While YouTube is a great platform to upload and share videos, often small businesses try to avoid it because of the related videos that it shows. Sometimes these related videos may promote a competitor or endorse something that you do not agree with. Recently, one of our users asked us how to remove related videos from the end of an embedded Youtube Videos. In this article, we will show you how to turn off related Youtube videos in WordPress.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Note: We advise our users to never directly upload videos to WordPress, instead they should use video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo to save bandwidth and ensure a better user experience.
Manually Turn Off Related YouTube Videos
YouTube allows you to manually trun off related videos when embedding a video in WordPress. Simply add ?rel=0 at the end of your video URL like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg?rel=0
WordPress uses oEmbed to get the embed code from YouTube. Since we have appended the URL with ?rel=0, it fetches an embed code with suggested videos or recommended videos turned off.
Automatically Turn Off Related YouTube Videos in WordPress
If you embed a lot of YouTube videos on your website, then you may want to simplify the process by using the automatic solution that disables related Youtube videos on the entire-site. All you need to do is install and activate Hide YouTube Related Videos plugin.
There are no settings for you to configure for this plugin because it works out of the box. Just add your YouTube URL in a post like you would normally do, and the plugin will make sure that the oEmbed code obtained by WordPress has related videos turned off. It also clears your oEmbed cache and all YouTube videos you added earlier will also stop showing related videos.
We hope this article helped you turn off related videos when embedding YouTube videos on your site. For feedback and questions please leave a comment below or join WPBeginner on Google+.
Joffry says
Hi there,
That plugin doesn’t excist anymore and it looks like YouTube nowadyas (Januari 2019) is ignoring the (?rel=0).
Is there another solution available of not showing the related videos?
WPBeginner Support says
Not at the moment but we will keep an eye out for alternatives for this article.
Admin
Paweł says
It is no longer avaible or the “engine” has been changed.
Sandra R. says
Hi,
This was a good fix and it worked but now my autoplay doesn’t work. Any suggestions on how to make the embedded video autoplay without any related videos at the end?
Thanks,
S
roberto says
thank you so much! I tried the plugin and it didn’t work but this worked fine. Thank you! It works on mobile devices aswell
Chris says
The code rel=0 etc does work however it also then stops the video from playing on mobile devises. Also the plugin docent work on the updated version of wordpress. So does anyone have a solution?
Grace says
None of the solutions in this post worked for me. On further research, I discovered this plugin: Hide YouTube Related Videos
Install. Activate. Done.
[happy dance]…
Eliza says
Thank you very much! This was very useful.
Jen Audetat says
How do I make this work for multiple videos?
Mia says
Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I tried the plugin and it didn’t work but this worked instantly. Thank you!
Mike says
I have a few YouTube videos on my site, where I’d like to remove the related videos. I tried all the suggestions listed in previous comments by adding ?rel=0 or &rel=0 at the end of the URL, and nothing seems to work.
Any ideas on why it wont’ work, or suggestions to make it work?
Derek says
I added the plugin. It works just fine on my pc, but for some reason I’m still seeing the related videos photo on my mobile phone. How can I stop this as well?
Isabel says
I have a youtube video embedded into revolution slider. I’ve tried to add the code ?rel=0 but it wont work. After I entered the code it will still show the previews of other videos at the end of the video being played.
Mike says
Hi Isabel,
I am having the same issue as you are with YouTube videos being embedded into revolution slider. I’ve tried exactly what you stated in your comment (?rel=0 and &rel=0), and it doesn’t work for me. Were you able to find a solution to your issue?
Thanks,
Mike
Tyler says
Not sure if you have found the answer to this already, if not here is what worked for me.
-Open the slider you want to work on and add a video layer.
-Then in the video settings (if not there yet double click the video you want to edit) got to the “Arguments” tab. Mine looked something like this
hd=1&wmode=opaque&showinfo=0&ref=0;
-In that tab add &rel=0 before the ; to make it look like this
hd=1&wmode=opaque&showinfo=0&ref=0&rel=0;
-Save and test the video.
Tom Nordlund says
Since you’ve disabled full screen mode, I can’t see the text in the video that you’re using to disable related videos.
Peggy says
I’m using my YouTube URL within a WordPress content slider. I’ve added the code listed above and I’ve installed the plugin, but no luck. Related videos still show. My guess is that it is because of the slider – any thoughts?
Sacha says
Thanks for the tip!
Lam Truong says
i used Hide YouTube Related Videos in my site but related Videos still present.
Help me !
I use plugin Featured Video Plus in my site
Erin K. Geyer says
Actually you have the code a bit wrong. You can’t use the “?” more than once in a URL. The character “?” means that you’re about to start appending variables in a query string. So ?v=XXXXXXX is where you set the first variable, and then if you want to append more variables you have to use the “&” character. So you append &rel=0 because it is the second variable to be appended to the query string.
So it should look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXX&rel=0
Shiaroi Tripura says
Many sincere thanks Erin K. Geyer.
mikeb says
perfect – thanks for the tip on the plugin – does exactly what I needed
MPS says
I am trying to use this tip on wordpress 3.8.1, but it is not working. Front end is showing video URL in plain text. Any suggestion?
WPBeginner Support says
if you are trying it on localhost, then please try it in a staging environment or live server.
Admin
MPS says
Thanks for the reply. I am using it on staging environment. You can see the page here:
http://ks.rghospitalludhiana.com/ustad-alla-rakha-gurupurnima-2013/
If it helps, I can email you the login access.
WPBeginner Support says
Did you try switching to a default theme, or by turning off all your plugins. You can also try wrapping YouTube url in
[embed] [/embed].Mike says
Try adding this to the end of your URL: ?rel=0&
Laurette says
This worked perfectly after struggling the whole afternoon to find a solution – THANK YOU!!
James Messick says
The latest version of the plugin mentioned does not seem to work with WordPress 3.8.1.
WPBeginner Support says
We see no problem at our end.
Admin
Theresa says
Your tip, of course, worked! Thank you.
Is there a way to prevent the pop up ads that want to appear at the start of the video?
WPBeginner Support says
We don’t understand what you mean by popup ads?
Admin
cowboy Mike says
Hi,
I tried this tip and it did not seem to work for me. At the end of the video it still shows suggested videos in the video player. The code I used;
Happy trails, Mike
WPBeginner Support says
It should work only when embedded on your site not on YouTube. Also try using full video URL as shown in the article above.
Admin
Jim says
This just doesn’t work for me. When I paste the link to my videos, they embed just fine. When I add the ?rel=0 to the end, then my page shows the url in plain text.
I do have the privacy setting for my videos set to unlisted. I changed one to public hoping that would allow the ?rel=0 to work, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Any ideas why it won’t work on my video? I don’t really want to use the plug-in, there’s only 7 videos on my site.
Carol Butler says
Have to thank you for always having a tidbit that makes things better easily! Thanks!
Karen says
Excellent information! I’ve been using a plugin to do this – but this bit of code is a much better & leaner solution.
Jeremy says
Hmm… I think YouTube gives you an option to uncheck “Show suggested videos when the video finishes” at the embedding sharing options. Or am I not seeing something here?
WPBeginner Support says
Jeremy it does if you are selecting the embed code from YouTube. However, since WordPress uses oEmbed you don’t need to copy paste <iframe> embed code any more. Most users just paste the video URL from their browser’s address bar and add it in the post. You can still use the iframe embed code if you want.
Admin