Goal: Bulk update the Shopify Search & Discovery data on your products - complementary products, related products, and search boosts - by exporting it to a spreadsheet, editing it, and importing it back into Shopify with Altera. Instead of clicking through each product one at a time in the Search & Discovery app, you can manage these recommendations across your whole catalog in a single file.

Shopify stores Search & Discovery data as standard product metafields, so Altera can export and import it just like any other product field. The columns use the Matrixify format, so existing Matrixify files work without changes.

Video walkthrough: Watch the video guide

Prerequisites:

You have Altera installed on your Shopify store
You have the Shopify Search & Discovery app installed (this is what populates these metafields in your storefront)
The products you want to reference already exist in your store, so you can use their handles

The fields you'll be editing

All three sections live under two metafield namespaces. These are the exact column headers you'll see in your export file and need in your import file:

Section	Column header	Format
Complementary products	`Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.complementary_products [list.product_reference]`	Comma-separated product handles (up to 10)
Related products	`Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.related_products [list.product_reference]`	Comma-separated product handles (up to 10)
Related products display	`Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.related_products_display [single_line_text_field]`	`ahead` or `only manual`
Search boosts	`Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_search_boost.queries [list.single_line_text_field]`	Comma-separated search terms

Export your Search & Discovery data

First, get the current data out of Shopify and into a spreadsheet so you have the correct format and column headers to work from.

In the Altera app, click New export and select Products.
Under General, deselect the fields you don't need. At a minimum keep Handle (used to match products) and Title (so you can recognize each row). You may also keep a field like Vendor to help identify products.
Enable Metafields, then click the pencil icon to narrow down which metafields are exported.
Add a condition for Namespace contains shopify--discovery--. This limits the export to just the Search & Discovery metafields and leaves the rest of your data out of the file.
Click Start export. Altera produces an Excel file containing your products and these metafield columns.

Edit the data

Open the exported file. The format is identical to Matrixify, so the Search & Discovery values appear as the metafield columns described above. Edit the values directly in the spreadsheet.

A few things that apply to every section:

Product references are written as comma-separated handles, not product IDs or titles.
To clear a value, you'll need to enable the delete-blanks option at import time (see the import section below). By default a blank cell leaves the existing value untouched.

Complementary products

Complementary products are items used together with the product, like ski wax for a snowboard. Put a comma-separated list of product handles in the complementary products column.

Handle	Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.complementary_products [list.product_reference]
the-complete-snowboard	alpine-ski-wax, selling-plans-ski-wax
the-hidden-snowboard	alpine-ski-wax

Related products

Related products are alternatives a shopper might consider instead, like a different snowboard. The related products column takes the same comma-separated handle format.

The optional related products display column controls how your manual picks appear next to Shopify's automatically generated recommendations:

ahead - shows your manual related products ahead of the automatic ones
only manual - shows only your manual related products and hides the automatic ones

Handle	Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.related_products [list.product_reference]	Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_recommendation.related_products_display [single_line_text_field]
the-complete-snowboard	alpine-snowboard-jacket, alpine-ski-wax	only manual
the-collection-snowboard-hydrogen	the-collection-snowboard-oxygen, the-compare-at-price-snowboard	ahead

Search boosts

Search boosts are keywords that push a product higher in storefront search results. List the terms separated by commas. Altera also recognizes the JSON list format that Shopify uses when exporting (for example ["snowboard jacket","winter coat"]), so you can leave existing values as-is or switch them to the simpler comma format.

Handle	Metafield: shopify--discovery--product_search_boost.queries [list.single_line_text_field]
the-complete-snowboard	completely, snow, white
alpine-snowboard-jacket	snowboard jacket, winter coat, alpine

When you're done, save the file.

Import the data back into Shopify

In Altera, click Upload file and select your edited file. Altera analyzes it and shows the mapped fields, including the Search & Discovery metafield columns.
(Optional) By default, Altera does not clear values for blank cells, which keeps your existing data safe. If you want blank cells to remove the existing metafield values, enable Delete metafields with blank cells.
Click Start import. Altera updates the metafields on each product and shows a preview of the affected products as it runs.

Outcome

Your products now show the updated complementary products, related products, and search boosts. You can confirm in the Shopify Search & Discovery app under a product's recommendations, or on the product itself via Edit product recommendations. If you set the related products display to only manual, only your manual picks appear and the automatic recommendations are hidden.