Widgets are a relatively new concept for teams coming from the Solr world, but they provide a powerful and flexible way to build and customize the search experience.
A single search component can work with multiple widgets, each configured independently. This enables fine-grained control over facets, sort order, rules, and other search behaviors at the widget level.
To support this, developers should implement search components in a flexible manner so different widgets can be assigned—usually by referencing a widget ID in the Sitecore CMS datasource.
For example, in a multi-site environment (as shown in the screenshots), a single Resource Card Search Results component can be reused across multiple sites, each with its own facet configuration and display order.
In this model, content authors and marketers can manage and adjust widget configurations directly within Sitecore Search, without requiring code changes.
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