display random posts on index page

The string you have there is just the permalink code to a post. It would appear long before you collected your posts from the database, random or not.

Could you provide a little more detail on what you’re attempting to change? If you must post code, submit it here:

https://wordpress.pastebin.ca

and reply with the url to it.

Hi Kafkaesqui,

I want to display random posts on the front page instead of showing latest posts. The reason I do this is because I seldom update my blog

So you want to replace The Loop with something generating a random selection of posts?

Not too hard:

<?php
global $wpdb;
$numposts = 10;

$rand_posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT $numposts");
foreach($rand_posts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>

Template tags and whatnot go here.

<?php endforeach; ?>

Just change the value of $numposts to define how many posts to query for.

I would like to specify categories to include and exclude. Thanks.

The code above also shows pages. How can I exclude it? Thanks.

use this loop to select a random post from a specific category.. remember to change the number of posts you want an dhte category name.

<?php
global $wpdb;
$numposts = 1;
$rand_posts = $wpdb->get_results(“SELECT * FROM $wpdb->post2cat,$wpdb->posts,$wpdb->categories WHERE
$wpdb->post2cat.post_id = $wpdb->posts.ID and $wpdb->post2cat.category_id = $wpdb->categories.cat_ID and $wpdb->posts.post_status = ‘publish’ and $wpdb->categories.cat_name = ‘featured’ ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT $numposts”);
foreach($rand_posts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>

I search exactly the same thing but… for pages (in fact for child pages of a specific parent page. There is an old plugin but it doesn’t make the job correctly (all text is whithout breaks and formatting and the title isn’t shown. See : https://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/get-random-page-wordpress-plugin/).

I’m 0 for code. So if there si someone good, please help… !
Thanks in advance ??

<?php
global $wpdb;
$numposts = 1;
$rand_posts = $wpdb->get_results(“SELECT * FROM $wpdb->post2cat,$wpdb->posts,$wpdb->categories WHERE
$wpdb->post2cat.post_id = $wpdb->posts.ID and $wpdb->post2cat.category_id = $wpdb->categories.cat_ID and $wpdb->posts.post_status = ‘publish’ and $wpdb->categories.cat_name = ‘featured’ ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT $numposts”);
foreach($rand_posts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>

Hi Everyone, this code works find and I am now getting random posts for category “featured”

How do I take this one step further and show random post from whichever category im currently in?

Now if I click on another category other than featured i still get the ramdom posts from featured.

On home page it would show randon form every category, and when in a category it would show category specific

Thanks a lot bcbirk100, but is it possible to display multiple categories?

I want to know the same thing as babyuniverse. How do you diplay random posts in a category?

Hey, it’s still showing the pages ??

To only show posts, insert this code:

post_type = 'post'

Can somebody tell me exactly where you place this code in The Loop?

<?php
global $wpdb;
$numposts = 1;
$rand_posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->post2cat,$wpdb->posts,$wpdb->categories WHERE
$wpdb->post2cat.post_id = $wpdb->posts.ID and $wpdb->post2cat.category_id = $wpdb->categories.cat_ID and $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish' and $wpdb->categories.cat_name = 'featured' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT $numposts");
foreach($rand_posts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>

Template tags and whatnot go here.

<?php endforeach; ?>

thanks so much Archstaton

2.3 breaks this solution – can anybody please whip up some code that works with 2.3?