I worked on the @FILAUSA website (not a client of ours) that currently doesn't have a related search widget.
To build one, we will index 'title', 'meta description', 'intro text' and 'breadcrumbs' and use the title of any other PLP as 'query'.
We will generate a JSON that recommends 3 or 4 relevant links for every page.
These links help users jump to the category page they need the most. We will also use the schema markup for SiteNavigationElement to help Google understand how things are connected.
In #SEO terms adding a related search widget helps with:
- Improving rankings. Internal links have a great value
- Distributing pagerank/link equity
- Optimizing anchor text. We can improve the ranking of a specific query by using it as the clickable text
For those of you interested on how to scale SBERT (SentenceTransformers) and other similar workflows you will find a first implementation of Jina Now 🤩 (now.jina.ai).