Add Related Posts to WordPress with Jetpack but without the Extra Baggage

It is recommended that you include Related Posts on your blog pages as they help decrease the bounce rate of your site and are good from the SEO perspective. That’s because when you publish a new article, the old content, that was previously hiding in the archives, shows up in the list of related posts and thus gets fresh exposure to both human visitors and search engines.

Matt Cutts, in 2010 when Google search results were a collection of 10 blue links, recommended using related posts and the advice is still relevant today in the age on Penguins and Pandas.

YARPP, short for Yet Another Related Posts Plugin, is the most popular plugin in the WordPress repository for display related articles but it does put lot of strain on your WordPress database server. All the related posts calculations are done using complex SQL queries on your WordPress database and that can affect your website’s performance.

Jetpack, the official WordPress plugins from the makers of WordPress, now includes Related Posts functionality and it is a better alternative to YARPP for one simple reason – Jetpack runs the algorithms to compute related posts in the cloud and thus put no additional load on your server. Through the WordPress plugin, your website makes an API call to Jetpack which in turn returns a list of posts related to the current post.

Jetpack Related Posts for WordPress

I’ve obviously replaced YARPP with Jetpack for displaying related posts on labnol.org but there’s something I was not too happy about Jetpack. It adds a number of JavaScript and CSS files to the website’s header for rendering the related posts. This in turn increases the weight of the page but, fortunately, there’s a way around that.

<?php

/* Jetpack Related Posts */

/* This is required to remove the CSS and JS enqueued in the header */
function jetpackme_no_related_posts( $options ) {
    if ( is_single() ) {
        $options['enabled'] = false;
    }
    return $options;
}

add_filter( 'jetpack_relatedposts_filter_options', 'jetpackme_no_related_posts' );

/* Create shortcode for displaying related posts anywhere in the post */
function labnol_related_shortcode( $atts ) {

    $related_posts = "";

    if ( class_exists( 'Jetpack_RelatedPosts' ) && method_exists( 'Jetpack_RelatedPosts', 'init_raw' ) ) {

        $related = Jetpack_RelatedPosts::init_raw()
            ->set_query_name( 'jetpackme-shortcode' )
            ->get_for_post_id(
                get_the_ID(),
                array( 'size' => 5 ) // How many related posts?
            );

        if ( $related ) {

            foreach ( $related as $result ) {
                $related_post = get_post( $result[ 'id' ] );
                $url = get_permalink($related_post->ID);
                $title = $related_post->post_title;
                $related_posts .= "<li><a href='" . $url . "'>$title</a></li>";
            }
            $related_posts = '<ol>' . $related_posts . '</ol>';
        }

    }

    return $related_posts;
}

/* Create a new shortcode for Jetpack related posts */
add_shortcode( 'labnol_related', 'labnol_related_shortcode' );

/* Do not load the one-big Jetpack concatenated CSS file */
add_filter('jetpack_implode_frontend_css', '__return_false');

/* Dequeue the default styles and jQuery for Jetpack module */
function add_labnol_scripts() {
    if (!is_admin()) {
        wp_dequeue_script('jetpack-related_posts');
        wp_dequeue_style('jetpack-related_posts');
    }
}

add_action("wp_enqueue_scripts", "add_labnol_scripts", 20);

?>

You can use the Related Posts module of Jetpack but without adding extra baggage to your website. Assuming that the Jetpack plugin is already installed on your website, activate the Related Posts module and then paste this code inside the functions.php file of your WordPress theme.

What we have done so far is dequeued all the extra CSS and JS files that are normally added to the site by Jetpack and we’ve also created a WordPress shortcode that will let us include the Related Post module anywhere on the page (and not limit us to the end or start of an article).

You can also set the number of related posts to display in line #27.

Next open the file where you wish to display related posts, most likely the single.php or loop.php file in the WordPress theme folder, and add this line.

<?php echo do_shortcode( '[labnol_related]' ); ?>

You should also check this page on the Jetpack website for more technical details on how to customize the related posts module of Jetpack.

One more thing. If you have only recently enabled Related Posts for Jetpack, the related posts may not show up on your website because it may take some time for Jetpack servers to index your site.

---

The story, Add Related Posts to WordPress with Jetpack but without the Extra Baggage, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 16/05/2015 under WordPress, Internet.

How to Monetize Google Maps on your Website with AdSense Ads

You have been using Google AdSense ads to monetize the content of your website but did you know that you can also use the same AdSense program to also monetize any Google Maps that are embedded on your web pages. You can embed a Google Map and AdSense ads will be automatically served inside the map that will either be contextually relevant to the content of the page or targeted based on the location of the visitors.

The Google Maps block embedded below contains a rectangular AdSense ad unit placed near the top-center area of the map. Where Am I is another example of a website that embeds Google Maps with ads.

AdSense Ads for Embedded Google Maps

Google Maps offers you an easy option to embed maps onto your website but the default embed code does not allow monetization. You’ll have build the map on your own using the Google Maps API to enable advertising and this isn’t difficult either. Let me show you in few easy step.

To get started, go to the Google AdSense website and create a new ad unit. You can choose the default color scheme for the ad unit (white background) and pick responsive for the size. The latter doesn’t matter though as the ad unit will automatically fit inside the container map.

Next, copy-paste the following Google Maps embed code anywhere in your web template.

<div id="google-maps" style="width:500px; height:500px;"></div>

<script src="http://ift.tt/1Fk2WNC;
 </script>
<script src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js">
 </script>

<script>

  function showGoogleMaps() {

    var mapOptions = {
      center: new google.maps.LatLng(38.8977, -77.036),
      zoom: 5
    };

    var map = new google.maps.Map(
      document.getElementById('google-maps'), mapOptions);

    var ad = '<ins class="adsbygoogle" \
              style="display:inline-block;width:300px;height:100px" \
              data-ad-client="ca-pub-xxxx" \
              data-ad-slot="yyyy"></ins>';

    var adNode = document.createElement('div');
    adNode.innerHTML = ad;

    map.controls[google.maps.ControlPosition.TOP_CENTER].push(adNode);

    google.maps.event.addListenerOnce(map, 'tilesloaded', function() {
      (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
    });

  }

  google.maps.event.addDomListener(window, 'load', showGoogleMaps);

</script>

You can replace the height and width of the Google Maps in line #1 to fit your website layout while the latitude and longitude of the place needs to be replaced in line #11. Finally, xxxx and yyyy in the embed code should be replaced with your AdSense Publisher ID and the Ad Slot ID respectively. You can find these values in the embed code generated by AdSense.

If you are ready to fiddle with the JavaScript, you can even more option to customize the embedded map.

For instance, you can easily change the position of the AdSense ad unit inside Google Maps from TOP_CENTER (line #28) to BOTTOM_CENTER or something else.

Similarly, you can change the default view of the embedded map from Roadmap to Satellite or Hybrid. The various controls inside the Google map – like the street view Pegman, the zoom slider, the pan control – can be easily hidden or moved to a different position by setting the corresponding properties inside the mapOptions object.

Also see: Embed Google Maps Street View

<script>

  var mapOptions = {

    // Center the map on this address
    center: new google.maps.LatLng(38.8977, -77.036),

    // Set the initial zoom level
    zoom: 14,

    // Hide the slider to control the zoom levels
    zoomControl: false,

    // Hide the controls to pan the map
    panControl: false,

    // Display the street view peg but in a different position
    streetViewControl: true,
    streetViewControlOptions: {
      position: google.maps.ControlPosition.BOTTOM_CENTER
    },

    // Allow visit to switch to Satellite view and back
    mapTypeControl: true,

    // Set the default type of the map to Roadmap 
    mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP

  };

</script>

---

The story, How to Monetize Google Maps on your Website with AdSense Ads, was originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal on 16/05/2015 under Google AdSense, Google Maps, Internet.