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Free Plugin by Christoph v0.25.0

Random Post Plugin

Automatically redirect to your latest, oldest, random, or other post through a custom URL

Random Post Plugin

The facts

Rating
5★ from 20
Active installs
3k+
Price
Free
Last updated
8 Jun 2025
Added
May 2015
Requires WP
4.9
Tested up to
WP 6.8.8
Requires PHP
8.0
Downloads
84,821

Our analysis

AI-assisted

The Random Post Plugin – Redirect URL to Post allows you to redirect visitors to various posts on your WordPress site using specific URL parameters. You can direct users to a random post, the latest post, the oldest post, or navigate to previous or next posts based on the date. The plugin also supports custom queries, enabling you to filter posts based on specific criteria.

This plugin is suitable for users who want to enhance navigation on their site by providing dynamic links that change the target post based on the available content at the time of access. It is particularly useful for blogs or content-heavy sites looking to engage visitors with different posts without changing the URL in menus or newsletters.

Best for: This plugin suits bloggers and content creators looking to improve post navigation.

What it does well

  • Redirects to random, latest, oldest, previous, or next posts
  • Supports custom queries with filtering options
  • Caching of database results is available
  • No backend settings page required

Where it falls short

  • Configuration is entirely URL-based, which may be less user-friendly

Verdict

The Random Post Plugin provides flexible post redirection options, making it a useful tool for enhancing user engagement on WordPress sites.

From the developer

Christoph's own description of Random Post Plugin, lightly tidied.

Redirect your visitors to

  • a random post
  • your last (latest) post
  • your first (oldest) post
  • the previous or next post
  • or a combination of conditions, for example a random post among your last 10 posts, or the latest post from at least 3 months ago, or the latest post of a specific author.

Features | Examples | Documentation | Latest Development Blog Post

A magic URL takes you to the right post

This plugin provides a URL (link) that takes you directly to a post in single-post view. This post is determined by the query parameter ?redirect_to= and optional others.

While the URL remains the same, its target changes depending on the available posts at the time when somebody enters it. That means you can use the same static URL in a menu, with a button or in a newsletter and the plugin finds out the correct target.

Simply enter the URL of your WordPress site into your browser and add ?redirect_to=… to the end.

Possible values for redirect_to are:

  • last or latest – The URL will redirect to the last (latest) post.
  • first or oldest – The URL will redirect to the first (oldest) post.
  • random – The URL will redirect to a random post.
  • prev or previous – The URL will redirect to the previous post (by date).
  • next – The URL will redirect to the next post (by date).
  • custom – The post will be determined according to the mandatory parameter orderby and the optional parameter order.

You can also limit the scope of considered posts by additional filter parameters, such as &s=searchaword or &cat=2, or use an offset to go to the second latest or to the post before the previous. The parameter random combined with count and bias lets you pick the latest (or oldest) posts with a different probability than the rest.

Caching

The plugin offers caching of database results.

Settings and Parameters

There is no settings page in the backend. You configure the plugin entirely through the query parameters in the URL.

Please find more information about parameters and troubleshooting on the plugin website.

Examples for URLs

Read the full description on the official page →

Tagged as

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