Relevance ranking modules are the building blocks from which you build the relevance ranking strategies that you apply to your search interfaces. A set of relevance ranking modules combined with the order in which they are evaluated is a relevance ranking strategy.

The order in which you specify relevance ranking modules affects the order of displayed search results. Relevance ranking modules act in combination by functioning as a series of tie-breakers. The first module groups results into a number of different strata based on its rules. Then, within each stratum produced by the first module, the second module further subdivides results into follow-on strata based on its own rules, and so on, until there are no further ties or there are no more modules to apply.