scribu

versusbassz

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 <code>previous_post_link()</code> and <code>next_post_link()</code>.
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: <code>previous_post_smart()</code> and <code>next_post_smart()</code>.
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: <a href="http://scribu.net/wordpress/smarter-navigation" rel="nofollow ugc">Plugin News</a> | <a href="http://scribu.net" rel="nofollow ugc">Author’s Site</a>

Smarter Navigation

I have been looking into code this functionality myself but have been not able to make it work properly than i came across this plugin and it worked liked a charm on just installing it.



Worked like a charm

Generates more specific previous / next post links based on referrer.

ambrosite

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are using the right plugin.
<ul>
<li>Next/Previous Post Link Plus is intended for use in single post templates.</li>
<li>Next/Previous Page Link Plus is intended for use in page templates.</li>
</ul>
The two plugins have similar sounding, but different, function names. If you mistakenly install the wrong plugin, you will get a “call to undefined function” error. If you want to create next/previous links for your pages, please check out: 
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ambrosite-nextprevious-page-link-plus/
IMPORTANT: This plugin is not compatible with PHP 4. If you try to install it on a host running PHP 4, you will get a parse error. WordPress has officially ended support for PHP 4 as of version 3.2, so you should upgrade to PHP 5.2 now. For those who cannot upgrade, you can download the alternate PHP 4 compatible version of the plugin. The only difference with the PHP 4 version is that the %category variable will not work with custom taxonomies. 
http://www.ambrosite.com/download/ambrosite-nextprevious-post-link-plus.php4.zip
This plugin creates two new template tags — next_post_link_plus and previous_post_link_plus — which are upgraded versions of the core WordPress next_post_link and previous_post_link template tags. The new tags include all of the functionality of the core tags, plus the following additional options:
<ul>
<li>Sort the next/previous post links on columns other than post_date (e.g. alphabetically).</li>
<li>Sort next/previous links on custom fields (both string and integer sorts are supported).</li>
<li>Full WordPress 3.3 compatibility, including support for custom post types, custom taxonomies, and post formats.</li>
<li>Loop around to the first post if there is no next post (and vice versa).</li>
<li>Retrieve the first/last post, rather than the previous/next post (for First|Previous|Next|Last navigation links).</li>
<li>Display post thumbnails alongside the links (WordPress 2.9 or higher).</li>
<li>Truncate the link titles to any length, and display custom text in the tooltip.</li>
<li>Display the title, date, author, category, and meta value of the next/previous links.</li>
<li>Specify a custom date format for the %date variable.</li>
<li>Restrict next/previous links to same category, taxonomy, format, author, custom field value, custom post ID list, or custom category list.</li>
<li>Exclude categories, custom taxonomies, post formats, or individual post IDs.</li>
<li>Three category exclusion methods for greater control over the navigation stream.</li>
<li>Return multiple next/previous links (e.g. the next N links, in an HTML list).</li>
<li>Return the ID, title, date, href attribute, or post object of the next/previous links, instead of echoing them to the screen.</li>
<li>Return false if no next/previous link is found, so themes may conditionally display alternate text.</li>
<li>Works with Post Types Order and other popular post reordering plugins.</li>
</ul>
Extensive documentation on configuring the plugin may be found here: 
http://www.ambrosite.com/plugins/next-previous-post-link-plus-for-wordpress

Ambrosite Next/Previous Post Link Plus

Has many options to customize as well.  Hasn't been update for a while, but still works perfectly with WP 4.5.3.



Excellent - does what it says.

Provides next/previous post link template tags that work the way you'd expect the built-in WP functions to work!



A beautiful thing

This plugin has saved me countless hours and does exactly what it needs to do with easy setup and lots of options. Love it.

Highly recommended

Upgrades the next/previous post link functions to reorder or loop adjacent post navigation links, display post thumbnails, and customize link format.

Smarter Navigation vs Ambrosite Next/Previous Post Link Plus