How do I boost date/datetime fields in Sunspot Rails? - solr

I'd like to boost by recency but not order by datetime/date field absolutely (since there are other factors at play).
How do I boost a date/datetime field in Sunspot Rails?

Sunspot does not have built-in capability to boost a date/datetime field, however, it is possible to do so using solr itself, as evidenced by this article:
https://wiki.apache.org/solr/FunctionQuery#Date_Boosting
Fortunately, sunspot provides a way of manually adding params to the solr query. What you'll want to do here is make sure that the date field you are using to boost is contained in the searchable block on the model.rb:
searchable do
time :datetime_field, stored: true, trie: true
end
Then, in the search block that is probably in your models_controller.rb, add the date boost function:
#search = Model.search do
# perform search
adjust_solr_params do |sunspot_params|
sunspot_params[:boost] = 'recip(ms(NOW,datetime_field_dts),3.16e-11,1,1)'
end
end
Note that sunspot adds '_dts' to the end of your time field, so you will need to include this at the end of the variable name in the query string.

Related

Why does Dismax's bq (Boost Query) parameter filter results instead of just boosting them?

I'm using Solr 8.11.2. In order to boost documents with certain field values, I'm using Dismax's bq (Boost Query) parameter.
From what I've read, this should only influence the score of the search results returned by the rest of the query. What I see happening is that it filters all search results that don't have the field I'm boosting.
I'm using the following query, which returns all documents containing both words procedure and maintenance:
q=((+procedure+maintenance))&rows=10&start=0&wt=xml&q.op=AND&fl=id,score,alias,author,hash,collection,label,url,lastModified,path,extension,objectId,objectDtType,title,DocumentPK_s,Taal_s,Site_s,SharePointId_s&hl=true&hl.qt=highlightRH&hl.fl=content,description,label&hl.snippets=5&defType=dismax&bf=recip(max(0,ms(NOW-3MONTH,creationDate)),3.16e-11,1,1)&pf=content&sort=score DESC
But as soon as I append &bq=language:english^10000, which is supposed to boost documents where the field language is set to english, all documents where the field language doesn't exist are no longer part of the results.
Am I misunderstanding how this parameter is supposed to work? Is it a side effect?

In Solr, how can we use terms external to the search query to bias result ordering?

We're working on a plan to identify content tags our users are interested in. So, for instance, we may determine that User X consumes content tagged with "kermit" and "piggy" more often than other tags. These are their "favored tags."
When the users search, we'd like to favor/bias documents that contain these terms.
This means we can't boost the documents at index time, because every user will have different favored tags. Additionally, they may not be searching for the favored tags themselves. They may search for "gonzo," and so we absolutely want to give them documents with "gonzo," but we want to boost documents that also contain "kermit" or "piggy."
These favored tags are not used to actually query the index, but rather are used to bias the result ordering. The favored tags become something of a tie-breaker -- all else being equal, documents containing these terms will rank higher.
This is new/planned development, so we can use whatever version and parser stack is optimal to solve this problem.
Solution in SolrNet
The question was correctly answered below, but here's the code for SolrNet just in case someone else is using it.
var localParams = new LocalParams();
localParams.Add("bq", "kermit^10000); //numeric value is the degree of boost
var solr = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ISolrOperations<MySolrDocumentClass>>();
solr.Query(new SolrQuery("whatever") + localParams);
You didn't specify which query parser you're using, but if you are using the Dismax or Extended Dismax query parser, the bq argument should do exactly what you're looking for. bq adds search criteria to a search solely for the purpose of affecting the relevancy, but not to limit the result set.
From the Dismax documentation:
The bq (Boost Query) Parameter
The bq parameter specifies an additional, optional, query clause that
will be added to the user's main query to influence the score. For
example, if you wanted to add a relevancy boost for recent documents:
q=cheese
bq=date:[NOW/DAY-1YEAR TO NOW/DAY]
You can specify multiple bq parameters. If you want your query to be
parsed as separate clauses with separate boosts, use multiple bq
parameters.
In this case, you may want to add &bq=kermit&bq=piggy to the end of your Solr query. If you aren't using one of these query parsers, this need may be exactly the motivation you need to switch.

What means "document popularity" in Solr

What is document popularity in solr indexing..?
EDisMax parser uses boost parameter. In the example &boost=popularity like that I noticed one query. I couldn't understand what is boost as well as boost=popularity. Before understanding the boost parameter I'd like to know what is "popularity" in document indexing.
popularity is just "some field" which has been used as an example while boost is a query parameter defined for the edismax request handler. Boosting means to influence the scoring (the relevance of each search hit) depending on some field value (or result of some function based on field values).
See section The boost Parameter in https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/solr/The+Extended+DisMax+Query+Parser.
If you want to implement something like popularity in your own index you would have to:
add a field to your schema called popularity with type int or float or ExternalFileField (depends on how you index and apply it).
gather statistics data for your search results and store those in relation to the document IDs (e.g. by evaluating access logs)
during index time or via ExternalFileField (or in the future via docValues partial updates) store the popularity values that you get from your statistics data.
apply the boost during query time by setting the parameter boost=popularity (or using popularity in a function query).
More on popularity boosting:
https://www.slideshare.net/lucenerevolution/potter-timothy-boosting-documents-in-solr
docValues partial update:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SOLR-5944
ExternalFileField:
http://www.findwise.com/blog/externalfilefield-in-solr/
Boosting is used to increase the score of the certain documents. You can use index time boosting or query time boosting. For index time boosting you can set boost attribute and value to the document you index. For query time boosting you can either boost field by setting your boost value, or you can use predefined function queries.
For more information about boosting check documents in Solr wiki.
boost=popularity means that documents popularity is calculated in the external field (using ExternalFileField) and used to increase the score by using popularity value. Popularity of the documents can be calculated using the view count or any other parameters you want.For more about boosting documents by popularity you can check this document.

What is the proper way to boost items with newer dates?

I have a more like this query which I would like to update to return newer documents first. According to the documentation, I would need to add recip(ms(NOW,mydatefield),3.16e-11,1,1) to my query.
But when I try to add it to either of mlt.qf or bf parameters. The results stay exactly the same.
This is my query:
/solr/mlt?
q=id:cms.article.137861
&defType=edismax
&rows=3
&indent=on
&mlt.fl=series_id,tags,title,text
&mlt.qf=show_id text^1.1 title^1.1 tags^90
&wt=json
&fl=url,title,tags,django_id,content_type_id
&bf=recip(ms(NOW,pub_date),3.16e-11,1,1)
this is taken from the solr wiki (its down but i have it cached)
i think this is what you are looking for.
How can I boost the score of newer documents
Do an explicit sort by date (relevancy scores are ignored)
Use an index-time boost that is larger for newer documents
Use a FunctionQuery to influence the score based on a date field.
In Solr 1.3, use something of the form recip(rord(myfield),1,1000,1000)
In Solr 1.4, use something of the form recip(ms(NOW,mydatefield),3.16e-11,1,1)
http://lucene.apache.org/solr/api/org/apache/solr/search/function/ReciprocalFloatFunction.html http://lucene.apache.org/solr/api/org/apache/solr/search/BoostQParserPlugin.html
A full example of a query for "ipod" with the score boosted higher the newer the product is:
http://localhost:8983/solr/select?q={!boost b=recip(ms(NOW,manufacturedate_dt),3.16e-11,1,1)}ipod
One can simplify the implementation by decomposing the query into multiple arguments:
http://localhost:8983/solr/select?q={!boost b=$dateboost v=$qq}&dateboost=recip(ms(NOW,manufacturedate_dt),3.16e-11,1,1)&qq=ipod
Now the main "q" argument as well as the "dateboost" argument may be specified as defaults in a search handler in solrconfig.xml, and clients would only need to pass "qq", the user query.
To boost another query type such as a dismax query, the value of the boost query is a full sub-query and hence can use the {!querytype} syntax. Alternately, the defType param can be used in the boost local params to set the default type to dismax. The other dismax parameters may be set as top level parameters.
http://localhost:8983/solr/select?q={!boost b=$dateboost v=$qq defType=dismax}&dateboost=recip(ms(NOW,manufacturedate_dt),3.16e-11,1,1)&qf=text&pf=text&qq=ipod
Consider using reduced precision to prevent excessive memory consumption. You would instead use recip(ms(NOW/HOUR,mydatefield),3.16e-11,1,1). See this thread for more information.
apparently your date field is not a TrieDate

How to boost fields in solr

I already have the boost determined before hand. I have a field in the solr index called boost1 . This boost field will have a value from 1 to 10 similar to google PR rank. This is the boost that should be applied to every query ran in solr. here are the fields in my index
Id
Title
Text
Boost1
The boost field should be apply to every query. I am trying to implement functionality similar to Google PR rank. Is there a way to do this using solr?
you can add the boost during query e.g.
q={!boost b=boost1}
How_can_I_boost_the_score_of_newer_documents
However, this may need to be added explicitly by you.
If you are using dismax or edismax with the request handler, The bf (Boost Functions) parameter could be used to boost the documents.
http://wiki.apache.org/solr/DisMaxQParserPlugin#bf_.28Boost_Functions.29
bf=boost1^0.5
This can be added to defaults with the request handler definition, so that they are applied to all the search queries.
you can use function queries to vary the amount of boost FunctionQuery
I think you need to use index time document boosts. See this if you are indexing XML or this if using DataImportHandler.

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