Nikk.Agency Related Flow

Nikk.Agency Related Flow is a lightweight related-content plugin designed for blogs, magazines, and news sites where recency matters. It is developed by Nikk.Agency.

Instead of filling a page with old recommendations, it can limit related posts to a configurable freshness window. Posts are matched using shared WordPress tags, ranked by the number of shared tags, and then by publication time.

The plugin can automatically place:

• one related post after a configurable paragraph;
• a second related post after another configurable paragraph;
• a list of related posts at the end of the post content.

There are no thumbnails, sliders, JavaScript, AJAX requests, external APIs, tracking calls, or remote services.

Features

• Related posts based on shared WordPress tags.
• Admin-configured ignored tags that never participate in matching.
• Admin-configured priority tags: when a post has any priority tags, those tags are tried first; if no priority match exists in the freshness window, matching falls back to the post’s other non-ignored tags.
• Polylang automatically applies ignored and priority rules to translated versions of selected tags.
• Configurable freshness window from 1 to 365 days.
• Configurable minimum number of shared tags.
• Four optional inline placements by paragraph number.
• Optional end-of-content related-post list.
• Posts with more shared tags rank higher.
• Newer posts break ties between equally relevant candidates.
• No duplicate recommendations within the same post.
• Transient caching to reduce repeated database work.
• Cache invalidation when posts or post tags change.
• Lightweight CSS with logical properties for RTL support.
• Dedicated CSS / Styles settings tab for background, colors, fonts, font sizes, weights, spacing, separators, radius, tags, metadata, and credit styling.
• Nikk.Agency style values are pre-filled as editable defaults.
• Optional “Use site/theme styles” mode disables the plugin stylesheet completely.
• Publication date and time can be shown or hidden.
• Shows the exact shared tags used to match each recommendation, with clickable tag-archive links.
• Polylang integration: results stay in the current post language.
• Editable front-end labels in the plugin settings.
• Automatic built-in label translations for Polylang languages, with per-language manual overrides.
• Polylang String Translations compatibility for the base labels.
• Request-local marker rendering helps prevent later content filters from rewriting the plugin markup.
• Developer filters for query arguments, selected post IDs, and rendered HTML.
• Optional developer credit link in the end-of-content block. It is disabled by default and appears only after explicit opt-in in settings.

Privacy

Nikk.Agency Related Flow does not collect, transmit, or track personal data. It does not contact external servers and does not load remote assets.

1. Upload the nikk-agency-related-flow folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install the ZIP from Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
2. Activate Nikk.Agency Related Flow.
3. Go to Settings > Nikk.Agency Related Flow.
4. Choose the freshness window, paragraph positions, number of bottom links, labels, and cache duration.
5. Make sure your posts use WordPress tags. Posts without tags will not receive related recommendations.

How are related posts selected?

The plugin first removes tags marked as ignored in Settings. If the current post has one or more tags marked as priority, those priority tags are tried first and all other tags are ignored for that first pass. One shared priority tag is enough, and candidates sharing more priority tags rank higher. If that priority pass finds no related posts inside the freshness window, the plugin automatically falls back to all non-ignored tags on the current post and uses the normal minimum-shared-tags setting. Candidates outside the freshness window are excluded. Publication time breaks ties. With Polylang, translated versions of selected ignored and priority tags inherit the same rule automatically.

What happens if there are not enough related posts?

The plugin simply shows fewer links. It does not fall back to older or unrelated content.

Does it work without Polylang?

Yes. Polylang is optional. When Polylang is active, the plugin restricts related-post queries to the language of the current post.

Does the plugin use JavaScript or AJAX?

No. Front-end output is generated with PHP and one small optional CSS file.

Can I customize or disable the built-in styles?

Yes. Open Settings > Nikk.Agency Related Flow > CSS / Styles to edit the Nikk.Agency defaults for backgrounds, colors, font family, font sizes, weights, spacing, separators, and other visual properties. Enable “Use the site/theme styles” to stop loading the plugin stylesheet completely and style the .fresh-related-posts classes from your theme.

Why are no related posts showing?

Check that the current post has tags, that other recent posts share enough of those tags, and that the freshness window is not too short.

Does it modify REST API content or feeds?

No. Automatic insertion is limited to the normal front-end single-post main loop.

Is the Nikk.Agency developer credit required?

No. The public credit link is disabled by default. It appears only if a site administrator explicitly enables it in Settings > Nikk.Agency Related Flow, and it is not required for any plugin functionality.

1.0.14

• Added a dedicated CSS / Styles settings tab.
• Added editable controls for block background, text/accent/separator colors, radius, margins, padding, font family, labels, headings, related-post titles, dates, matched tags, list spacing, and developer credit.
• Pre-filled all visual controls with the existing Nikk.Agency Related Flow design values.
• Added a “Use the site/theme styles” option that disables the plugin front-end stylesheet and custom style overrides.
• Preserved existing non-style settings when saving only the CSS / Styles tab.

1.0.13

• Fixed activation when migrating from the legacy Fresh Related Posts package by using a unique class name.
• Automatically deactivates the legacy plugin during activation while preserving existing settings.

1.0.12

• Renamed the plugin to Nikk.Agency Related Flow and updated its directory slug/text domain to nikk-agency-related-flow for WordPress.org review.
• Updated plugin branding and author metadata to Nikk.Agency.

1.0.11

• Updated the WordPress.org Tested up to header to WordPress 7.1 for current directory validation.

1.0.10

• Added clickable matching tags after the publication date/time for inline and end-of-content recommendations.
• Only the tags that actually caused the related-post match are shown; ignored tags are never displayed as match tags.
• Priority-mode recommendations show matching priority tags; fallback recommendations show the matching non-ignored tags used by the fallback pass.

1.0.9

• Added third and fourth configurable inline placements.
• Inline placements are now processed in paragraph order and duplicate paragraph positions are ignored.

1.0.8

• Replaced Ctrl/Command multi-select tag controls with clear checkbox lists in the plugin settings.
• Added a dedicated “Save tag rules” button next to the ignored/priority tag controls.
• Added priority fallback: if no related post matches the current post’s priority tags inside the freshness window, matching automatically retries with all non-ignored tags from the post.
• Preserved automatic Polylang translation handling for ignored and priority tag groups.

1.0.7

• Added admin-selectable ignored tags that are excluded from matching entirely.
• Added admin-selectable priority tags. When a post contains priority tags, only those tags are used to find and rank related posts.
• If multiple priority tags are present, one match is sufficient and candidates with more matching priority tags rank higher.
• Polylang term translations automatically inherit ignored and priority tag rules.
• Ignored tags always take precedence if a term is configured in both groups.

1.0.6

• Added a strict post-query freshness check so posts older than the configured window can never be displayed, even if another plugin alters the query.
• Added a strict Polylang language check after querying and before output so related posts can never leak across languages.
• Re-validates cached and filtered related-post IDs against freshness and language rules.

1.0.5

• Added required translator comments for placeholder-based admin strings.
• Removed use of the post__not_in query parameter and now excludes the current post after fetching candidates.

1.0.4

• Updated the plugin author name to NAnews – Nikk.Agency News.

1.0.3

• Updated the Nikk.Agency website links to https://nikk.agency/.
• Updated the WordPress.org contributor username to konsaltingu.

1.0.2

• Added an optional Nikk.Agency developer credit in the end-of-content block.
• The credit is disabled by default and requires explicit opt-in.
• Added editable credit text before the Nikk.Agency link.
• Added the initial Nikk.Agency author website link.

1.0.1

• Added editable inline and end-of-content labels.
• Added automatic built-in Polylang label translations with per-language overrides.
• Added language-specific label controls to the settings page.

1.0.0

• Initial public release.
• Shared-tag matching with freshness limits.
• Relevance ranking by shared tag count and publication time.
• Two configurable inline placements and an end-of-content list.
• Polylang-aware queries and labels.
• Transient caching and automatic cache invalidation.
• Optional date display and optional built-in CSS.
• Late marker replacement to protect final related-post markup from common content filters.