Related YouTube Videos

Related YouTube Videos is a free WordPress plugin that embeds a number of, well, YouTube videos that are related to your content. The list is put together by using the YouTube search API. And you can specify the relation between the videos and your content by:

• the title of your current post, page or custom post type.
• the tags of your current post, page or custom post type.
• the categories of your current post, page or custom post type.
• any keywords you specify.

Also, this plugin offers you two ways to embed related videos:

1. by using the shortcode [relatedYouTubeVideos] somewhere in your post/page content.
2. by using the WordPress widget “Related YouTube Videos” in any of your widget areas (multiple instances are possible).

Disclaimer / Important

As of April 2015 the YouTube API can only be accessed when you have a valid key for the data API. Also, the number of free requests per day is limited!

There is a nice and short video tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOYW7FO9rzA) on how to get such an API key. But it’s up to you to make sure your stay within the free limit or keep track of the costs when you need more than that!

Please read Youtube and Google’s terms and conditions for more details.

The Shortcode

I’m only going to explain the options/paramters for the shortcode but they work exactly the same for the widget, of course.

You can put the shortcode [relatedYouTubeVideos] anywhere you want inside the content of a page, post, or custom post type – as long as your WordPress theme is supporting shortcodes.

You can use the following options/parameters/attributes:

Appearance

• id – You can specify the HTML id attribute for the wrapping <ul> element.
• class – You can specify an additional HTML class name for the wrapping <ul> element
• width – Width of the HTML video object
• height – Height of the HTML video object
• preview – “true” will only display the preview image and only load the video (via Javascript!) when this image has been clicked.
• showVideoTitle – “true” if you want to show the video title right below the video itself. Can be styled via CSS class .title
• showVideoDescription – “true” if you want to show the video description below the video, respectively, when the video title is displayed right below the title. Can be styled via CSS class .description
• autoplay – “true” if you want the video to automatically start playing when ready. This will obviously not work in preview mode!!
• exclude – Comma separated list of post/page IDs where no videos shall be displayed.

Configuration

• max – Number of videos (or search results) that will be returned. Can be any number between 1 and 10!
• random – Select MAX number of videos out of RANDOM number of videos.
• offset – START and OFFSET are interchangably the same and just other words for the same option.

Read the full description on the official page →