Lee Kelleher

Disabling Possibly Related Links on WordPress.com

Posted on . Estimated read time: under a minute (217 words)

When WordPress.com introduced Snap Preview on our blogs (or is that their blogs?) at the end of 2006, I wasn’t impressed – it felt intrusive – like a JavaScript pop-up for Web 2.0! (Just given a different name). So I disabled it straight-away.

A few days ago, the WP.com team introduced a new feature “Possibly Related Posts“. At first I thought this was a great idea for finding similar content – but then I realised that it could become a mechanism for sploggers to inject links on your blog. (Obviously this feature is restricted to WP.com blogs only – which itself raises a few questions).

The other week I had a bit of a rant about how Skype sneakily installed a Firefox Extension and that they should have provided an opt-in. There has been a similar backlash about this new WP.com feature!

The blogosphere’s very own Saraswathi, the wise Lorelle has wrote about her feelings on the matter and how to disable this new feature.

To turn off the new related post feature on WordPress.com blogs:

  1. Go to the Administration Panels > Design > Extras.
  1. Check Hide Related Links.
  1. Click Update.