 'peptide_news_llm_section' );
}
@@ -264,6 +265,7 @@ class Peptide_News_Admin {
'openrouter_api_key' => 'sanitize_text_field',
'llm_keywords_model' => array( $this, 'sanitize_model_id' ),
'llm_summary_model' => array( $this, 'sanitize_model_id' ),
'llm_image_model' => array( $this, 'sanitize_model_id' ),
'llm_max_articles' => 'absint',
'thumbnail_fallback' => 'esc_url_raw',
);
@@ -530,6 +532,15 @@ class Peptide_News_Admin {
echo '<p class="description">' . esc_html__( 'OpenRouter model ID for article summarization (e.g., google/gemini-2.0-flash-001, anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet).', 'peptide-news' ) . '</p>';
}
public function render_llm_image_model_field() {
$value = get_option( 'peptide_news_llm_image_model', '' );
printf(
'<input type="text" name="peptide_news_llm_image_model" value="%s" class="regular-text" />',
esc_attr( $value )
);
echo '<p class="description">' . esc_html__( 'OpenRouter model ID for AI thumbnail generation (e.g., openai/dall-e-3, stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl). Leave blank to disable AI thumbnails.', 'peptide-news' ) . '</p>';
}
public function render_llm_max_articles_field() {
$value = get_option( 'peptide_news_llm_max_articles', 10 );
printf(
@@ -609,8 +620,12 @@ class Peptide_News_Admin {
$btn.prop('disabled', false).text('<?php echo esc_js( __( 'Fix Article Thumbnails', 'peptide-news' ) ); ?>');
if (response.success) {
var d = response.data;
var msg = d.updated + ' of ' + d.total + ' thumbnails found.';
if (d.failed > 0) { msg += ' ' + d.failed + ' could not be resolved.'; }
var parts = [];
if (d.scraped > 0) { parts.push(d.scraped + ' scraped'); }
if (d.generated > 0) { parts.push(d.generated + ' AI-generated'); }
if (d.failed > 0) { parts.push(d.failed + ' remaining'); }
var msg = (d.scraped + d.generated) + ' of ' + d.total + ' thumbnails resolved';
if (parts.length) { msg += ' (' + parts.join(', ') + ')'; }
$result.text(msg);
if (d.samples && d.samples.length) { console.log('Thumbnail backfill:', JSON.stringify(d.samples, null, 2)); }
} else {

View File

@@ -73,8 +73,16 @@ $total_pages = ceil( $total / $per_page );
<td><?php echo esc_html( wp_date( 'M j, Y', strtotime( $article->published_at ) ) ); ?></td>
<td><?php echo esc_html( wp_date( 'M j, Y', strtotime( $article->fetched_at ) ) ); ?></td>
<td>
<?php if ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_url ) ) : ?>
<img src="<?php echo esc_url( $article->thumbnail_url ); ?>" alt="" style="width:50px;height:50px;object-fit:cover;border-radius:4px;" />
<?php
$thumb_src = '';
if ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_url ) && '_no_image' !== $article->thumbnail_url ) {
$thumb_src = $article->thumbnail_url;
} elseif ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_local ) ) {
$upload_dir = wp_upload_dir();
$thumb_src = $upload_dir['baseurl'] . '/' . $article->thumbnail_local;
}
if ( $thumb_src ) : ?>
<img src="<?php echo esc_url( $thumb_src ); ?>" alt="" style="width:50px;height:50px;object-fit:cover;border-radius:4px;" />
<?php else : ?>
<span class="dashicons dashicons-format-image" style="color:#ccc;font-size:24px;"></span>
<?php endif; ?>

View File

@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ class Peptide_News_Activator {
content LONGTEXT NOT NULL,
author VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
thumbnail_url VARCHAR(2048) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
thumbnail_local VARCHAR(512) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
published_at DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
fetched_at DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
categories VARCHAR(500) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',

View File

@@ -328,11 +328,27 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
return 0;
}
$updated = 0;
$aggregators = array( 'news.google.com', 'news.yahoo.com', 'msn.com' );
$updated = 0;
foreach ( $articles as $article ) {
$scrape_url = $this->resolve_article_for_scraping( $article->source_url, $article->title, $article->source );
$image_url = $this->scrape_og_image( $scrape_url );
$domain = $this->extract_domain( $article->source_url );
// Skip aggregator URLs — they can't be scraped for OG images.
// These will be handled by AI image generation instead.
if ( in_array( $domain, $aggregators, true ) ) {
$wpdb->update(
$table,
array( 'thumbnail_url' => '_no_image' ),
array( 'id' => $article->id ),
array( '%s' ),
array( '%d' )
);
continue;
}
// Direct OG scrape for non-aggregator URLs.
$image_url = $this->scrape_og_image( $article->source_url );
if ( ! empty( $image_url ) ) {
$local_path = $this->download_thumbnail( $image_url, $article->id, $article->title );
@@ -345,7 +361,6 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
$wpdb->update( $table, $update_data, array( 'id' => $article->id ) );
$updated++;
} else {
// Mark as attempted so we don't retry on every cron cycle.
$wpdb->update(
$table,
array( 'thumbnail_url' => '_no_image' ),
@@ -355,7 +370,6 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
);
}
// Throttle: 0.3s for direct scrapes, search adds its own delay.
usleep( 300000 );
}
@@ -366,52 +380,6 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
return $updated;
}
/**
* Resolve an article URL to a scrapeable page.
*
* For Google News and other aggregators, tries redirect resolution first,
* then falls back to search-based lookup using article title and publisher.
*
* @param string $source_url The stored article URL.
* @param string $title The article title.
* @param string $source_name The publisher name.
* @return string URL suitable for OG image scraping.
*/
private function resolve_article_for_scraping( $source_url, $title, $source_name ) {
if ( empty( $source_url ) ) {
return $source_url;
}
$domain = $this->extract_domain( $source_url );
// Non-aggregator URLs can be scraped directly.
$aggregators = array( 'news.google.com', 'news.yahoo.com', 'msn.com' );
if ( ! in_array( $domain, $aggregators, true ) ) {
return $source_url;
}
// Try HTTP redirect resolution first (works for Yahoo, MSN).
$resolved = $this->resolve_redirect_url( $source_url );
if ( $resolved && $resolved !== $source_url ) {
$resolved_domain = $this->extract_domain( $resolved );
if ( ! in_array( $resolved_domain, $aggregators, true ) ) {
return $resolved;
}
}
// For Google News: search for the actual article URL.
if ( 'news.google.com' === $domain ) {
$search_result = $this->find_article_url_via_search( $title, $source_name );
if ( $search_result ) {
// Throttle between search requests.
usleep( 1500000 ); // 1.5s
return $search_result;
}
}
return $source_url;
}
/**
* Scrape Open Graph / meta image tags from a URL.
*
@@ -769,143 +737,21 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
}
/**
* Find the actual article URL via DuckDuckGo search.
*
* Google News RSS stores encrypted article URLs that cannot be resolved
* server-side. This method uses the article title and publisher name
* to find the real article page via search engine lookup.
*
* @param string $title The article title (may include " - Source" suffix).
* @param string $source_name The publisher name (e.g., "STAT News").
* @return string|false The actual article URL, or false on failure.
*/
private function find_article_url_via_search( $title, $source_name = '' ) {
// Strip " - Source" suffix from title if present.
$clean_title = preg_replace( '/\s[-\x{2013}\x{2014}]\s[^-\x{2013}\x{2014}]+$/u', '', $title );
$clean_title = trim( $clean_title );
if ( empty( $clean_title ) || mb_strlen( $clean_title ) < 10 ) {
return false;
}
// Build search query with quoted title for exact match + source name.
$query = '"' . $clean_title . '"';
if ( ! empty( $source_name ) ) {
$query .= ' ' . $source_name;
}
$search_url = 'https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/?q=' . urlencode( $query );
$response = wp_remote_get( $search_url, array(
'timeout' => 12,
'user-agent' => 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36',
'headers' => array(
'Accept' => 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml',
'Accept-Language' => 'en-US,en;q=0.9',
),
) );
if ( is_wp_error( $response ) ) {
$this->log_error( 'Search lookup failed: ' . $response->get_error_message() );
return false;
}
$status = wp_remote_retrieve_response_code( $response );
if ( $status < 200 || $status >= 400 ) {
return false;
}
$body = wp_remote_retrieve_body( $response );
if ( empty( $body ) ) {
return false;
}
// Domains to skip in search results.
$skip_domains = array(
'news.google.com', 'google.com', 'duckduckgo.com', 'bing.com',
'yahoo.com', 'msn.com', 'youtube.com', 'facebook.com', 'twitter.com',
);
// DuckDuckGo HTML results: links with class "result__a" or redirect URLs with uddg param.
if ( preg_match_all( '/class=["\']result__a["\'][^>]*href=["\']([^"\']+)["\']/i', $body, $matches ) ) {
foreach ( $matches[1] as $href ) {
$actual_url = $this->extract_ddg_url( $href );
if ( ! $actual_url ) {
continue;
}
$domain = $this->extract_domain( $actual_url );
if ( in_array( $domain, $skip_domains, true ) ) {
continue;
}
return esc_url_raw( $actual_url );
}
}
// Fallback: look for uddg-encoded redirect links anywhere.
if ( preg_match_all( '/uddg=([^&"\'>\s]+)/i', $body, $matches ) ) {
foreach ( $matches[1] as $encoded_url ) {
$actual_url = urldecode( $encoded_url );
if ( ! filter_var( $actual_url, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL ) ) {
continue;
}
$domain = $this->extract_domain( $actual_url );
if ( ! in_array( $domain, $skip_domains, true ) ) {
return esc_url_raw( $actual_url );
}
}
}
return false;
}
/**
* Extract the actual URL from a DuckDuckGo redirect link.
*
* DuckDuckGo HTML results use redirect URLs with the actual URL
* encoded in the 'uddg' query parameter.
*
* @param string $href The DuckDuckGo result href.
* @return string|false The actual URL or false.
*/
private function extract_ddg_url( $href ) {
$href = html_entity_decode( $href );
// Direct URL (no redirect wrapper).
if ( strpos( $href, 'duckduckgo.com' ) === false && filter_var( $href, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL ) ) {
return $href;
}
// Extract from redirect: //duckduckgo.com/l/?uddg=<encoded_url>&...
if ( strpos( $href, 'uddg=' ) !== false ) {
$query_string = wp_parse_url( $href, PHP_URL_QUERY );
if ( $query_string ) {
parse_str( $query_string, $params );
if ( ! empty( $params['uddg'] ) && filter_var( $params['uddg'], FILTER_VALIDATE_URL ) ) {
return $params['uddg'];
}
}
}
return false;
}
/**
* Backfill thumbnails for existing articles that have none.
*
* Re-runs OG scraping with search-based URL resolution for articles
* missing thumbnails. Also retries articles previously marked '_no_image'.
* Attempts OG scraping for non-aggregator URLs, then uses AI image
* generation for any remaining articles without thumbnails.
*
* @return array Summary with 'updated' count and 'samples' for diagnostics.
* @return array Summary with counts and diagnostic samples.
*/
public function backfill_article_thumbnails() {
global $wpdb;
$table = $wpdb->prefix . 'peptide_news_articles';
$table = $wpdb->prefix . 'peptide_news_articles';
$aggregators = array( 'news.google.com', 'news.yahoo.com', 'msn.com' );
// Reset '_no_image' sentinel on previously failed articles so we retry them.
// Reset sentinels so we retry everything.
$wpdb->query(
"UPDATE {$table}
SET thumbnail_url = ''
@@ -914,70 +760,83 @@ class Peptide_News_Fetcher {
);
$articles = $wpdb->get_results(
"SELECT id, source, source_url, title
"SELECT id, source, source_url, title, excerpt, ai_summary, tags, categories
FROM {$table}
WHERE is_active = 1
AND ( thumbnail_url = '' OR thumbnail_url IS NULL )
AND ( thumbnail_local = '' OR thumbnail_local IS NULL )
ORDER BY fetched_at DESC
LIMIT 20"
);
$result = array(
'total' => count( $articles ),
'updated' => 0,
'failed' => 0,
'samples' => array(),
'total' => count( $articles ),
'scraped' => 0,
'generated' => 0,
'failed' => 0,
'samples' => array(),
);
if ( empty( $articles ) ) {
return $result;
}
// Phase 1: OG scrape non-aggregator URLs.
foreach ( $articles as $article ) {
$sample = array(
'id' => $article->id,
'title' => mb_substr( $article->title, 0, 60 ),
);
$scrape_url = $this->resolve_article_for_scraping( $article->source_url, $article->title, $article->source );
$sample['resolved'] = ( $scrape_url !== $article->source_url );
$sample['scrape_url'] = mb_substr( $scrape_url, 0, 100 );
$image_url = $this->scrape_og_image( $scrape_url );
$domain = $this->extract_domain( $article->source_url );
if ( in_array( $domain, $aggregators, true ) ) {
continue; // Skip — will be handled by AI generation.
}
$image_url = $this->scrape_og_image( $article->source_url );
if ( ! empty( $image_url ) ) {
$local_path = $this->download_thumbnail( $image_url, $article->id, $article->title );
$local_path = $this->download_thumbnail( $image_url, $article->id, $article->title );
$update_data = array( 'thumbnail_url' => $image_url );
if ( $local_path ) {
$update_data['thumbnail_local'] = $local_path;
}
$wpdb->update( $table, $update_data, array( 'id' => $article->id ) );
$result['updated']++;
$sample['status'] = 'ok';
$sample['image'] = mb_substr( $image_url, 0, 80 );
} else {
$wpdb->update(
$table,
array( 'thumbnail_url' => '_no_image' ),
array( 'id' => $article->id ),
array( '%s' ),
array( '%d' )
);
$result['failed']++;
$sample['status'] = 'no_image';
$result['scraped']++;
if ( count( $result['samples'] ) < 5 ) {
$result['samples'][] = array(
'id' => $article->id,
'title' => mb_substr( $article->title, 0, 60 ),
'method' => 'og_scrape',
'status' => 'ok',
);
}
}
// Only include first 5 samples in diagnostics.
if ( count( $result['samples'] ) < 5 ) {
$result['samples'][] = $sample;
}
usleep( 500000 );
usleep( 300000 );
}
if ( $result['updated'] > 0 ) {
// Phase 2: AI generation for articles still missing thumbnails.
if ( class_exists( 'Peptide_News_LLM' ) && Peptide_News_LLM::is_enabled() ) {
$ai_generated = Peptide_News_LLM::generate_missing_thumbnails( 20 );
$result['generated'] = $ai_generated;
}
// Count remaining failures.
$still_missing = $wpdb->get_var(
"SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM {$table}
WHERE is_active = 1
AND ( thumbnail_url = '' OR thumbnail_url IS NULL )
AND ( thumbnail_local = '' OR thumbnail_local IS NULL )"
);
$result['failed'] = (int) $still_missing;
// Mark remaining as '_no_image' so cron doesn't retry every cycle.
$wpdb->query(
"UPDATE {$table}
SET thumbnail_url = '_no_image'
WHERE is_active = 1
AND ( thumbnail_url = '' OR thumbnail_url IS NULL )
AND ( thumbnail_local = '' OR thumbnail_local IS NULL )"
);
if ( $result['scraped'] > 0 || $result['generated'] > 0 ) {
$this->clear_article_cache();
}

View File

@@ -390,12 +390,12 @@ class Peptide_News_LLM {
global $wpdb;
$table = $wpdb->prefix . 'peptide_news_articles';
// Find active articles with no thumbnail (neither URL nor local).
// Find active articles with no usable thumbnail (including _no_image sentinel).
$articles = $wpdb->get_results( $wpdb->prepare(
"SELECT id, title, excerpt, ai_summary, tags, categories
FROM {$table}
WHERE is_active = 1
AND ( thumbnail_url = '' OR thumbnail_url IS NULL )
AND ( thumbnail_url = '' OR thumbnail_url IS NULL OR thumbnail_url = '_no_image' )
AND ( thumbnail_local = '' OR thumbnail_local IS NULL )
ORDER BY fetched_at DESC
LIMIT %d",

View File

@@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ class Peptide_News_Rest_API {
$articles = $wpdb->get_results( $wpdb->prepare(
"SELECT id, source, source_url, title, excerpt, author, thumbnail_url,
published_at, categories, tags
thumbnail_local, published_at, categories, tags
FROM {$table}
WHERE is_active = 1
ORDER BY published_at DESC

View File

@@ -95,9 +95,16 @@ class Peptide_News_Public {
?>
<div class="pn-news-feed pn-layout-<?php echo esc_attr( $layout ); ?>">
<?php foreach ( $articles as $article ) :
$thumb = ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_url ) && '_no_image' !== $article->thumbnail_url )
? $article->thumbnail_url
: $fallback_thumb;
$thumb = '';
if ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_url ) && '_no_image' !== $article->thumbnail_url ) {
$thumb = $article->thumbnail_url;
} elseif ( ! empty( $article->thumbnail_local ) ) {
$upload_dir = wp_upload_dir();
$thumb = $upload_dir['baseurl'] . '/' . $article->thumbnail_local;
}
if ( empty( $thumb ) ) {
$thumb = $fallback_thumb;
}
$date = wp_date( 'M j, Y', strtotime( $article->published_at ) );
?>
<article class="pn-article" data-article-id="<?php echo esc_attr( $article->id ); ?>">
@@ -228,7 +235,7 @@ class Peptide_News_Public {
$articles = $wpdb->get_results( $wpdb->prepare(
"SELECT id, source, source_url, title, excerpt, ai_summary, author, thumbnail_url,
published_at, categories, tags
thumbnail_local, published_at, categories, tags
FROM {$table}
WHERE is_active = 1
ORDER BY published_at DESC