TLDR Web Dev · ARTICLES & TUTORIALS

PHRASE MATCHING IN MARGINALIA SEARCH

marginalia.nu18 min read

Summary from the TLDR Web Dev newsletter

A search engine added phrase matching by transitioning from approximate word position storage to storing precise positions using compressed lists. This change required implementing a new way to store information about word occurrences within different document fields. The ranking algorithm was upgraded to take advantage of the new phrase matching capabilities, incorporating factors like phrase presence, keyword distance, and early occurrence.