Since switching to WordPress I’ve been using the WP-PostViews and Efficient Related Posts plugins. Although the inFocus theme I use now comes with its own popular posts and related posts widgets I much prefer the functionality of the aforementioned plugins.
For example, WP-PostViews displays popular posts based on post views whereas the inFocus version uses the number of comments to determine a post’s popularity. And while there appears to be little if any difference in how Efficient Related Posts and the inFocus version determine related posts, the latter does so on-the-fly whereas the former pre-determines them, thus reducing the load on the server.
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