Company
Date Published
Author
Julien Lemoine
Word count
1565
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

As a hosted-search engine service, we discuss the relevance aspect of search with our customers and prospects all day long, having more than 1500 customers and seeing various real-life search problems connected to relevance. Structuring data correctly is crucial for achieving good relevance, as it allows the engine to associate importance of matches in a preferred order. Avoiding string concatenation ensures accurate proximity measures. Small checks can be done before advance tuning to achieve a decent level of textual relevance, including handling abbreviations and typos. A predictable approach is necessary for search relevance, avoiding unpredictable changes caused by boost values. Providing explanations for search results, such as visually highlighting matching query terms, is essential. Business data should be included in the search functionality to enhance relevance, with textual relevance taking precedence over business data. Personalization of search can make a significant difference in achieving perfect relevance, especially for regular users. The team behind Algolia emphasizes the importance of relevance and encourages users to contact them for analysis and assistance.