James Kemp

This plugin allows you to list any number of related posts from the same category as the current post. You can also randomise these results. It is very lightweight, at only 3KB.
There are a number of options available:
<ul>
<li>Choose the number of Posts to show</li>
<li>Choose whether it displays these posts randomly, or in order specified by you.</li>
<li>Choose whether to display a title, what tags to use, and what text should be displayed (e.g. H3)</li>
<li>Choose a class for the main UL</li>
</ul>
To display the random related posts in its simplest form, simply place the following code in your single.php file – <code><?php relatedPosts(); ?></code>.
To edit the options availble, use the following codes:
<pre><code><?php relatedPosts(
 $ppp = 4, 
 $rand = true, 
 $rPinctitle = true, 
 $rPtitletag = 'h3', 
 $rPtitle = 'Related Posts', 
 $rPulclass = 'related_posts',
 $orderby = 'title', 
 $order = 'ASC'
); ?>
</code></pre>
Where:
<ul>
<li>$ppp = Number of posts to display (Any integer allowed)</li>
<li>$rand = sets the display to random (true/false)</li>
<li>$rPinctitle = Displays the title (true/false)</li>
<li>$rPtitletag = The type of tag to wrap the title in (Default h3, but it can be any valid HTML tag)</li>
<li>$rPtitle = The title to be displayed (This can be any text value)</li>
<li>$rPulclass = This sets the class of the ul (This can be any text value)</li>
<li>$rPexcerpt = Displays the post excerpt (true/false)</li>
<li>$orderby = This allows you to order the posts by certain parameters (title/author/date/modified/menu_order/parent/ID/none/comment_count) If you want to choose the order of your posts, be sure to set $rand to false</li>
<li>$order = This can either be Ascending or Descending (ASC/DESC)</li>
</ul>

Random Related Posts Based on Category

This plugin allows you to list any number of related posts from the same category as the current post. You can also randomise these results.

microkid

This powerful plugin makes it super easy to manually select related posts for your content. You can search and select posts that fit your criteria, all from within the write/edit post screen.
Creating a system of related items on your website will result in more page views per unique visitor, and will improve Google’s understanding of your content.
As mentioned by <a href="http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/#relatedposts" title="WordPress SEO and Related Posts " rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress SEO</a> master Yoast:
<blockquote>
A very good alternative is Microkid’s related post plugin, which lets you manually pick related posts. This might cost a bit more time before you hit publish but might very well be worth your while.
</blockquote>
You can display related posts automatically underneath your content, use a shortcode or use the widget. Or, if you have some development skills, you can use one of the available API functions for full control of the way related posts are displayed on your website.
With its full support for Custom Post Types, this plugin will work perfectly for both basic and advanced WordPress installations.
See the official plugin homepage for <a href="http://www.microkid.net/wordpress/related-posts/" title="Wordpress Related Posts" rel="nofollow ugc">Related Posts for WordPress</a> for more info and discussion.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Easily find posts or pages that might be related to the one you are writing with an integrated AJAX powered search utility</li>
<li>Easily add and remove relations with a single click</li>
<li>Extreme flexibility in the customization of the way the related posts are displayed on your website</li>
<li>The relationship created works reciprocal, which means that if post A is added as related to post B, post B is automatically added as related to post A as well (this option can be turned off easily through the settings panel)</li>
<li>Custom post types support</li>
<li>Multiple widget support with extended customization options</li>
<li>Shortcode support: add the [related-posts] shortcode to your post content to display related posts anywhere you want</li>
<li>Automatically display a list of related posts underneath your posts content. No need to add any PHP tags in your template files, but several <a href="http://www.microkid.net/wordpress/related-posts/#API" title="Related Posts for WordPress API functions" rel="nofollow ugc">functions</a> available for advanced users.</li>
<li>Available in a growing number of languages</li>
</ul>

So far good

Increase your pageviews and SEO by manually selecting related posts for your content. Easy reciprocal linking of related posts and pages.

Random Related Posts Based on Category vs Related Posts for WordPress