Wordpress csv import duplicate - php

Question

I've used an adapted version of a csv import plugin for wordpress. It imports the csv to create and update posts. To update existing posts I've added an edit that finds the post id by title, then if it exists it overwrites, otherwise it creates a new post.
Problem is that it seems to not be very reliable! If I import the same csv several times it over-writes most of them but I get a few duplicates. Is there any way I can make this more reliable, or is there another way I can deal with duplicate posts?
main function for creating posts here
function create_post($data, $options) {
extract($options);
//edit 1 added here
global $wpdb;
//end
$data = array_merge($this->defaults, $data);
$type = $data['csv_post_type'] ? $data['csv_post_type'] : 'post';
$valid_type = (function_exists('post_type_exists') &&
post_type_exists($type)) || in_array($type, array('post', 'page'));
if (!$valid_type) {
$this->log['error']["type-{$type}"] = sprintf(
'Unknown post type "%s".', $type);
}
$new_post = array(
'post_title' => convert_chars($data['csv_post_title']),
'post_content' => wpautop(convert_chars($data['csv_post_post'])),
'post_status' => $opt_draft,
'post_type' => $type,
'post_date' => $this->parse_date($data['csv_post_date']),
'post_excerpt' => convert_chars($data['csv_post_excerpt']),
'post_name' => $data['csv_post_slug'],
'post_author' => $this->get_auth_id($data['csv_post_author']),
'tax_input' => $this->get_taxonomies($data),
'post_parent' => $data['csv_post_parent'],
);
// edit 2 here
$new_post['ID'] = $wpdb->get_var( "SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_title = '" . $data['csv_post_title'] . "'" );
// ends
// pages don't have tags or categories
if ('page' !== $type) {
$new_post['tags_input'] = $data['csv_post_tags'];
// Setup categories before inserting
$cats = $this->create_or_get_categories($data, $opt_cat);
$new_post['post_category'] = $cats['post'];
}
// edit 3
if(!empty($new_post['ID'])) {
$id = wp_update_post($new_post);
} else {
$id = wp_insert_post($new_post);
}
// ends
if ('page' !== $type && !$id) {
// cleanup new categories on failure
foreach ($cats['cleanup'] as $c) {
wp_delete_term($c, 'category');
}
}
return $id;
}
thanks

Answer 1

Fixed! I used the built in wordpress function, get_page_by_title . Here is the code I used to target the correct post.
if (!get_page_by_title( $bpp_title, 'OBJECT', 'publications')) {
$id = wp_insert_post($new_post);
} else {
$bpp_page = get_page_by_title( $bpp_title, 'OBJECT', 'publications');
$new_post['ID'] = $bpp_page->ID;
$id = wp_update_post($new_post);
}