product recommendations - is there a better way?

Store Design

Topic summary

Main issue: After hiding wholesale products from the “You May Also Like” section using a community method, empty slots remain instead of backfilling with other recommendations.

Key observations:

  • The Shopify Search & Discovery app shows 10 recommendations per product, but the 4-item grid isn’t filled when some items are hidden.
  • Turning off automated recommendations to edit would require fully manual setup, which is time-consuming.

Tried approaches:

  • Prioritizing manual recommendations ahead of automated ones per product helps somewhat but still leaves gaps on some listings.
  • Attempted bulk editing (metafields) without success; empty spaces persist.

Constraints and preferences:

  • Avoiding paid app solutions (~$25/month).
  • Already using a sidebar with manually added related products; a “Recently viewed” widget might be more useful.

Status and next steps:

  • No resolution yet. Options are to manage all recommendations manually (with ongoing upkeep for new products) or remove the feature.
  • Seeking a way to bulk edit metafields or a non-app method to ensure automated recommendations backfill hidden items without leaving gaps.
Summarized with AI on December 12. AI used: gpt-5.
1

I have wholesale products that I’ve been able to temporarily hide from the ‘You May Also Like’ bar using this method: https://community.shopify.com/post/2590092

But there are empty spaces left in that section for most products.

Then, when I go to the products on the Search and Discovery, there are 10 recommendations per product, plenty left to fill up the grid of 4, but they aren’t added.

There doesn’t way to be a way to edit except to completely remove all automated recommendations and do it all manually…which would take a long time.

This doesn’t make sense, so I am here to ask if I am missing something? Is there an easier way (not including $25/m app).

TIA!

2

I have learned from this post that I can go into each product page and place manual recommendations ‘ahead’ of the automated. It may not be much than manually adding all recommendations as I have to check each listing and make sure that there still aren’t empty spaces leftover.

But, if there is a way to bulk edit these metafields…

3

I did try bulk edit and no matter what I do, there are still empty spaces left. It looks like I either have to do it all manually, which will mean new edits with each new product, or I remove the feature.

I already have a side section with manually added related products…so a recently viewed feature would probably be more helpful.