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How is the Related articles list in Help Center populated?

Zendesk Team
  • Edited

Question

How is the Related articles list in the Help Center populated? Can I influence what articles are returned?

Answer

You cannot influence what articles are displayed in the Related articles list.

Articles in this list are returned based on a relevancy score between articles. This score is calculated via the method below:

  • For each user, we keep a list of their recently viewed articles.
  • When a user visits an article, we record the most recently viewed article as being related to the currently viewed article.
  • Over time, each article will be related to a number of other articles. The more times an article is marked as related to another article, the higher the related score is. The score and therefore the results will get better over time.

For example:

  1. User visits Article A. 
  2. From Article A, the user visits Article B. 
  3. Article A's relevant score in relation to Article B is increased. 
  4. Another user visits Article B and Article A is suggested as a related article.

For more information, see our developer documentation: Recent articles helper.

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6 Comments

  • Paul Watson

    Does the "learning" process happen in the background even if "related articles" is not switched on (displayed)?

    For example, if we switch the feature off because results are not currently useful and then switch it back on in six months time, will the articles displayed reflect the six months of site usage?

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Paul,
     
    Yes, the relevancy metrics are recorded regardless of the helper for related articles. 
     
    Hope this helps!
    0
  • Casey Birkholz

    Is this still relevant with the introduction of tags? I just started testing out tags and I do see tagged articles appearing under "Related articles" but I also see untagged articles that I've recently visited in that list.

    0
  • Arianne Batiles
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Casey Birkholz, 

    I would say it would depend on the experience you want for your users. Related articles return a list based on a user's recently viewed articles and the number of times the article is marked as related while content tags work like a hashtag. You have control over these tags and you can add the same tags to articles you think are related. With this feature, users by clicking the tag can view a search page displaying all other content in your help center with the same tag. 

    0
  • Vlad
    Community Moderator
    The Wise One - 2022

    Is there any way to pull related articles via ZD API? 
    I need related article IDs in the help center DOM to take their section names. 💁🏻

    0
  • Darenne
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Vlad, welcome to Zendesk! I tried to check the Help Center API documentation but it appears there's no available API endpoint to pull up Related articles. However, on the same page in the documentation, related articles are part of the Help Center Templates, which consists of a collection of editable page templates that define the layout of different types of pages in the Help Center under Advance Helpers. 
     
    I hope this clarifies it! 
     
    0

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