Description
Zyonix Related Posts automatically shows relevant posts to your readers at the end of any post or page — helping you reduce bounce rates and keep visitors engaged longer.
Key Features
- Smart Matching — Find related posts by Category, Tag, Author, or any combination.
- Grid & List Layouts — Choose the layout that fits your theme.
- Post Meta — Optionally show publish date and estimated reading time.
- Excerpt Support — Show a short excerpt beneath each related post title.
- AJAX Load More — Let visitors load more related posts without a page reload.
- Shortcode — Use
[zyonrp_related_posts]anywhere in your content or widgets. - Widget Support — Drop the widget into any sidebar or footer area.
- Order By — Sort by Latest, Most Commented, or Random.
- Thumbnail Size — Choose from Thumbnail, Medium, Medium Large, or Large.
- Open in New Tab — Optionally open all related post links in a new tab.
- Auto-Append Toggle — Disable auto-appending to content and use the shortcode instead.
- Multiple Post Types — Works with Posts, Pages, and any custom post type.
- Fully Sanitized & Escaped — Built with WordPress security best practices throughout.
Shortcode Usage
Basic usage:
[zyonrp_related_posts]
With options:
[zyonrp_related_posts count=”3″ layout=”list” title=”You May Also Like”]
Requirements
- WordPress 5.0+
- PHP 7.4+
Installation
- Upload the
zyonix-related-postsfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
- Go to Settings Related Posts to configure the plugin.
- That’s it! Related posts will now appear automatically after your post content.
FAQ
-
Go to Settings Related Posts and make sure:
1. The correct Post Types are checked under “Show On Post Types”.
2. At least one option is checked under “Matching Logic” (Category, Tag, or Author).
3. “Auto-append to Content” is enabled. -
Yes! Disable “Auto-append to Content” in the settings, then place the shortcode
[zyonrp_related_posts]wherever you want them to appear. -
Yes. Add styles to your theme’s stylesheet targeting
.zyonrp-related-posts. -
Does it support custom post types?
-
Yes. All public post types are listed in the “Show On Post Types” setting so you can enable related posts for any of them.
-
What does the shortcode support?
-
[zyonrp_related_posts count=”5″ layout=”grid” title=”Related Posts”]
All three attributes are optional and fall back to your global settings.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Zyonix Related Posts” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Zyonix Related Posts” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.3
- Critical fix: replaced get_the_excerpt() with direct post_excerpt/post_content reading to prevent the_content filter chain firing on every related post item — the root cause of page load blocking.
- Fix: post meta cache re-enabled so has_post_thumbnail() and get_the_post_thumbnail() do not fire individual DB queries per post.
- Fix: post_content_cache now built for both read_time and excerpt, not just read_time.
1.0.2
- Performance fix: plugin no longer runs an unrestricted WP_Query when a post has no category/tag assigned, which caused slowdowns on large sites.
- Performance fix: added update_post_meta_cache and update_post_term_cache=false to avoid unnecessary DB queries.
- Performance fix: permalink now cached per post item instead of fetched twice.
1.0.1
- Fixed Load More “has_more” logic that caused the button to never hide.
- Security: validate post status and password protection in AJAX handler.
- Performance: PHP shuffle pool fetch avoids ORDER BY RAND() full table scan.
- Performance: post content cache avoids N+1 DB queries for read-time calculation.
- Security: post types validated against registered public types on every request.
1.0.0
- Initial release.
- Grid and List layout options.
- Excerpt, publish date, and estimated read time display options.
- AJAX-powered “Load More” button.
- Shortcode
[zyonrp_related_posts]with count, layout, and title attributes. - WordPress Widget support.
- Order By option (Latest, Most Commented, Random).
- Thumbnail size selector.
- Open links in new tab option.
- Auto-append to content toggle.
- Default options set on plugin activation.
- Full input sanitization, validation, and escaping per WordPress coding standards.