Exclude or bury results

Sitecore Search returns paginated results for a search keyphrase in its widgets. This topic describes how you can exclude or bury results using widget variation rules.

Tip

To additionally target results using the Strategies and Settings sections of a rule, you can configure the Site and Visitor tabs in the Context section.

Important

To save a widget variation rule, you need to populate at least one of the following configurations:

Site or visitor context.
Blacklist, boost, pin, or bury strategy.

The following procedures cover scenarios to exclude or bury some results altogether.

Blacklist an item in the results

When you want to exclude an item that appears in search results, you can black list it. The following procedure creates a widget variation with such a rule. When this variation is Active, the results do not contain the blacklisted item.

Before configuring a widget variation rule strategy:

Create or edit a widget variation rule.
In the top banner, on the right, in the Output entity drop-down menu, select an entity.
Note
Selection change in the Output entity drop-down menu:
- Displays the number of entity items matching the rule.
- Populates the rule with selected entity items.
The items in the slots of a new rule do not necessarily reflect those at runtime.

To blacklist an item in a widget:

To define context for the widget variation rule, follow the steps in the define site context in a widget variation rule or define visitor context in a widget variation rule procedure.
On the menu bar, click Strategy.
Click the Blacklist rules tab.
In the right pane, on the Content items tab, to filter the list by name, in the search input field, enter text or to filter the list by other attributes, click .

For details and a performance analytics summary of an item, click Quick Look.
Drag the item to a slot.
Click Save.
To deploy, click Publish.

Bury an item in the results

The following procedure creates a widget variation with a rule. When this variation is Active, the buried item is placed at the bottom of the results. In case of multiple buried items, they are ranked among themselves and then pushed to the bottom of the results.

Before configuring a widget variation rule strategy:

Create or edit a widget variation rule.
In the top banner, on the right, in the Output entity drop-down menu, select an entity.
Note
Selection change in the Output entity drop-down menu:
- Displays the number of entity items matching the rule.
- Populates the rule with selected entity items.
The items in the slots of a new rule do not necessarily reflect those at runtime.

To bury an item in a widget:

To define context for the widget variation rule, follow the steps in the define site context in a widget variation rule or define visitor context in a widget variation rule procedure.
On the menu bar, click Strategy.
Click the Bury rules tab.
In the right pane, on the Content items tab, to filter the list by name, in the search input field, enter text or to filter the list by other attributes, click .

For details and a performance analytics summary of an item, click Quick Look.
Drag the item to a slot.
Click Save.
To deploy, click Publish.

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