Retiring WebberZone Followed Posts
Not every plugin finds its audience. WebberZone Followed Posts, my “Readers who viewed this page, also viewed” plugin, has reached the end of the road. Version 3.3.0 is the final release, and I’ll be closing the plugin on WordPress.org in the coming weeks.
Why I’m retiring it
I first built this plugin, then called “Where Did They Go From Here“, to bring Amazon-style recommendations to WordPress. The idea was sound. Track which posts visitors click through to, then surface those journeys as recommendations.
The reality is that two of my other plugins solve the same problem better. Contextual Related Posts recommends content based on relevance, and Top 10 surfaces what’s genuinely popular. Between them, Followed Posts never carved out its own space, and after all these years, it sits at a few hundred installs.
Maintaining a plugin properly takes real time: compatibility testing, security reviews, and support. That time is better spent on the plugins that the vast majority of you actually use. Focus matters more to me than plugin count.
What this means for you
If you have the plugin installed, nothing breaks. Your site will continue to work exactly as it does today. The final release bumps compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress and PHP, so you’re not left on a stale version.
What to use instead
For content recommendations, I suggest one of these:
- Contextual Related PostsOpens in a new window recommends posts based on the current post’s title and content. If you liked the recommendation aspect of Followed Posts, this is the natural replacement.
- Top 10Opens in a new window tracks page views and displays your most popular and trending posts.
Both are actively developed, and each has a Pro version if you need more.
If you were using the CRP Integration feature introduced in v3.2.0, you’re already halfway there. Switch to Contextual Related Posts directly, and you lose nothing.
Thank you to everyone who used the plugin, reported bugs, and left reviews over the years. It had a good run.