Sorting by Relevance
Relevance sorting is based on the AltaVista relevance algorithm, which
considers the order in which a particular word is indexed in a record.
Fields are indexed in the following order:
- titles
- authors
- subjects
- notes
- other
Relevance is based on the following criteria:
Single Word Searches
- Most relevant: word is in the first 8 words indexed for the record.
- Next most relevant: word is in the next 24 words indexed (i.e., words 9-32).
- Next most relevant: word is indexed more than once for the record.
Multiple Word Searches
Words are first sorted in ascending order by frequency in the index.
- Most relevant: first two words are very near each other in the record.
- Next most relevant: first two words are near each other.
- Ties are broken using the criteria for single word searches.