baffling behavior of "related posts"
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I have a couple of questions re: the new “related posts” feature.
1. Sometimes it shows up at the bottom of my post & other times it does not. For example, I have just written a new post & scheduled it to run tomorrow; when I had this post’s visibility set to “private”, the related posts line shows up. When I changed it to “public”, related posts do NOT show up. Can you please tell me when I should expect to see it and when I should not?
2. I’ve read that the related posts should show up as thumbnails so long as I’ve set a featured image for each of them. All my posts have featured images set, but the related posts are showing up (when they do) as TEXT rather than thumbnails. Why is this (or more importantly, how do I fix it?)
Thanks very much.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Laurie – The related posts should show on all of your public posts. Can you link me directly to the post where it’s not appearing?
You can check the box to enable the thumbnails in Settings->Reading here:
https://eyeonenvironment.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-reading.php -
Thank you – I hadn’t found those settings. Clicking on the thumbnails enabling box has quickly solved the 2nd problem!
As for when RPs are not showing up – I can’t give you a link, because it seems to there now on all my posts. But there are 2 specific cases I can think of:
1) on the front page, where my most recent posts display, there are no RPs showing. I’m assuming that’s how it should be – that RPs will never show up there, only on the actual post itself. Correct?
2) when I’m working on a new post and then go to view it (i.e. prior to actual publication) – RP seems to show up sometimes, not others. I’d like to see the RPs consistently at that stage, because that way, I’ll know which of my past posts it’s going to link to – enabling me to add an “if you liked this post you might also like…” section of links in case the RP choices are not what I would prefer. Any thoughts on this?thanks very much.
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Hi Laurie,
on the front page, where my most recent posts display, there are no RPs showing. I’m assuming that’s how it should be – that RPs will never show up there, only on the actual post itself. Correct?
Yes, correct.
when I’m working on a new post and then go to view it (i.e. prior to actual publication) – RP seems to show up sometimes, not others.
Hmm, I don’t see related posts on preview at all. Can you link me to a draft post where you see them if you preview?
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I will try to remember to do this the next time I am writing a blog (I’m definitely not a daily poster!), if it shows up on preview – and if I can figure out how to let you access it without making it public. However (maybe this is relevant, I’m not sure) I seldom use “preview” and instead, I keep the post private until it’s finalized and use “update” then the “view page” button to see how it’s looking. Maybe that leads to different related posts behaviour….?
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Hi Laurie – I can see your draft and private posts, since I’m on staff. Are you saying that you publish your posts and set them private instead of saving them as a draft? If so, that could explain it, because the post is already published. But I’m curious why you don’t save your posts as drafts and preview them?
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The very first thing I always do is set a new post as private, so that I don’t accidentally generate an email notification to my followers before the post is actually ready for prime time. As soon as I click “private”, the “draft” button disappears – so as I go about writing the post, I hit the update key instead. No good reason except habit, I guess – it’s simply the way I figured out how to do my posts as I was working on my own. When I started my blog, the whole thing was a bit confusing and I didn’t understand how “draft” worked, I guess – so opted for “private”. Perhaps it was a result of having worked on a Drupal site before that, I don’t remember.
I guess old dogs can learn new tricks if necessary – though of course we’d rather not! Do you see any any downside to continuing the way I have been doing it up to now? And would that make any difference to whether the related posts would show up for me before I make the blog post both public and published? I would like to see the RP links in the draft stage or private stage (either would be fine) as that would tell me whether I need to add an “if you liked” section with links, or just go with the links WP’s algorithm has selected.
thanks
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Hi Laurie – I see. Thanks for the explanation, I was just curious. I think doing it that way is totally fine if it works for you!
However, when I test this, I don’t see the related posts until I make the post public and publish it. I don’t think there’s any way to preview the related posts suggestions; I think they only show up when the post is published.
If you do find that you’re able to see them on a particular draft or private post, let me know, and I’ll take a look!
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Will do. In the meantime, here’s a suggestion for WP staff: it would be great if we could have a way to see the Related Posts while in preview or private mode – i.e. before it’s published and public – so that we know which posts it’ll be including. That way, if we like the links it picks, we don’t need to add our own (redundant) section of “if you liked” links – or conversely, we would be able to add such a section if we didn’t feel the WP-Related Posts list was quite right for our needs.
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Thanks! And thank you too for your attention to this issue – I appreciate the prompt and helpful support from WP staff like you.
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