How are content items ranked in smart feeds?

Owned by James Goodwin
Last updated: Apr 06, 2022
3 min read

Content is ranked based on the date it was posted to a community, as well as when it was first made accessible to the user. The more recently an item of content is posted, the higher it is ranked on the smart feed. An item of content’s position may differ from user to user, especially if it is available in multiple communities. If an item of content is reposted to a community it is already available in, it will reappear at the top of the smart feed again.

This logic applies to the following feeds in Fuse:

  • The Knowledge feed/News feed tab on community specific homepages (only applicable when using the classic Community specific layout in Design studio):

  • The Recently added content widget:

  • The Feed widget (only applicable when the Most Recent filter is selected):

  • The Social Feed on the Fuse mobile app (only applicable when the Most Recent filter is selected):

  • The Recently added content screen on the sidebar:

Example scenarios

Example 1

Two items of content are published to the Marketing community. Content A is published on 1st January at 9am and content B on 1st January at 1pm. In the knowledge feed of the Marketing community’s homepage, Content B ranks higher on the feed than Content A because it was posted most recently. The same applies when viewing the Feed widget, Social Feed on the Fuse mobile app, and the Recently added content screen.

Example 2

Content A is created and immediately posted to the Marketing community on 1st January at 9am. Content B is also posted to this community on 1st January at 1pm. Content B is then posted in the Product community on 1st January at 1pm, and Content A is posted to the Product community on 5th January at 10am.

These items of content are ranked in the following way:

  • In the community specific feed for the Marketing community, Content B ranks higher than Content A.

  • In the community specific feed for the Product community, Content A ranks higher than Content B.

  • In the Feed widget and Social feed, Content B ranks higher than Content A (if a user has access to both communities).