Related articles using a search query

Hello there. I hope the wordpress hive mind can help.

I am creating a business directory (custom post type) that is filtered using the search and filter pro plugin. All is working well. However, I have a problem getting good matches on related articles from the default post type. These are articles about or mentioning the business in question as seen in this example:

https://staging.manchestersfinest.com/directory/bay-horse-tavern/

I have tried related post plugins but the results were not relevant enough. Ideally for the venue ‘bay horse tavern’ I want to return only articles specifically about the ‘bay horse tavern’. As you can see from the link the results I get do not to a user seem that related…

I decided to use a query based on a search term to achieve this. The author can add a search term into a custom meta box on the directory that is then used in the template to build the query like so. It might be wrong – I am not the best with these things…

<?php
$search_term = get_field('directory_related_posts_search_term');
$args1 = array(
'posts_per_page' => 3,
's'              => $search_term,
'post_type'      => 'post'
);
$myposts1 = get_posts( $args1 );
foreach ( $myposts1 as $post ) : setup_postdata( $post ); ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" class="post-tile-link">
<article <?php post_class('post-tile post-tile--grid'); ?>>
<?php    						                      the_post_thumbnail('big-post-thumb');
?>
<h3><?php echo wp_trim_words ( the_title ( '', '', false ), 12 , '&hellip;'); ?></h3>
</article>
</a>
<?php endforeach; wp_reset_postdata();?>

This does not return particularly relevant results and interestingly does not return the same results as if I use the site search – which I find very odd.

Does anyone know a) what the hell is going on? b) Should I search just on the post title perhaps, and how do I do this? c) Is there a better way to get to where I want to be?

Thank you in advance!

• This topic was modified 7 years ago by matt-tyas.