A custom widget built with Next.js and integrated into Sitefinity using server-side rendering (SSR) renders content correctly on the page. The generated HTML is fully available on initial load, and the widget behaves as expected from a frontend perspective.

However, the content produced by this widget is not being indexed by Sitefinity’s search service. As a result, the dynamically rendered content does not appear in search results, even though it is visible to users.

This behavior raises the question of whether Sitefinity supports indexing SSR-generated output from external renderers such as Next.js, and what configuration or implementation is required to make custom widget content discoverable by the built-in search functionality.

Using the @ContentContainer attribute ensures that Sitefinity can identify and extract the widget’s content during the search indexing process. Sitefinity indexes content only from properties explicitly marked as content containers.

When working with server-side rendered (SSR) widgets or external renderers such as Next.js, the generated HTML output is not automatically available to the Sitefinity indexing pipeline. Instead, the system relies on metadata defined in the widget’s entity model.

By decorating the relevant widget property with the @ContentContainer attribute, the content becomes discoverable to the indexing mechanism and is properly included in search results.

import { WidgetEntity } from '@progress/sitefinity-widget-designers-sdk';
import { ContentContainer } from '@progress/sitefinity-widget-designers-sdk/decorators/content-container';

@WidgetEntity('HelloWorld', 'Hello world')
export class HelloWorldEntity {

  @ContentContainer()
  Content: string | null = null;
}