I am having a problem using the full text search facility, and it has to do with the relevance score. When I do a Boolean search, the relevance score is always 1 or 0. That means sorting my search results by score does me no good: searching for "candy" first lists an item that only has the word "candy" in it once, and one that has "candy" in it 12 times comes out much lower in the list. (As it happens the first item is about pet food, not what a user is likely to expect. It does mention dog candy once.) If I use a natural language search, then the results for "candy" come out as desired; but a search for "dog candy" does not, because the word "candy" swamps the word "dog" and I get a gazillion results that don't have the word "dog". If the user is smart enough to use Boolean operators, I can get a decent ranking; but I have to assume my users are too naive to use the operators. The best I've come up with is a Boolean search ordered by a natural search, which seems to work. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Regards, Jerry Schwartz Global Information Incorporated 195 Farmington Ave. Farmington, CT 06032 860.674.8796 / FAX: 860.674.8341
