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How can I add a list of related posts to my posts?

You can configure Efficient Related Posts to add related posts automatically in Settings -> Related Posts. Alternatively you can use the shortcode [relatedPosts] or the helper functions wpgetrelatedposts() and wprelated_posts() in your theme files.

How exactly do you use the [[relatedPosts]] shortcode?

To use the default settings (from Settings -> Related Posts) you just need to add [relatedPosts] to your post or page where you want to list to be. You can also add some attributes to it such as numtodisplay (Number of related posts to display), norptext (Text to display if there are no related posts), and title (Title for related posts list, empty for none) like this:

• [relatedPosts title="Most Related Post" num_to_display="1"]
• [relatedPosts num_to_display="1" no_rp_text="No Related Posts Found"]
• [relatedPosts title="Try these related posts:" num_to_display="3" no_rp_text="No Related Posts Found"]

How do the theme helper functions work?

You can use wp_get_related_posts() and wp_related_posts() to display a list of related posts in your theme. They need to be used in "the loop" and the only difference is that wp_get_related_posts() returns the list and wprelatedposts() echos the list. You can also pass an associative array of arguments to it such as numtodisplay (Number of related posts to display), norptext (Text to display if there are no related posts), and title (Title for related posts list, empty for none) like this:

• wp_related_posts(array('title'=>'Most Related Post', 'num_to_display'=>1))
• echo wp_get_related_posts(array('num_to_display'=>1, 'no_rp_text'=>'No Related Posts Found'))
• wp_related_posts(array('title'=>'Most Related Post', 'num_to_display'=>3, 'no_rp_text'=>'No Related Posts Found'))

If it calculates related posts when a post is saved, won't a post only be related to older posts?

No, Efficient Related Posts finds all the posts related to the one being saved, and if the current post is more closely related to one of those posts than the least related post that is currently stored, it re-processes that post. Simple right? Well, maybe it's not so simple, but rest assured that your posts can and will show the posts they are most related to regardless of post date.

What metrics are used?

Posts are considered related based on tags. This may be extended in the future, but I wanted to keep the queries as clean as possible.