How To Display Related Posts In WordPress With Example

Related posts in WordPress is a list of related posts to each other that the theme will display after the post’s content. This list of posts is related to the current post by category in WordPress. To add related posts to your WordPress theme, open the functions.php file and add the following code.

function hs_related_posts()
{
    $categories = get_the_category();
    if (count($categories) > 0) :
        ?>

        <?php
        $terms = get_the_terms(get_the_ID(), 'category');

        if (empty($terms)) $terms = array();

        $term_list = wp_list_pluck($terms, 'slug');

        $related_args = array(
            'post_type' => 'post',
            'posts_per_page' => 3,
            'post_status' => 'publish',
            'post__not_in' => array(get_the_ID()),
            'tax_query' => array(
                array(
                    'taxonomy' => 'category',
                    'field' => 'slug',
                    'terms' => $term_list
                )
            )
        );

        $the_query = new WP_Query($related_args);
        global $cl_from_element;
        $cl_from_element['is_related'] = true;
        // Display posts
        if ($the_query->have_posts()) :
        ?>
            <div class="related-posts">
                <h2 class="widget-title">
                    <?php esc_html_e('Related Posts', 'text-domain') ?>
                </h2>
                <div class="posts">
                    <?php $counter = 1;
                    while ($the_query->have_posts() && $counter < 4) :
                        $the_query->the_post(); ?>
                        <div class="related-post">

                            <a href="<?php echo esc_url(get_permalink()); ?>">
                                <?php if (has_post_thumbnail()) : ?>
                                    <div class="related-post-thumbnail">
                                        <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
                                    </div>
                                <?php endif; ?>
                            </a>

                            <?php the_title(sprintf('<h2 class="related-post-title"><a href="%s" rel="bookmark">', esc_url(get_permalink())), '</a></h2>'); ?>

                        </div>
                    <?php
                        $counter++;
                    endwhile;
                    ?>
                </div>
            </div>
            <?php endif;

        wp_reset_query();
        $cl_from_element['is_related'] = false;
    endif;
}

Go to your posts display loop and add the function below in it.

hs_related_posts();

The best way to add related posts to your WordPress theme is to add them by the child theme.