Contextual Related Posts

Requires: 3.5

Tested up to: 4.0

License: GPL-2.0+

Plugin page: Contextual Related Posts

Display related posts on your WordPress blog and feed. Supports thumbnails, shortcodes, widgets and custom post types!

Description

Contextual Related Posts is a powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to display a list of related posts on your website and in your feed.

The list is based on the content of the title and/or content of the posts which makes them more relevant and more likely to be of interest to your readers. This allows you to retain visitors, reduce bounce rates and refresh old entries.

Contextual Related Posts is one of the most feature rich related posts plugins for WordPress with support for thumbnails, shortcodes, widgets, custom post types, caching and CSS styles.

The plugin also comes with it's very own inbuilt stylesheet that let's your related posts look awesome!

Key features

• Automatic: CRP will start displaying related posts on your site and feed automatically after the content when you activate the plugin. No need to edit template files
• Manual install: Want more control over placement? Check the FAQ on which functions are available for manual install.
• Widgets: Add related posts to widgetized area of your theme. Lots of options available
• Shortcode: Use [crp] to display the posts anywhere you want in the post content
• The algorithm: Find related posts by title and/or content of the current post
• Caching: Related posts output is automatically cached as visitors browse through your site
• Exclusions: Exclude posts from categories from being displayed in the list. Or you can exclude posts or pages by ID
• Custom post types: The related posts list lets you include posts, pages, attachments or any other custom post type!
• Thumbnail support:
  • Support for WordPress post thumbnails. CRP will create a custom image size (crp_thumbnail) with the dimensions specified in the Settings page
  • Auto-extract the first image in your post to be displayed as a thumbnail
  • Manually enter the URL of the thumbnail via WordPress meta fields. Specify this using the meta box in your Edit screens.
  • Optionally, use timthumb to resize images or use your own filter function to resize post images
• Styles: The output is wrapped in CSS classes which allows you to easily style the list. You can enter your custom CSS styles from within WordPress Admin area or use the style included.
• Customisable output:
  • Display excerpts in post. You can select the length of the excerpt in words
  • Customise which HTML tags to use for displaying the output in case you don't prefer the default list format
• Extensible code: Several actions and filters to modify the output, add more options, etc.

Donations

I spend a significant amount of my free time maintaing, updating and more importantly supporting this plugin. Those who have sought support in the support forums know that I have done by best to answer your question and solve your problem. If you have been using this plugin and find this useful, do consider making a donation. This helps me pay for my hosting and domains.

Translations

Contextual Related Posts is now on Transifex ready for translation courtesy the WP Translations. WP-Translations is the place where you will find a number of WordPress amazing Plugins and Themes to make them available in your home language. In exchange you will receive credit for your work and will certainly make part of the WP community history in your country.

If you're a translator, do consider joining the Wp Translations team.

Visit Contextual Related Posts on Transifex.

Screenshots

Contextual Related Posts - General Options

For more screenshots visit the WordPress plugin page

Installation

WordPress install

1. Navigate to Plugins within your WordPress Admin Area

2. Click "Add new" and in the search box enter "Contextual Related Posts" and select "Keyword" from the dropdown

3. Find the plugin in the list (usually the first result) and click "Install Now"

Manual install

1. Download the plugin

2. Extract the contents of contextual-related-posts.zip to wp-content/plugins/ folder. You should get a folder called contextual-related-posts.

3. Activate the Plugin in WP-Admin.

4. Goto Settings » Related Posts to configure

5. Optionally visit the Custom Styles tab to add any custom CSS styles. These are added to wp_head on the pages where the posts are displayed

Frequently Asked Questions

Check out the FAQ on the plugin page for a detailed list of questions and answers

If your question isn't listed there, please create a new post in the WordPress.org support forum. I monitor the forums on an ongoing basis. If you're looking for more advanced paid support, please see details here.

If you would like a feature to be added, or if you already have the code for the feature, you can let me know by posting in this forum or fork this Github project and let me know.