Understanding

Ranking

in
Information Retrieval System

Amit Sagu
saguamit98@gmail.com
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 Ranking

Ranking in information retrieval (IR) systems refers to the process of sorting documents or
items in order of relevance to a user's query
Query

Doc -1

Doc -2

Doc -3

Doc -4

Cluster- 1

Results: Doc -2
Highest Ranking

Doc -1

Doc -4

Lowest Ranking
Doc -3
 Similarity Found or
Relevance Score
Doc -1 60%

Doc -2 70%

Query Doc -3 50%

Doc -4 55%

Doc -2
Highest Ranking

Doc -1

Doc -4

Lowest Ranking
Doc -3
The ranking process involves multiple steps and techniques, including

Query Understanding

Document Matching

Relevance Scoring

Ranking Algorithms
 Ranking Approach

• Coarse-grained (General Analysis)

• Fine-grained (Detailed Analysis)

Coarse-Grained Ranking: • Relevant vs. irrelevant,
• High quality vs. low quality

Fine-Grained Ranking: • Exact match of query terms

• The semantic relevance of content
• User interaction data,
• Personalization factors
 Coarse-grained ranking refers to a more broad or general approach to sorting documents
Coarse-Grained Ranking: or items. In this method.

It might involve categorizing documents into a few broad levels of relevance or quality
(e.g., relevant vs. irrelevant, high quality vs. low quality) without making fine distinctions
within those categories.

Fine-Grained Ranking: Fine-grained ranking takes a more detailed approach to sorting documents or items. It
aims to make precise distinctions between items based on a wide range of relevance
signals or quality indicators.
This might involve using complex algorithms to score and rank items based on numerous
factors, including the exact match of query terms, the semantic relevance of content, user
interaction data, and personalization factors
Example:
Query:- "easy vegetarian recipes."

Coarse-Grained Ranking:
The search engine quickly scans its index to filter results that contain the keywords "vegetarian"
and "recipes."
The goal here is to eliminate completely irrelevant results, like those focusing on non-veg recipes
or unrelated topics such as car maintenance.

Fine-Grained Ranking:
Identifying pages that not only mention "vegetarian recipes" but also words associated with "easy" or
"beginner-friendly" cooking.