Knowledge Base Related Articles

The Knowledge Base plugin ships with a first-party Related Articles engine that can surface contextual links below each article, power the Related Articles block, and feed the Help Widget. This document now starts with a non-technical explainer before diving into the developer reference.

Part A: User-Friendly Overview

What Related Articles Do

• Keeps readers engaged: Shows a short list of helpful articles underneath the one they just finished.
• Works everywhere: Appears automatically on classic knowledge base templates, inside the Related Articles block, and inside the Help Widget.
• Always relevant: Picks other posts that share the same sections or tags as the article the visitor is reading.

Turning the Feature On or Off

1. Go to Settings → Knowledge Base → Output.
2. Toggle Show related articles on to display the section, or off to hide it.
3. Save your settings: no extra code is required.

Choosing Where Related Articles Show Up

• Automatic placement: When enabled, related articles appear below knowledge base articles that use the plugin’s templates.
• Shortcode: Ask your developer (or add to a custom template) to place [kb_related_articles] wherever you want the list to appear.
• Gutenberg Block: In the block editor, add the Knowledge Base → Related Articles block to any template part or single post layout.
• Help Widget: If you use the Help Widget (Beacon), visitors will see suggested articles pulled from the same related articles engine.

Customizing the Look Without Code

• Block controls: When you insert the Related Articles block, you can change the title, pick the heading level (H2 to H6), choose how many posts to show, and toggle thumbnails, excerpts, and publish dates.
• Shortcode helper: In classic templates, the shortcode uses the same settings you configure on the settings page. Your developer can adjust the shortcode parameters if you need something unique.

Troubleshooting for Non‑Developers

Ready for more detail? Continue to the developer reference below.

Part B: Developer Reference

1. Enabling & Display Locations

Disable the feature globally by unchecking Show related articles in the settings page, or omit the shortcode/block on specific templates.

2. Template Function & Parameters

wzkb_related_articles( array $args = array() );

Set echo to false when using the helper inside PHP logic where you need to capture the HTML instead of printing it directly.

3. Gutenberg Block Quick Start

1. Insert the Knowledge Base → Related Articles block.
2. Configure:
   • Section Title: custom text for the heading.
   • Heading Level: semantic h2‑h6.
   • Show thumbnail / excerpt / date toggles.
   • Maximum items: between 1 and 20.
3. The block renders only on single knowledge base articles on the front end. In the editor, it displays a notice when no related content is available.

4. How Relevance Is Calculated

The engine builds a WP_Query scoped to the wz_knowledgebase post type, excluding the current article. When the origin article has sections or tags:

1. A taxonomy query matches other articles with any shared wzkb_category or wzkb_tag.
2. Results are ranked after the SQL query using sort_query_by_relevance():
   • Each matching category contributes category_weight points (default 2).
   • Each matching tag contributes tag_weight points (default 1).
   • A recency boost (0 to 1) favors articles published within the last year.
   • Tie‑breakers: category matches → tag matches → publish timestamp → original order.
3. If no taxonomy context exists (e.g., uncategorized article), the query falls back to the latest knowledge base posts. Use the wzkb_related_articles_fallback_args filter to override this behavior.

All scoring operations occur in PHP, so the SQL statement you see via Query Monitor will still show ORDER BY post_date DESC. The post array is reordered after the query returns.

5. Key Filters & Actions

Example: increase category weight and reduce recency influence.

add_filter( 'wzkb_related_category_weight', fn() => 3 );
add_filter( 'wzkb_related_recency_boost', function( $boost, $post ) {
 return 0.25 * $boost;
}, 10, 2 );

6. Performance & Caching

• Related queries are cached in the wzkb_related_articles object cache group using the query args, plus the posts cache last_changed value.
• Flushing the posts cache (wp cache flush, editing content, or publishing new articles) automatically invalidates the related cache.
• For deterministic debugging, temporarily disable the cache by filtering wzkb_related_articles_cache_ttl to 0.

7. Advanced Usage & Troubleshooting

1. Custom templates: If you override the single template, call wzkb_related_articles() manually, where you want the block to appear.
2. Block themes: The Gutenberg block is the recommended approach for block theme templates because it handles layout, settings, and tie‑ins with the Related class.
3. No results: Ensure the origin article shares sections or tags with other posts. Otherwise, configure wzkb_related_articles_fallback_args to show the latest articles or preferred taxonomy.
4. Multi‑product sites: Use wzkb_related_articles_query_args to inject a wzkb_product tax query, so each product shows its own ecosystem of articles. (Native support is on the roadmap.)
5. Debugging: Temporarily hook into wzkb_related_post_score and log $score to inspect how each article ranked. Remember to remove logging after troubleshooting.

See also

• wzkb_related_articles_fallback_args
• wzkb_related_articles_cache_ttl
• wzkb_related_articles_query_args
• wzkb_related_post_score