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Smarter Navigation
Generates more specific previous / next post links based on referrer.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.7★ from 10
- Active installs
- 300+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 18 Sep 2015
- Added
- Feb 2009
- Requires WP
- 3.2
- Tested up to
- WP 3.5.2
- Downloads
- 19,713
Our analysis
AI-assistedSmarter Navigation is a WordPress plugin that enhances post navigation by providing contextually relevant links. It displays previous and next posts based on the archive page the visitor came from, rather than just the post's categories. This is achieved by using browser cookies to track the user's navigation path.
This plugin is suitable for users who want to improve the browsing experience on their site by ensuring that visitors can easily navigate through related content. It is particularly useful for blogs and sites with a significant amount of content across multiple categories and tags.
Best for: This plugin suits bloggers and content-heavy sites looking to improve navigation.
What it does well
- ✓Displays contextually relevant post links
- ✓Uses browser cookies to track user navigation
- ✓Enhances user experience on archive pages
Where it falls short
- •Last updated in September 2015
- •Tested only up to WordPress 3.5.2
- •Directory score of 48/100 indicates potential issues
Verdict
Smarter Navigation offers a specific solution for enhancing post navigation based on user context. However, its outdated status may limit compatibility with newer WordPress versions.
From the developer
scribu's own description of Smarter Navigation, lightly tidied.
When displaying a single post, you might want to show links to the previous and next posts in the same category.
That’s fine; WordPress let’s you do this with previous_post_link() and next_post_link().
But what if that post is in multiple categories?
What if the user came to that post from a tag page or from an author page? Wouldn’t it make more sense to display previous / next posts from that particular set?
Well, you can do this with a similar pair of functions, provided by this plugin: previous_post_smart() and next_post_smart().
Here’s how it works:
Whenever a visitor goes to an archive page (category, tag, date, author, search etc.), the plugin notes which archive it is in a browser cookie.
Then, if the visitor goes to a single post from that archive page, the plugin generates the prev / next links based on the information in the cookie.
Links: Plugin News | Author’s Site
Tagged as
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