I’m facing a strange and inconsistent issue with HivePress “Related Listings”, and I strongly suspect it is linked to enabling and disabling the GeoLocation addon.
Expected behavior
Related listings should be generated dynamically based on:
Same category or subcategory
Plus location radius when GeoLocation addon is enabled
Actual behavior
Some listings correctly show related listings, some listings show no related listings at all, even though they are in the same category/subcategory
What I tested
Disabled GeoLocation addon
No change, problematic listings still show blank related listings
Re-enabled GeoLocation addon
Created a brand-new listing manually
This new listing shows all related listings from the same category, regardless of location
Duplicating a listing using a post duplication plugin
Duplicated listing shows only the original listing as a related listing
Not the full set like a newly created listing
Changing order (ASC, DESC, Random)
Order changes apply only to listings that already have related listings
Listings with blank related listings remain blank
It looks like disabling and re-enabling the GeoLocation addon changed how related listings are evaluated, but existing listings were not re-indexed or normalized.
Old listings still behave as if location filtering is applied using stale geo data. New listings behave differently and show related listings regardless of location.
Is there a recommended way to re-index or normalize location data for old listings?
Why do newly created listings behave differently from older listings under the same category setup?
Please ensure that all required options are enabled, for example, if you’re using Geolocation, activate and configure it, then go to HivePress > Settings > Related Listing Criteria, select Category and Location if needed, and save the changes (even if they were already enabled). If the listing still doesn’t appear in Related Listings, please check that it has a location and category assigned, and that the radius in HivePress > Settings > Geolocation isn’t set too narrow.
The Related Listing Criteria setting is working correctly. When I remove Location from the criteria, newly created listings correctly show all listings from the same category as related.
However, the issue is with existing listings created before I disabled and re-enabled the GeoLocation addon. These older listings do not follow the updated criteria.
All affected listings are assigned to the correct category, have valid location data, and are published and visible.
This makes it seem like existing listings are not being re-indexed or normalized after disabling and re-enabling GeoLocation.
In the update, we didn’t change anything regarding this logic or the fields where location data is stored, we only added the option in criteria where you can enable or disable Location as a criterion.
Please make sure that the listings you’re checking have valid location data. We recommend taking two listings where one should definitely appear in the other’s related listings but isn’t showing up, then re-save the Location field for both listings by selecting the location from the dropdown. Save both and check again. If one still doesn’t appear in the other’s related listings, make sure the radius setting allows for it.
I ticked the “Include in related criteria” option in all the attributes, thinking it would increase the chance of getting more related listings. However, I have now realised that related listings are being filtered because of this.