With the announcement nRelate will shut down the end of the year, many WordPress users are looking for an alternative to the nRelate Related Content plugin.
Displaying related content at the end of your blog post allows your readers to find other content on your site they may find interesting.
Providing related posts keeps your readers engaged and encourages readers to stay on your website longer and return again.
So where do you start looking for a new plugin?
Here’s what I discovered last summer when I was researching options for displaying related content.
My requirements for a related post plugin were:
- Display related posts quickly
- Option to display thumbnails with post title or a text list of post titles
- Plugin under active development
- Easy to style output
Three options rose to the top of my list: nRelate, Jetpack’s Related Posts feature, and Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP).
Given nRelate is no longer available after December 31 of this year, that leaves two options to consider.
Jetpack Related Posts Feature
Once you’ve installed the Jetpack plugin, you can easily enable the module by selecting the Activate button for Related Posts.
Related posts can be displayed as post titles with thumbnail images or as a list of post titles.
You also have the option to to customize the look of Related Posts through filters, which can be added to a your own functionality plugin or to your theme’s functions.php file.
An advantage of the Jetpack Related Posts feature is the analysis and processing of related posts is done on Jetpack’s servers, not your own web host server.
One of the biggest issues with related posts plugins is the increased amount of processing that needs to be done on the server. With Jetpack’s Related Posts feature, there’s no extra load on your server so your posts will be displayed quickly.
I liked the results from Jetpack’s Related Posts plugin, it was quick and displayed content that was related to the post. However, I ran into issues with how the thumbnail image was cropped and styling the output to closely match my theme. Depending on your content and requirements, you may not have any issues.
Keep in mind the Related Posts feature mirrors the content on WordPress.com for indexing. Also, if there’s no featured image associated with a post, the first image found in the post is used for the thumbnail (which may not be what you want).
Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP)
The plugin I ended up choosing was the popular YARPP, which has been around for several years and has quite a following. YARPP has been downloaded over three million times, and offers a standard and premium option.
I liked the various options the standard plugin offers. You can display related posts by title, tag, category, or content within the body of the post. And you can choose to disallow specific tags or categories.
You can set the number of related posts to display and choose between showing a list or thumbnails.
The related posts can display below the post content or in a sidebar (using the the plugin’s Related Posts widget).
You also can restrict the timeframe for related posts by selecting Show only posts in past XX months in The Pool section of the plugin settings.
Styling the output from YARPP to match my theme was straightforward (though one update did cause some issues late last summer). I’ve been happy with the related content results.
I’ve heard from other web professional colleagues that YARPP has been problematic for performance, but I haven’t noticed any issues on my site. Your mileage may vary; use the P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) plugin or another method for checking performance on your site.
Do you add related content to your posts? Share your experience in the comments.
I used, YARPP on the Tavern for a long time and it worked well. Eventually, I ended up with performance problems and the culprit was tied to YARPP. I had too much content and each time I published a post, it had to do some things in the database to determine what would be considered related to the content.
We now use Related Posts in Jetpack and its worked well. The issues you mentioned are definitely drawbacks but as we continue to publish more content, they go away on their own.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for your comment. I can understand how YARPP could be an issue due to the amount of content on the site.
Jeff, how has the Tavern’s performance been since changing to Jetpack’s Related Posts? When I change my theme, I’ll likely give Related Posts in Jetpack another look. And I’m taking a look at Related Posts for WordPress.
I’m kinda sad that nRelate is closing. 🙁 What app do you recommend for Blogger users? Thanks.
Hi Maye,
Thank you for your comments. I don’t know a lot about Blogger, but have you looked at Optimizely or Zemanta?
I’ve had issues with YARPP and performance before, so I’m leery to try again. Zemanta’s plugins look good, but I have yet to hear reports on their performance. Looking forward to hearing how it works for you.
I did discover these options for customizing Jetpack, which were helpful: http://jetpack.me/support/related-posts/customize-related-posts/
Maye, I believe LinkWithin works with Blogger.
Hi Gretchen,
Thanks for your comments. I know YARPP has been a performance issue for others, but so far, it hasn’t been for me. I’m not looking to move to Zemanta’s plugins, but am taking a look at the Related Posts for WordPress plugin. Yes, I included the link to customizing Jetpack in the post.
Gretchen, have you used LinkedWithin on sites?
We actually prepared a long article on related content plugins over the last week, including nrelate of course. Funny timing that nrelate is closing down just now.
Anyways, we tested LinkWithin as well (http://blog.followistic.com/10-best-related-posts-plugins-wordpress/6/) and it’s rather disappointing. Besides YARPP and Zemanta I can recommend Contextly (http://www.context.ly). They are doing a pretty good job focussing on editorial quality!
Hi Eric,
Thank you for stopping by and leaving your comments. Your post included a couple options I didn’t find. My search was for related posts plugins that would highlight my own posts, not others’ posts, nor options for monetization, so I really appreciate your post and the table comparing the features in the different plugins.
Glad you like it 🙂
I might write some more posts comparing popular WP plugins and would love to let you know if you are interested.
I’m not a fan of LinkWithin for several reasons. It redirects all your links through the LinkWithin site (often with a visible page lag), and yet it gives you no stats. If you change anything on your site, you have to download a new version of the plugin. I’ve also heard that their privacy policy is scary (though I’ve yet to read it). Neither does it seem to always show very “related” posts, but simply posts from the site. It definitely got a low rating in the related post plugins I’ve been reviewing on my blog.
If I’m using the plugin to only display related posts within my own blog, I don’t understand why I can’t continue to use the plugin. Can someone shed some light on this, please?
George, nRelate is shutting down as of December 31, 2014. It will not longer work to show related posts.
Not sure you saw the link to their announcement in my post, but here’s their farewell post explaining the nRelate shutdown.
Thanks Deborah for the reply. Yes, I’ve read everything I can find on nRelate ceasing. My understanding was that the plugin was code running on my self-hosted WP blog and that it didn’t access or rely in any way on nRelate’s servers or rely on anything outside of my own blog. Where is my thinking incorrect?
Ah. I found the answer in the plugin review link that Eric provided above. It says “As the hosting happens on the external servers by nrelate …”. That must be it. Cheers.
George,
that’s exactly it! nrelate works by connecting to its own servers. Without those servers in place, the plugin is basically useless.
I hope you could find an adequate alternative based on Deborah’s and our reviews though 🙂
Hi Eric,
It’s been a busy month for people looking for alternatives for related posts. I didn’t realize there were so many options until I read your post. Timely information, thank you Eric.
Hi George,
I missed this yesterday, but glad Eric was able to answer your question. What have you decided on for your related post plugin? Also, want to share your site?