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 
I love this feature. It’s still early in its rollout, and I hope you guys continue to iterate through improvements. Morriss Partee above feels like its anti-blogging to have these recommendations. I fundamentally disagree there. I think it very much fits the idea of amateur bloggers – be part of a conversation. Even if it takes someone away from my blog.
And in keeping with the blogger spirit, I actually have a blog post reviewing the WordPress.com recommendations feature: http://tinyurl.com/4wwy74
Sounds pretty good to me!
This seems like a pretty good idea, however all the posts showing up on my blog as ‘possibly related’ are not the slightest bit so. I’ll probably turn it off for now, but maybe reactivate in the future.
I was really excited to see this, guys!
“Related posts” was something I had been doing manually for a while. I hope the next step in the process is to get each publisher to choose which of their own blog posts they want related to a particular post, just in case the automated version doesn’t quite hit the sweet spot (if this feature is already available, I don’t know about it!).
It’s a terrific idea. I look forward to getting acquainted with some new blogs!
I like it – of course, I’m going to have to “up my game” and post MORE unique, MORE relevant and MORE sticky content. Oh wait, that IS the point. Great idea, great implementation – KUDOS
Matt, thanks for the cool feature (again).
Uh Oh!… TRAFFICK !!
POWF!! – AGAIN with the beautiful CREATIVE work – u guys and gurls BETTER cut that out or we’re gonna have to BUY Something! (it’s the GUILT! – all these WONDERFUL toyz for FREE!!– gRRR… ) NICE WORK ! (and THANK YOU!)
Loving it, awesome!!!
Thanks,
Tom
Great idea! Don’t see it showing up on my blog yet — because there aren’t many blogs on my subject? In any case, it will be fun to see what shows up.
I love this tool…Really helps to get reading or watching various similar things on wordpress instead of navagating back and fourth from the dashboard.
Thanks :).
Matt – making results better for whom? I am not interested in having my hard work used to promote other sites unless I choose the other sites. If you’re paying attention to the serious comments in this list, rather than the Fawning Flacks, you’ll see that there is interest in a feature that would allow the blogger to select/de-select the proposed links. However, there is great concern about links to sites that do NOT relate to the blogger’s own content. Let’s be clear. I appreciate the availability of WordPress software and hosting – but if the price of that service is to turn over judgments about content on my blog to someone else, I respectfully decline. I can find other ways to blog.
And part 2 – WordPress moderates comments here, which is appropriate. It is what I do myself at Torch Lake Views. I choose to moderate links from my blog, too. Why on earth would you have difficulty understanding that???
hey matt. like the idea lots. don’t see it on my blog… why not? I’m in the u.s. and all. is this just for the wordpress.org folks or another group? help! what am i missing? I see lots of people asking this and no answer?
I was hopeful about this feature. I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. But after 10 days of watching it point to disappointing or irrelevant drivel I finally shut it off.
I would maybe give it another shot if 2 of the above suggestions were followed.
1) Change the label so it doesn’t look like I (or anybody for that matter) recommend these sites (e.g., “Wordpress found these possibly related sites” )
2) Let me at my own discretion edit away an individual entry if I think it’s inappropriate
How long you think it will take for a Portuguese version of this feature?
The links I get from other blogs will count to Google? I mean, is my blog going to be more relevant for the Google Robot with those links?
Thanks!
I love it. From the Philippines,
Maraming Salamat Po.
Thanks a lot, team wordpress.com!
Many thanks. I love this.
Personally, I disabled the feature on my blog. I didn’t like the idea of links to outside blogs just showing up arbitrarily at the bottom of my posts. I don’t like it. And, I don’t know – maybe I’m just a control freak, but I don’t really care for people getting to my blog by randomly clicking a “possibly related post” on some obscure site I’ve never heard of, seen, read, have any relation to… etc. I think there could be a few feathers ruffled over that aspect of it – which…considering the gross public nature of a blog to begin with, that complaint sounds ridiculous I know – but….I don’t know. I don’t like the link thingy and I disabled it on my blog.
Thanks for giving us the option to disable that feature, but really you should have made it optional and just announced it and let people opt-in, instead of forcing folks to opt-out. If it becomes a requirement for a blog at WordPress, I guess I’ll be forced to purchase a domain name and move my blog! I won’t advertise for blogs I don’t trust/know. I don’t want that junk on my blog – it gives the appearance that I’ve endorsed the “possibly related blogs” which of course I haven’t, or they would have already been included in my blog post. 🙂
I just read Morriss Partee’s original comment and I completely agree with him.
🙂
Well, it is a cool tool, thanks
i’ve noticed this, in fact ive gone back into older posts of mine just to see what might be possibly relayed to stuff, cuz if im writing bout it, i surely would wanna read about too!
kudos to the thought-desk on this one!
-g
I can appreciate the concept of automated links within certain kinds of web pages, but on my own blog, my controlling streak comes out. I don’t want my blog to link to anything I haven’t checked out myself. Wish you’d warned us that you were planning to install this thing. It was quite a shock to find that something had been posted to my blog without my consent. Big thumbs down.
This is the first feature you’ve added that I’ve had a problem with.
Auoto linking related posts is an immensely innovative idea that works as well as warrants.
Thanks WordPress! After all, our new world of Internet is nothing but Linking, intralinking, interlinking!
With a more than ten websites and forum boards I manage now I would like to see this automatically intergrated into my blog. So providing this option could be tailored to fill this request this get it rolling!!
I think that it can be a very powerful tool! I’m waiting for it
Go for it. I found a good number of videos using YouTube’s Related Videos function, and I think it might work on WordPress as well.
Matt-
this is showing up on a few of my posts, but I am very curious as to how the process works. is there an article on this? because while in some of my posts, the links go to lots of my other posts, another one, which has all the same tags and is about exactly the same stuff, does not. I blog a lot about my long distance relationship. I don’t get the connection between a post entitled “long distance love”, asking the readers if they are in long distance relationships, how they met etc. relates to a sports illustrated article on CNN.com about mock drafts? cause, um, thats not even a WP blog? I am very confused. it skyrocketed traffic, I have no other explanation for suddenly having all these hits, but how does this work exactly? I see no related key words, or topics, or anything between love, relationships, moving to a foreign country and sports illustrated? is this just an ad thing? I am not rabidly against this so far, as I can see its a work in progress. and as I am a person who blogs a lot about the same stuff it is linking back to myself too, I just want to understand the means being used to determine “relevancy”. Also, why does it link to posts literally years old on other blogs, but not to other posts in mine that are on the same topic but are in the last month or two?
I echo wanting it to show up on the main page, and to be something that can be edited, so I could edit out the football links, or something else that would pop up that might be offensive.
edit- in the process of writing this, i found another example, because it seems rather hit or miss. i have posts that are totally related, but have no links at all, and then on my post celebrating my anniversary with my S.O., talking about lots of mushy gushy I love you stuff, the “related post” directs to a 2 year old post on another blog railing against the exact stuff I was posting! a direct contradiction in fact, kinda funny. like, they read my post, and wrote something to directly contradict everything I just wrote, slamming me for saying the things I did. crazy. so yes, just as we can make some posts private, we should be able to edit the links, or choose which posts to put them on. And I want to know where I am showing up too. so far, I am directed to off-site or very old posts from my blog, and I really want to know where my posts are showing up on others. if there is a way to do this, please inform? thank you.
ok , very nice feature for wordpress .
It should be turned off by default. Schools who use WordPress for blogging could end up pointing their readers to inappropriate sites. That is why I recommend to my schools in my district to use WordPress not Blogger – as Blogger has the annoying link on it to “next blog” which can opftrn lead to blogs that contain adult content and images.
What a cool idea…I noticed the links at the bottom of my most recent posts and thought I had done something weird on accident to make them appear. But now I know better!
Thanks for the improvements, you guys rock!
sounds like a cool feature!
except i would like to have an option to mark some specific posts, which i don’t want to appear as related posts in other blogs. would that be possible?
I have used this already myself a number of times…its excellent. Nice idea…keep it up.
I turned off this “feature” as soon as I could find out how. I am not here to be another version of YouTube, thank you very much. This is just advertising by another name – and not even “related” or “possibly related” at that.
I’d though WordPress was better than the other blogging sites but looks like I was wrong. This is not a move in the right direction, and I don’t understand why there are people applauding it.
Matt, you did it again.. Keep it up, man!
I dislike this intensely. The “related” posts at my blog were not related, they were duplicated and at first, I wondered where they had come from. The default should always be off, not on. As for the traffic argument, I get plenty and the vast majority of it from multiple, diverse sources external to WordPress.
Matt,
thanks for your answer, I am very happy that I gave you the idea to sell to Microsoft, Murdoch and other mainstream news corporations millions worth of traffic that, right now, we are sending them for free.
Since about half of the “possibly relevant links” in my Blog are sent to those giants who don’t link back any WordPress Blog, I’m just curious of one detail:
do you plan to share those revenues (which I expect to be huge) with me and other Blog owners?
Thanks Matt. I saw the links and wondered what was going on.
Keep up the good work.
It is a good idea but my blog is for kids and I get many hits a day and I am glad you put a off button to that because my viewers are younger kids and if they click a link to go to another site and if that site has something bad on it they might not be able to come back to my blog again. I think it is a great idea but I think it is more for mature viewers then my blogs viewers. Also I would think it would be a great idea if we could customize the generated avatars for our viewers so if we have a theme for our site we can match the generated avatars to match our sites theme or main thing we post about. Example: If we select the custom generated avatar button we can upload 5-10 pictures and WordPress would generate the avatar for that person. I think that would be a great thing for WordPress!
– Zoey500911 a kid that loves to blog.
Thanks a lot for this new feature. 😉
This is a great idea, but the possibly related posts really are not related in any way I can distinguish. You need the help of a company my husband has recently become involved with who actually have the search engine technology to figure out the interests of the blogger and create the links to truly related external sites. Now they are impressive. I can put you in touch if you’re interested in looking into what the company can do.
just our cup of tea. chi.
i have 3 words -keep it up.
I appreciate that the ‘related links’ could increase interest in your business. However, I would like to see the blogger have the ability to remove these links. I have a poetry blog and I am most unhappy with a ‘related’ link that has been added to my site. It is offensive to me..
I am surprised at what is being considered ‘related posts’. I see no problem so long as there is the ability to remove those links.
Thanks,
Sarah M. Zang
Pitching Pennies Poetry Blog
I would use the feature if it only generated links within my own blog, and you could choose which ones to use.
I turned it off as soon as it attracted the wrong sort of commenter to a discussion about race.
Unfortunately I had to take it off my site as there were some links coming up that was not compatible with our site.
Thanks and God Bless
Jake
I saw it and have thought it’s really great…even followed some of the links…thanks!
I think that would be really cool – and I wouldn’t mind the extra traffic to my blog 🙂
Now I just need to write more stuff in mine LOL.
i think it could potentially be a magnificent idea!!! What better way for users to research a certain topic, like a place they want to visit, or a food they want to eat… if all those blogs are pieced together. It makes researching a lot easier… kudos to that yo!!!
I see. You don’t post the comments that aren’t worshipful and agree with your policies. You should make that clear beforehand so people don’t waste their time posting. For the record, I think this “feature” is a WordPress sanctioned spam generator, which will be abused by keyword gaming spammers. There are more pressing needs, and this is a worse than useless add-on because it adds to the general “blind link” disinformation already prevalent on the ‘net. Now you’ll just delete my comment again, jerk.
i’ll admit i haven’t read all 545 other posts, so i might just be being a bit redundant.
but i think that it’s an awesome idea. i think a difficult thing with blogs that discourages a lot of people is a lack of traffic and comments. it’s difficult to get your name out there other than soliciting your blog name on your email signature and your profile in instant messaging services. people want others to enjoy their daily rants, reviews and opinions on life. but sadly a lot of great posts do not great read since there is no community.
in the same light, it’s difficult to find blogs of the same interest since many search engines don’t find what you want a lot of times. i was a faithful member of xanga(not because of layout) for over 3 years mainly because of the community feature of being able to find friends and strangers of similar interests. i ended up leaving due to the monstrosity of ads and addons and gizmos and gadgets that they started putting on their site and came to the beautiful simplicity of wordpress.
so yeah, great stuff. keep it up. i’m still really new, but i really think i’ve found my new home. especially with this new feature.
great analogy of youtube and watching them till 4am. maybe i like that a bit more since that’s happened to me on many a work night when i know i should be getting sleep.
WordPress is just so cool!
Looking forward for the Danish module.
../Hanne
Thank you, Matt
Sorry, probably should have given their web site: http://www.grapeshot.co.uk
Nice work!
Great idea!
Keep it up!
I think ideas like this should be ‘opt in’, rather than ‘opt out’. I hated the feature.
WP guys, thank you for improving our blogging experience day after day..i’ve been receiving spam comments and other offers from other blog providers. maybe you can check that out. but anyway im a die hard WP blog. i love wordpress and your giving me a new reason to stay with WP everyday.. thanks..
it seems like everybody and their sister already commented on this… it is ah! awesome… but i am getting the world’s craziest links to my posts… hey! if somebody is having fun, that is great! but i can not even keep up with what i write… read? whatever!
all incoherence aside, i am amazed at how wordpress keeps on improving its services and certainly very curious as to where that leads in terms of a business model.
HOW ABOUT AN IMAGE UPLOADER THAT WORKS
Nice idea, but I’ve seen it in action and the related posts aren’t really related. Maybe room for improvement?
Who’s better than you?
cool
It doesn’t work on my blog 🙂 and no I haven’t disabled it
Cool. I wondered what that was all about.
absolutely fantabulous.
Excellent! The more connections and ways to connect, the better!
I don’t think this is a good idea and here is why: it will distract readers from your blog, it may bring in more traffic but if you are trying to reach a specific demographic then it messes the entire thing up. Where you want someone to stay focused on your blog now the will be running off to read others forgetting where they started from??? Make no sense, that is exactly what happens on youtube.