Related posts can be easily displayed with plugins, but did you ever wonder how you could display related posts with a Thumbnail without using a Plugin? In this article, we will share two different algorithm which you can use to generate related posts with thumbnails and avoid using any plugin.
Note: We will utilize the built-in WordPress Post Thumbnail Function. So it is best if you implement this.
Related Posts by Tags
WordPress has this amazing taxonomy known as “Post Tags” which you can use. You can tag each of your posts with multiple keywords. This algorithm would find other posts with any one of the tag that the current post has and will list them.
<?php $orig_post = $post;
global $post;
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
if ($tags) {
$tag_ids = array();
foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;
$args=array(
'tag__in' => $tag_ids,
'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
'posts_per_page'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
'ignore_sticky_posts'=>1
);
$my_query = new wp_query( $args );
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {echo '<div id="relatedposts"><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>';
while( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
$my_query->the_post(); ?><li><div class="relatedthumb"><a href="<?php the_permalink()?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a></div>
<div class="relatedcontent">
<h3><a href="<?php the_permalink()?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
<?php the_time('M j, Y') ?>
</div>
</li>
<?php }
echo '</ul></div>';
}
}
$post = $orig_post;
wp_reset_query(); ?>
The above code is looking at the current post ID and all tags which are associated with it and it uses the wp_query function to look for all other posts that matches any original tag and display them. You can style the post anyway you want them.
Advantage: Most codes on the web cannot be used within the main post loop. Because the related posts are placed right after the main post and above the comments, this code is very helpful. We are saving the current post ID of the main loop and then recalling it at the end of our related posts code. Usually when you don’t do it this way, the two post ID codes gets mixed up and then the comments start acting weird which can break the comments, other plugins related to comments such as numbering system etc. So this code is good and it works.
Usage: Place this code anywhere you like in your single.php and it will work. But most of the time it is placed right above the comments in the main loop.
Related Posts by Category
This algorithm would find other posts within the same category as the current post, and it will list them as related posts. The advantage of this technique is that you will never have a blank spot for your related posts section.
<?php $orig_post = $post;
global $post;
$categories = get_the_category($post->ID);
if ($categories) {
$category_ids = array();
foreach($categories as $individual_category) $category_ids[] = $individual_category->term_id;$args=array(
'category__in' => $category_ids,
'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
'posts_per_page'=> 2, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
'ignore_sticky_posts'=>1
);$my_query = new wp_query( $args );
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
echo '<div id="related_posts"><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>';
while( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
$my_query->the_post();?><li><div class="relatedthumb"><a href="<?php the_permalink()?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a></div>
<div class="relatedcontent">
<h3><a href="<?php the_permalink()?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
<?php the_time('M j, Y') ?>
</div>
</li>
<?
}
echo '</ul></div>';
}
}
$post = $orig_post;
wp_reset_query(); ?>
This technique utilizes the same functions as the one above except we are just using the different criteria.
If you are creating a new project, or working on a client’s site, this could be very helpful.
Example
Additional Sources:
I want code to display random posts and pages with thumbnail
You would want to take a look at our guide below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-display-random-posts-in-wordpress/
Instead of using <? use <?php everywhere
Thank you for your feedback, this article should currently be using the php version everywhere
Thank you for your nice post.
Here “ignore_sticky_posts” should be used instead of “caller_get_posts”. Because “caller_get_posts” is deprecated.
Thanks for pointing that out, we’ll be sure to look into updating the article
Can you direct me as to where to add what categories I would like to limit the related posts to?
This method limits the posts to the category the post is in. To limit the categories you would need to create an if statement to exclude certain categories.
Is it possible where there are more than X related posts by category that are related that you can randomise say 3 posts?
While it is possible, it would require adding far more to this, you may want to look into a plugin for that type of customization.
No CSS is added
Hi, is it possible to limit them by date? Show only those of the last year?
I found a way to make the smaller thumbnails, but it shows them in a column and not horizontally. How can this be modified?
The script is working well. The only problem I have is that the thumb-nails are very large. Would there be some way to make them smaller?
Hi Luis,
It uses the default post-thumbnail size. You can create a new thumbnail size and then use it in the code like this:
how to do for create a shortcode for this code, I created the function but I do not know how to return the print to the page.
Why I’m facing this problem. syntax error, unexpected end of file
Please help me.
Hello,
I’m a beginner in WorldPress.
I’d like to show Related Posts.
In the main menu I have Category A, and in Category A – Subcategories A, B and C. The posts are in Category A, but they can also be present in all 3 Subcategories.
When choosing one of the Related Posts something goes wrong and the posts from the initially chosen Subcategory don’t show correct anymore.
Thanks for the tutorial. This was incredibly useful and worked like a charm!
Hi Admin, Very informative article. I like your site because of simplicity and straightforwardness. All articles are to the point but when it comes to sharing the knowledge of code you become too technical. Just ignore the fact that much of the visitors are not coding expert. Wouldn’t it be much better if you just add 2or 3 more lines in your explanation to make it complete and easily understandable to all. Anyway, great article But I want to know which code or plugin is Wpbeginner using?
really helpful, thanks !
what really sucks about your articles is you never actually say HOW to do something. It’s all well and good to tell me to put code into my single.php, but as a beginner I don’t know what that is or where to find it. You might want to think about putting this kind of critical information into your articles instead of assuming we know what it means, or that we have surfed every one of your articles to figure it out.
I Agree. I have no idea where to paste this code too.
Thanks for the great post, very useful. I came across an error in the code so wanted to share in hope it may be useful for others in the future. The error was:
WP_Query was called with an argument that is deprecated since version 3.1.0! “caller_get_posts” is deprecated. Use “ignore_sticky_posts” instead.
So I simply replaced it and it worked fine. I am also using namespacing so I needed to change WP_Query to \WP_Query plus I changed the order of the below:
global $post;
$orig_post = $post;
Thanks again
Rose
sir
I am using the code of categories working properly but one thing is when on home page same category of 2 or 3 post then the link show balack but i want to show to show category which is next post
Hi,
Thanks for your post. I added the code in content-single.php and it worked. However, it displays as 1 column not 3 columns like your example. Could you please help me on this? I want my related posts to be displayed in 1 row, 3 columns. Thanks so much.
Hello!
The first link on Aditional Sources, is broken.
Thank you by the code.
Hi Claudio,
Thank you for notifying us. We have removed the broken link.
Hi,
I have a ‘Related post’ option from my wordpress theme and i am already using it. I have displayed 6 posts after the content. The problem is, it only shows 3 related posts and next three can be seen when you slide it horizontally. I don’t want that option, i want the site to display all 6 posts outright. Can you tell me how to do it?
Hello,
Your guidance was amazing but how can i exclude a specific category from the related posts in order to not display it?
Thank you, in advance!
Sincerely,
LAszlo Gyuricza
You can try one of the related posts plugins.
Hi Syed. How do I style it?
Hi Tuta,
You can use #relatedposts .relatedthumb and .relatedcontent selectors in your CSS to style it.
How to Display All Post List in one Page
How to Show Related Post It In two Columns Like here in WPBeginner??
Nice solution but not definitive for my exigence. Infact the mean problem is that this code sort the related posts from the most recent in the same category or tags. The result is that when you browse inside a category/tag you’ll always display the same few last posts, limiting hardly the older posts of your site. That’s a right conclusion? Please if you tried it share your opinion!
1. After ‘caller_get_posts’=>1 put a comma(,)
2. Hit enter button [next line]
3. Add ‘orderby’=>’rand’
You are done. Now related posts will be shown randomly. Thank you.
This code works great. I was wondering if you could explain what this part of the code does?
$orig_post = $post;
global $post;
…
$post = $orig_post;
I think I have a grasp on what the rest is doing, but this is throwing me for a loop.
Thanks for all your great content!
Let me ask the Code Related Posts by Category posted in public places. thank you
in Twentyfifteen default theme where should i insert this code in single.php file? If i inserted above the endwhile; it shows syntax error, unexpected ‘endwhile’ and if i inserted below the endwhile; but above the endif; it shows syntax error, unexpected ‘endif’
Any solution for this?
Thanks
You must use ‘<?php' not '<?'
in Twentyfifteen default theme where should i insert this code in single.php file? If i inserted above the enwhile; it shows syntax error, unexpected ‘endwhile’ and if i inserted below the enwwile but above the endif; it shows syntax error, unexpected ‘endif’
Any solution for this?
Thanks
Hi! Great post!
Is there a way to combine both option, in order to call related tags only in the current category ?
my single.php layout :
//the_content bla bla bla code here
//Copy paste Related Posts by Tags code here
//comments_template bla bla bla code here
——————————-
the result i got error :
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘endwhile’ (T_ENDWHILE) in …
——————————-
after i change ” <? } " to " <?php } " it worked,
just sugestion, maybe it better if you put complete php open tag
thanks
Works perfect. How to exclude the definite tag from Related Posts by Tags? I mean how to change the code when algorithm would find other posts with any one of the tag (except tag 595 for instance) that the current post has and will list them.
Thanks for the great code
It works great but you didn’t address any css codes for a more beautiful look for this section. Can you please do this? I’m newbie to coding and I tried some codes but they didn’t work. In your codes there is:
echo ‘Related Posts’;
but in some similar codes I found in other resources there is:
and in css some codes like this:
.relatedposts {
font-size: 12px;
width: 640px;
}
.relatedposts h3 {
font-size: 20px;
margin: 0 0 5px;
}
will get that a nice look but it didn’t work with your code.
Thanks
Dear collegue this is an error am getting while pasting this code on single.php file.kindly tell me exacctly where should i paste this code.
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected end of file in C:\xampp\htdocs\beingusefull\wp-content\themes\TechPlus\single.php on line 78
That will depend on your individual theme and template. You need to add the conditional tag after the WordPress loop begins. After this line:
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>I got that error too and this is my updated code:
ID);
if ($tags) {
$tag_ids = array();
foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;
$args=array(
‘tag__in’ => $tag_ids,
‘post__not_in’ => array($post->ID),
‘posts_per_page’=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
‘caller_get_posts’=>1
);
$my_query = new wp_query( $args );
if( $my_query->have_posts() ) { ?>
Related Posts
have_posts() ) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
<a href="” rel=”bookmark” title=””>
<a href="” rel=”bookmark” title=””>
When the post i share on facebook, the thumbnail getting from related post, can i get the thumbnail from the main page? thx
If you’re using Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin you can specify the thumbnail URL under the social tab for the post. If the social tab isn’t shown then you need to click the Yoast SEO link in the WordPress admin menu then click “Social”. In the social page tick the option for, “Add Open Graph meta data” and save. Go back into your post and you can specify the thumbnail image you want to use when the post is shared. If you don’t implicitly set the post image the user has the option of selecting any image that appears on the page, which is why your recent post images are being pulled in when you share the article link.
Any thoughts on how much of a database/server load this would be on a large self-hosted site? Looking for a related posts alternative now that #nRelate is no longer available.
Use conditional tag if (is_single()) on the first line of the code.
can you tell where and how?
This doesn’t work in the single.php for me, b/c related posts show up at the very bottom of the page. It works with loop.php but then they also show up on the homepage – any ideas on a fix so it just shows in single posts and not the homepage?
Hi, I must be the only one who is not doing this correctly. My theme supports featured images, I added this code before the comments within the single.php file. Any tips on exactly where to input in the code?
All the codes I find never work. Or they don’t change anything on my page or they display an error message. I don’t know what else to do!
Is there a way to add pagination to the related posts query? I cant seem to get pagination to work on a secondary query within single.php. Thanks!
Hello , i want to ask , is there way to make , that related posts would be by category and tags in one place? Thanks.
My thumbnails are too big, help. How can you limit the related posts thumbnails?
You probably need to regenerate thumbnails.
Is there a way to choose a single category (let’s call it Brands) and then have it display related posts only affiliated with the child categories under Brands? So, the hierarchy for the cats would be Brands > JCPenny. I want to only show related posts for JCPenny. But, that child category could be different per post. So if a post uses a different child category it’ll show related posts for that child cat. Can this code be modified to handle that somehow?
OH! I think I’ve got it. I just added ‘parent’ => ‘the cat id number’, to the args and I think that did it.
wait… no, that didn’t work
Hi, thanks for the code, but instead of grabbing the featured image as a thumb, can i grab instead the first image in my posts? Thanks
This sounds like a nice post idea, we will cover it soon in a new article. Thanks for the feedback.
It would be great if you guys would make a post on it. Thank you very much and will be waiting. Hope that you can kindly post here a notification once you made the post so we know.
Great post thanks! I run a website that uses WP more as a CMS with a large number of pages rather than posts. Can I do this with as related pages instead, so that it’s grabbing related pages and not posts? If so how do I go about doing this.
Thanks for the help
Really thanks for this helping post
This. Is. Awesome. WPEngine understandably doesn’t allow for related posts plugins, save for a few exceptions. I tried a few and really didn’t like them. I threw this code into single.php and voila! Thank you.