Install the related posts plugin, choose a layout, tune local matching, and understand optional reports.
RelatIQ features and release information · All WordPress plugins
Requirements
RelatIQ 3.4.2 requires WordPress 6.5 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. Its local index uses your WordPress database. Redis or Memcached is optional, not an installation requirement.
This reference follows the supplied 3.4.2 release package. Check the version shown in your Plugins screen before following these instructions.
Install and choose your setup path
- Upload the RelatIQ ZIP through Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or copy the
relatiqfolder intowp-content/plugins/. - Activate RelatIQ and open RelatIQ → Setup guide.
- Select your content types, choose Save and choose a design, preview a layout, choose whether to show credit, and start indexing.
- Open a public article to check the recommendations, spacing, and placement.
- Enable optional measurements in Reports if you want to record engagement.
Quick-start credit behavior: Use saved settings and start enables the public author link to VPNDeals, including when it was previously disabled, then starts indexing. To choose your credit setting first, use the design path above. You can turn credit off in RelatIQ → Support. Updating the plugin alone does not enable credit. Reports and experiments remain separate choices.
Layouts, previews, and placement
Open Design studio to preview your own articles at desktop or mobile widths. Choose Cards, List, Hero spotlight, Magazine, Minimal grid, or Carousel. Visual, Compact, and Editorial presets provide starting points. Adjust colors, spacing, images, typography, excerpts, and metadata, then use Save changes.
Choose automatic placement after the article, after a selected paragraph or heading, or use the RelatIQ Related Posts editor block. A shortcode also works:
[relatiq layout="magazine-split" count="3" title="Explore this topic"]The legacy shortcode [rltiq_related_posts_ai] remains supported. Automatic placement skips content that already contains a RelatIQ block or shortcode. A block in a theme template is separate: turn automatic display off if the template already supplies recommendations.
Previewing does not save settings or record clicks. Theme typography and available space affect the live result, so check a public page after saving.
How local matching works
RelatIQ matches shared words in article titles and content. It does not generate text or use a semantic embedding model or external AI API. The local index retains up to 100 frequent terms from the first 100,000 characters of an eligible article; candidate retrieval and cosine similarity produce a relevance shortlist.
Use Content to select eligible public post types, exclusions, relevance and fallback behavior, and an optional age limit. An age limit of 0 means no age limit. When content matches are scarce, optional fallbacks use shared taxonomy terms or recent eligible articles.
Only published, public, password-free articles can be recommended. Same-language matching can read WPML or Polylang information; articles whose language is unknown remain eligible. Matching quality varies with language and writing style.
Editorial picks and content health
Open RelatIQ editorial picks in an article editor to search for articles to pin or exclude, then save the article. Pins appear first in your chosen order. They still follow visibility, post-type, exclusion, and age rules.
Use Content health to inspect missing matches and open an article preview. Check whether the source is indexed, whether suitable candidates share useful terms, and whether exclusions or a strict relevance setting leave too few results. Enable fallback only when broader suggestions are useful to readers.
Optional reports and privacy
Reports and layout experiments start disabled. When enabled, reports count impressions, clicks, and click-through rate. An impression requires at least half an item to be visible. Counts describe recorded events, not unique visitors or proof that the plugin increased traffic.
Events go to your site’s /wp-json/rltiq/v1/event endpoint with source and destination article IDs, layout, experiment variant, a link signature, and a random event ID. Daily aggregates are retained for up to 90 days. The plugin does not create analytics cookies, visitor profiles, or store raw IP addresses.
Temporary keyed IP hashes and click IDs limit abuse and duplicate events. They expire after two and ten minutes respectively; database cleanup depends on cron. Disabling reports stops new recording but existing data remains until expiry or deletion. Other plugins and server logs are outside RelatIQ’s control.
Matching does not send article text or automatic telemetry to the author. Images can load from your media host, CDN, or fallback-image host. Credit, review, and license links open external sites when clicked. Settings → Privacy contains policy text for site owners to review.
Indexing, cache, and WP-CLI
Background jobs use WP-Cron, server cron, or an existing Action Scheduler installation. On a quiet site, use Run next batch if progress is waiting. Progress estimates refer to the current indexing step and need measured work before they appear.
Administrators with command-line access can rebuild the local index and recommendation results:
wp relatiq rebuild --batch-size=50 --with-cacheThe accepted batch size is 1–500; the default is 50. The legacy rebuild_vectors command remains an alias. wp relatiq clear_cache invalidates recommendations and queues a refresh. On multisite, use WP-CLI’s --url option to select the site.
RelatIQ caches recommendation IDs and checks eligibility again when rendering. Purge your full-page cache after visibility, display, or template changes. An object cache is optional; real response times depend on the host, article collection, and cache configuration.
Frequently asked questions
Is every layout and report included for free?
Yes. RelatIQ 3.4.2 includes all six layouts, editorial controls, reports, and experiments without a premium edition, subscription, or API key. Reports and experiments are optional and start disabled.
Is author credit required?
No. All features work with credit off. The quick-start shortcut turns credit on, even if previously disabled; the normal design path and Support screen let you choose or disable it.
Why are recommendations missing?
Check indexing progress, candidate visibility, selected post types, exclusions, age limits, relevance settings, and shared article terms in Content health. If background work is waiting, use Run next batch or WP-CLI.
Does RelatIQ work on multisite?
Each site has separate settings and tables. Network initialization runs in batches and new sites initialize automatically. Deactivation retains data and cancels jobs; deleting the plugin removes its tables, options, and editorial metadata across sites.
Support and source reference
Reference: the RelatIQ 3.4.2 release package, including readme.txt, docs/technical-notes.md, and the bundled CLI implementation. These instructions describe that release; they are not a performance benchmark or compatibility test.
Contact VPNDeals with your plugin version, WordPress and PHP versions, placement method, and steps to reproduce an issue. For an overview, visit the RelatIQ plugin page.
By Andreas Lazarou.