Ranking based on sub-phrases

Subphrasing ranks results based on the length of their subphrase matches. In other words, results that match three terms are considered more relevant than results that match two terms, and so on.

When you configure the Phrase module, you have the option of enabling subphrasing.

A subphrase is defined as a contiguous subset of the query terms the user entered, in the order that he or she entered them. For example, the query "fax cover sheets" contains the subphrases "fax," "cover," "sheets," "fax cover," "cover sheets," and "fax cover sheets," but not "fax sheets."

Content contained inside nested quotation marks in a phrase is treated as one term. For example, consider the following phrase: "the question is 'to be or not to be.' " The quoted text, "to be or not to be," is treated as one query term, so this example consists of four query terms even though it has a total of nine words.

When subphrasing is not enabled, results are ranked into two strata: those that matched the entire phrase and those that didn't.