Similar Posts WordPress Plugin
Posted by Ken Cheung on Monday, October 16, 2006 in Reviews, WordPress : : 11 commentsIf you are a fan of the Related Posts plugin, then I think you will like the Similar Posts WordPress plugin. The Similar Posts plugin is based on the Related Posts plugin, but with extra functionality. Rob Marsh, the developer, even used a couple of my ideas (excluding categories and unrelated pages) in his plugin.
But Rob didn't just stop there, he improved my hacks by placing the "exclude pages and categories" options in the admin menu. No more messing with the code. I was actually planning on doing the same thing, just not sure when. Now I don't have to write my own plugin. Rob already did it.
Another nice feature of the Similar Posts plugin is that you can tweak the similar keywords for each post when you are writing the post. This gives you the ability to fine-tune the keywords to your liking. In addition, if you have previously used the Related Posts plugin to assign keywords to posts you can now import them all from the Options page. I didn't even know you could assign keywords with the Related Posts plugin.
Here's my little comparison of the two:
| Related Posts | Similar Posts | |
| Can set the number of posts to show | yes | yes |
| Customize before/after post | yes | yes |
| Show excerpt | yes | yes |
| Customize before/after excerpt | yes | yes |
| Show password protected posts | yes | yes |
| Exclude static pages | no | yes |
| Exclude certain categories | no | yes |
| Checks title for match | yes | yes |
| Checks content for match | no | yes |
The plugin is great, but I would suggest changing the "no similar posts" result when there's no related posts. Instead, it would be nice if the plugin could display a set of user-defined posts when the plugin can't find a related post. I have not seen "no related posts" on my site recently, but it will eventually show up again when I write an oddball post.
Hi Ken, your suggestion and a couple of other things are in the next release, coming soon.
Thanks
Ken,
Check out the updated version which is now online.
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Thanks Rob for the update. Sorry I couldn't get to it until now. My 14-month daughter was hospitalized for 5 days. She's home and fine now. But I have a lot of catching up to do.
What I want to do on my blog, is every few hours take the oldest post and move it to the
front of the queue, all automatically. Anyone know if there is a plugin that can do this or
a simple way to set up another plugin to do this (use my own feed perhaps)?
Thanks.
I don't know of a plugin that will do exactly what you want. Here are some that are close:
Custom Query String Plugin
http://mattread.com/projects/wp-plugins/custom-query-string-plugin/
Timecapsule WordPress Plugin
http://izachy.com/2006/05/31/timecapsule-review/
Random Post plugin
http://www.w-a-s-a-b-i.com/archives/2004/05/27/wordpress-random-posts-plugin/
I have installed Similar Posts Plugin v2.0.4 in wp2.0.5. My site is bi-lingual (English & myLanguage). Similar Posts displays well with English Posts but with myLanguage (UNICODE) posts don't display any similar posts. I checked 'similarterms' box in edit section of the post, but it does not display any term. Even I put some terms mannually and updated the post. But no result!! Will you please suggest any correction in script for my expected results?
Bearded, try contacting Rob. He created the plugin and would know more than me:
http://rmarsh.com/2006/10/04/similar-posts/
BTW, you should upgrade to WP 2.0.6 for security reasons.
Ken, thanks for the great plugin. C.u.
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