Blog posts can be a total tease. You get to the end and you’re ready for more, but all that’s there is maybe some post navigation, and if you’re lucky a few comments. If your appetite was whetted by the awesome post you just read there’s no place for you to go, except maybe to a search engine to look for terms around what you just read.
Post or permalink pages probably account for about half of the pageviews on your blog.
One of my favorite things about Youtube is that you can start with a single video and then see something else interesting in the related videos and you lose yourself and next thing you know it’s four in the morning and you’re watching disco pilates videos. My fancy term for this is lateral navigation. (Which the rest of the world seems to think has something to do with flying.)
Well now you can have that same experience across WordPress.com.
In a feature we’re calling possibly related posts we’ll now try to show posts related to yours a little section at the end. If we find any posts on your blog that are related, we’ll put those at the very top and in bold. Next we’ll show other posts from around WordPress.com, and finally we’ll check if there’s anything in the mainstream media.
The result is a handful of links that should provide you and your visitors something interesting to check out. On blogs that cover the same topics frequently related posts could cause a 5-10% increase in traffic overnight. You could also start to see traffic from lots of other blogs. It’s a bit of an experiment, and we’ll be tweaking it a lot based on your feedback and the data that we collect once everything is live.
Right now this is just for English blogs, but we’re working on the technology to roll this out for every language we support. We’ll also be adding some ways for you to tweak the results to your liking.
If you want to remove the related posts from your blog entirely, just go to Design Appearance > Extras and check the box to do so. But if you remove related posts from your blog we’ll remove you from other people’s blogs, so you won’t get traffic from that.
We hope you like this new feature, that we developed in partnership with our good friends at Sphere, and that it nets you a more interesting reading experience and maybe a bit more traffic.
WordPress.com News 
In theory this sound neat, but right now all I’m getting is things that really have nothing to do with old notes and love letters. Here is hoping that in the long run this will work as wonderful as wordpress has worked in the past.
awesome..thanks!
I wish I had the ability to unlink “possibly related”s that are way off base. I feel as though my readers are being sent away on a fool’s errand when I mention brain training with an online service and they’re sent into gaming posts — not at all the same thing.
Thats a great idea. I like it.
It looks like you’ve incorporated some of the feedback requests made since this feature first became available. Like lately, I’ve seen more posts within the same blog referenced first before directing the reader to posts on other blogs. So happy you guys come up with such great new ideas but keep the wishes of the users in mind.
Fine start! Let us wait, to be grand success.
I HATE the possibly related posts. Machine generated, they’re almost as bad, silly, and irrelevant as the “recommendations” and “adjusted ratings” you get from Netflix. The possiblies that are showing up in my blog are very poor choices and in no way reflect any recommendations I would like to make to my readers. . . . How do we turn this off ?!?!?!???
I am excited! LET’S GO!
GooD 😀
1. Seems like a silly idea to me.
2. I can’t find it on ANYONE’s blog, let alone my own . . . even the people who posted here to say it was there.
3. See #1. Maybe people all turned it off, like Fox, who explained better than I could why it seems like a silly idea to me.
nope,i don’t like it! I LOVE IT!!!!! it’s so cool!!!!!
It will be interesting to see how this works for those of us that blog in a “non generic” language, like my Norwegian blog 🙂
Great idea. 🙂
I had the function turned off. Sorry, but I already place links in my posts that are directly related to my topic. Your randomly selected posts were hit or miss. They detracted from my intent. I think if we could edit the links that show up, then I might turn the feature back on.
Awesome!
I noticed this just yesterday, but didn’t take the time to figure out what the deal was…
I aim to do something similar with my posts anyway, so thanks for making life a little easier!
*trundles off to give the new possible-doobie-whatsit a crack*
It’s good but needs work. If you could add blogs that you don’t mind being referenced then it could be good. The last thing I want is some dross advertised on my blog. I also don’t want my stuff appearing on another blog just because I’ve used certain keywords.
If you give us some control of this it really could be a powerful tool… otherwise it’s just contextualized ads google-style.
Keep up the good work.
I don’t mind the idea… I would probably like it better if I had the ability to veto links. For a hypothetical example, I would hate to be writing a post about abstinence that brings up websites about the “benefits” of pre-marital sex. If it’s a political post, I could care less… I’ll spew my opinion as much as any liberal ever did. I’m just a little skeptical when there is no way to veto a link as unrelated.
Adam
Good idea!
This sounds very cool, The new wordpress update is complicated but in someway its much better.
I’m really enjoying blogging 🙂
I like having the hawt post its very cool!
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Mohd
Liked the cool tool….nyways i want it also to be developed for blogs other than english, I do blog in Gujarati and i wish it works for me also…
But anyways its a very nice work….
I think this feature can do wordpress.com better. Thanks for your work.
Great idea. Can’t wait to have this done in portuguese blogs as well.
This is why I love wordpress… always improving…
nice 😀
I love this feature as plugin in wp.org 🙂
I actually hate the randomness of this, even though you’re using an engine to try to find related material. Here’s why this is a horrible bad idea, and really, you should turn it OFF everyone’s blog unless they specifically ask for it: If I want random, unvetted links on a topic, I’ll google it. The REASON why blogs are a great medium is one of TRUSTED information. If I know a blogger is smart, savvy, well connected, and honest, I will trust THEIR opinions, and look to what links THEY supply. Making these robot-choices LOOK like they are endorsed by the blogger is where this really falls down, and makes me want to shut it off immediately and everywhere. It is so unfortunate that this is on by default. I will recommend to everyone that they shut off this feature. This is so anti-blogging, it’s not funny, and in fact sad coming from a trusted blogging platform. I bet if you took this issue to serious bloggers first, they would have chimed in overwhelmingly in the negative camp.
Okay, I will follow up with a more moderated comment now that I’ve calmed down enough on this subject to read some others’ comments. I like the idea that you show the blog author what the related links are, then let the author decide if s/he wants to show them, and possibly add comments to the outgoing links. If it worked like that, then that could be a good thing.
I want it in italian, please!
This was bringing up some pretty weird, only marginally related stuff, so I turned it off. Interesting idea, though.
We wait spanish version… Thanks
I have been wanting this feature for so long! However, I don’t understand the way links are generated. I have a specific post, but 3 out of 4 of the related posts link to ANOTHER BLOG, even though I have a handful of pots on the topic. I don’t mind linking other blogs (in this case it is a friend of mine); however one would think more related posts from my blog would show up more regardless of trackbacks.
Looks great to me. May be you can generate trends about blogs the way google does about search
It sounds cool. I was mix my blog into English and Indonesian. 😉
Make it stop!!
The links are totally unrelated to my posts.
Oh yeah. See? Just another reason why I love WordPress!
OK, I noticed this and thought it was pretty cool! Thanks!
I gotta admit that it’s hard to autogenerate links about something as obscure as a specific videogame… wich is my case… but… the results turning out to be common spam? links generated were mostly “give this [X] guy hits” or “visit this site”… now that’s simply bad. hopefully you guys will develop a filter to pull out those posts that do nothing but consume space in the blogs.
Yeah, yeah…
I’ll waiting for the feature in portughese.
But thanks a lot anyway! Seems to be a very nice new thing about wordpress!
Anything can make us increase in traffic is always welcome.
amm…
What it seems to be designed for is to keep the readers IN wordpress, which is understandably your goal. What it PROBABLY will do for individual bloggers is take the reader away from his or her blog into someone else’s blog within wordpress, a dubious result in my way of thinking. But what do I know?
I would have appreciated an opt in or announcement before seeing “possibly related” links added to my site. On the plus side, the help forum made it easy to figure out how to turn off the feature. Maybe next time you might ask before implementing a new feature?
Thanks again for the work you do and for offering such a great tool.
Terrific idea. Well done! 🙂
I’ll wait and see. So far, I’ve only seen traffic out, not traffic in. I like that the links are identified as automatically generated. However, we humans are a pretty dense lot. I’d like to see it identified even more boldly and identified as “automatically generated by wordpress” to make it clear that the author had nothing to do with the selected links.
There is risk that it will be confusing, especially to people who do not have a wordpress blog. It may be seen as generated by some program owned by the author and as a form of endorsement. I’d like to make it clear that this is not the case.
Great idea though. I hope it works as intended.
A bit of a two-edged sword this, guys. On the one hand it MAY bring in traffic, on the other it will almost surely TAKE TRAFFIC AWAY. Call me picky, but if people find their way to my blog, my priority is keeping them interested enough to stay there for a little while, not have them promptly click through to somewhere else after reading one post.
This is a basically good idea poorly executed. At present we have the option of accepting it in toto or turning it off – which is what I’ve opted for after letting it run for a week or two, to no particular benefit. If we had control over what links were shown, I’d go with it, but I wouldn’t willingly link to blogs or websites that I have zero knowledge of. Do you, for example, check out the individual sites/blogs (unlikely – too time-consuming), or are they computer-selected by title/keywords? If the latter then there’s no telling what is being linked to – could even be porn sites, perhaps. Do you, in fact, actively ensure that porn sites are NOT linked to?
Apologies if some or all of these points have already been made – there are way too many comments to read at this point, and I only stumbled upon this page today, when a link appeared on my Dashboard.
No the goal is to take readers to something they’ll find interesting. If your blog has a sufficiently related post, that’ll be another blog post on your blog, driving more traffic to your blog. If another blog is a better result, then it’ll show that, which takes someone to a different blog but it evens out because you’ll show up on others’ blogs as well. It’s reciprocal. If the results are good, readers will be happy and visit you more often. Making results better is, of course, our top priority.
I turned mine off. Some of the related posts were totally adverse to my positions and there was no way i could endorse these sites. But thanks anyway!!! You have great innovations.
Thanks to WordPress.com for
. all the improvements and
. all my sleepless nights !
My pleasure to have come across your way… Thanks again.
Wow.Thank you.
I like the idea…but I have it turned off until I can have more control over what is linked to from my blog. I don’t want to leave the appearance that I support certain content that I do not, and the current set-up makes it look like a personal endorsement from me. I do like the potential for additional traffic of course, but not at the risk of linking to something that is completely opposite to my blog’s purpose and intent. Thank you for your work and let us know if this feature becomes more adaptable to author control.
http://www.thefullquiverhomeschoolhouse.wordpress.com
Nice one wordpress. Updating for the best as ussual 😉
Thats pritty cool.
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~Shakan!~
matt this is coooooooooollllllllllllllllll,ma english blog is showing other blogs even i wouldnt hv reached there,lots love for this new feature,mhuaaaaaaaa
Oh, great, finally we will have related post… again great, thank’s
I love it – For researchers that get frustrated with navigating through the “possibility of tags” that are helpful – they can now “Wordpress IT” – giggles – look out Goggle…smiles.
The “possibly related post” is a great add-on. It may even increase your audience share and drives more traffic to your blog instead of just concentrating on the select group of readers with the same interests.
I’m just wondering what’s your algorithm in getting those links as possibly related to my blog? Although I created my blog “Filipino Deaf from the Eyes of a Hearing Person” http://deafphilippines.wordpress.com last year, it is only just this April that I began to post entries. My theme is about the deaf. But all three links that appear as “possibly related” are remotely related. The other one was about a rat. It’s either the deaf are synonymous to rats or the deaf are considered as rats of the world. Links may even be insulting aside from being unrelated. The reader who would click on the link would definitely be “lost into the cyberspace.”. I suggest you relate it using tags instead.
Good job and congratulations! However, I’m eagerly looking forward to the better one. God bless. 🙂
It sucks & some links are certainly inappropriate. The option should be OFF by default, not ON-that is an invasion of my privacy.
that’s great…
Me too…I totally thought, “hey, what the heck is that??!? I hope it’s not a well-disguised ad…” Then two seconds later after clicking, I realized this is one awesome idea. How do I get a job with Sphere? 🙂
I think that is pretty awesome. Any way that makes it easier to stay connected to other blogs and related items is great!!
Congratulations, It is a great Job…
Seems kind of like Google’s pay-per-click. User types in something they want, and then ‘here are these other things that may, or may not be somewhat related.” It may be cool, or it may not. I guess we will need to see it.
I appreciate what you do & it Looks great to me
I think it’s a good idea but aesthetically it is pretty poor. WP is spending a lot of time making things look good. It’s a shame this feature is so utilitarian.
Thanks! Sounds cool. 😎
wow thats alot of comments
Good idea! WordPress get’s better and better.
This sounds like a magnificent idea… I’m all for anything that can create more traffic to our blogs! The concept of related blogs is something that should prove to be extremely beneficial to WordPress bloggers and readers.
Thanks!
nice
Well, I thought this was great until I noticed some people clicking through to an offensive blog from mine. I’m a mommy blogger. I don’t want links to articles like that showing up on my blog. Come on, my parents read my blog.
hey,
I can see the related post in one of my post.
some 2-3 days back I was thinking, how this thing came 🙂 very surprised that how come only in 1 page this is there not in all the pages. but now I got your point.
I think that is the best idea.
I am lov’n it. 😀
OK, so how do I remove it? I really don’t want my blog to link to other blogs, especially when they turn out to be completely the opposite of what I’m trying to promote.
The link that popped up on my latest post was to a fundamentalist Christian blog. My blog is openly atheistic and features rants against religious belief. I doubt that they would want to be associated with me, and I in no way want to be associated with them.
Nice work, really nice.
But my blog its spanish, bad lucky 🙂
Cya!.-
For this reason WordPress I like all anymore and anymore. He is the best!
I also collect and post articles in English and Bahasa Indonesia.
I think as long as the tag keywords in English we can exchange our posting in related item.
Two thumbs up…!
Hello Matt from the looks of things, I have not seen the related links on my blog… Thanks for your time Matt!
Onecoolsoul
Related links doesn’t show up on my blog..even though the checkbox for “Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way” in Design – Extras is Unchecked.
Someone?? Thanks so much!
Wonderful. I hope it will be soon added to the non-english blogs. 🙂
cool!! i wish my blog got this many comments lol!!
I don’t see this happening on my blog at all even though I have it turned on in “extras”. Does it not work with some themes?
Thanks wordpress sounds really good idea.
Matt, I’ll ask it plainly:
Do WordPress or Automattic receive Money or any kind of valuables from companies like MSN (Microsoft) or Barrons for sending them our reader?
If you don’t, I really think you should get some: they do pay about everybody else millions of dollars to get traffic, why should we be the only wimps to send it for free?
deminvest, the mainstream media links that show up in related posts are determined solely by contextual relevancy to the blog post, like organic search results on Google. Right now there aren’t any commercial relationships in place, though as you say it’s not a bad idea for the future.
Muy interesante la idea. Esperemos se extienda al mundo hipanoparlante y sea de fácil aplicación.
Gracias
I like the idea, but please let us veto individual “possibly related posts.” For me, that “possibly” has been the kicker.
I would love it if it were finding posts that were remotely in the same realm (dealing with the same topic, dealing with a possibly related topic, dealing with something that I could, as a human being and not a word search engine, rationally connect to my topic with under five logical reasoning steps and one intuitive leap). I want to see those posts.
Instead, my post about a play has found a post about doing qigong in your sleep. I’m not against doing qigong, but it has nothing to do with my post whatsoever and I would like the ability to say “no” to that while saying “yes” to something about plays or literature or theater or …well, something that is not entirely unlike my post.
Nice idea.. and yes, I can honestly say perhaps it is working.. I’ve gone from having about 100-150 hits a day to over 400 the last three days.. could be because of this.
It’s all about choice and more meaningful experiences. When snooping the web, a user is probably following some interest at the time, so relative blogs or posts will be welcomed. I think your offering is great. Thanks.
Holla!
Ok I’m Happy! but hope it dosen’t interfere with my post a lot :D. Nice Idea though, Guys!
-Jabberwacky!
sounds great
Thanks. I chose to remove the ‘possibly related posts’ from my blog, as I do not want our readers to get mixed up with information that might not pertain to our own activities. It is not clear to the reader that they will be navigating away to other blogs. Still, they should know better 🙂
I do think it is a neat function and will be glad to make use of it when browsing other blogs. You are right to make it a default.
Whoa!! Awesome news!
This sounds pretty cool.
You have my attention and trust me that is no simple task.
totally cool.
Add it in Italian Blogs too! It’s a great feature!
I don’t know what sort of algorithm or heuristic comparisons are used but the few related posts I’ve found so far (to or from my own) seem to have no relation or similarity at all.
Hmm..sounds good.What if they’re irrelevant and annoying,though?Is there an option to get rid of them..?Just saying.
Once you post these possibly related links to my comments is there anyway to delete any of the possibly related links if I find they do not compliment my blog. I have strict guidelines for myself on what I’ll post.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. Love it!