This topic describes a good starting strategy to try if you are working with a document repository.
The strategy assumes the following:
The search mode is MatchAllPartial. By using this mode, you ensure that a user’s search would return a two-words-out-of-five match as well as a four-words-out-of-five match, just at a lower priority.
The strategy is based on a search interface with members such as Title, Summary, and DocumentText, in that order. The order is significant because a match on the first member ranks more highly than a cross-field match or match on the second or third member.
The strategy is as follows:
The modules in this strategy work like this:
NTerms, the first module, ensures that in a multi-word search, the more words that match the better.
Next, MaxField puts cross-field matches as high in priority as possible, to the point where they could tie with non-cross-field matches.
The next module, Glom, decomposes cross-field matches, effectively breaking any ties resulting from MaxField. Together, MaxField and Glom provide the proper ordering, depending upon what matched.
Applying the Phrase module ensures that results containing the user’s query as an exact phrase are given a higher priority than matching containing the user’s search terms sprinkled throughout the text.
Optionally, the Static module can be used to sort the remaining ties by criteria such as ReleaseDate or Popularity.