How do the automatic related widgets on my site work?

Content on your site may include one of several Related Widgets:

  • Related Articles
  • Related Events
  • Related Directory Listing
  • Related Blog Posts
  • Related Products

... as well as any custom Related Widgets.

Related Widgets have the ability to surface associated content that may have some connection with the main content. This association can be either automatic or manual. The purpose of this article is to talk about the automatic association. (Learn how to manually associate content in this article: How do I select related articles, blog posts, listings, events, products and more to appear next to my content?)

Related Widgets are driven by logic that assesses the content (article, event, blog post, etc.) and, based on the following algorithm, returns the closest matching content. 

Related Widget Algorithm

We use SOLR's Minimum Should Match (MM) algorithm, which returns articles that match on three terms or at least 33% of the content matches on the fields:

  • Headline / Title / Name
  • Taxonomy
  • Author (if applicable to the content)
  • Summary / Teaser / Short Description
  • Keywords
  • Text / Body / Description / Long Description

Read about the terms that SOLR strips out of searches and minimum matching for the Related Widgets.

The number of returned results on the Related Widgets may be adjusted via system settings. Speak to your project manager if you do not have access.


All content on the site with a check in the Include in Search Results box is considered for the Related Widgets by our search engine, SOLR.

Use the  Settings to control the number of items that appear.

Related content widgets have a set number of possible slots, as determined by the relevant system settings.

Those spaces are first filled with any manually associated content (articles / events / products / etc.). Any leftover positions are filled with the automatically returned related content from SOLR, our automated process.

The number of returned results on the Related Widgets may be adjusted via System Settings. Speak to your solutions manager if you do not have access.

  • related.content.limit.articles = Related Article widget driven by the Article / Blog Post tools
  • related.content.limit.directories = Related Directory Listings / Buyer's Guide widget driven by the Directory Listing Manager tool
  • related.content.limit.events = Related Events widget driven by the Event Manager
  • related.content.limit.products = Related Products widget driven by the Product Manager

Your website may call these widgets different things. Ask your solutions manager if you have questions.

Additionally, your site may have additional or customized related widgets that may have unique system settings that accomplish this same goal. Again, speak with your solutions manager should you have questions.