> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://algolia.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Relevance overview

> Learn how to achieve strong relevance and improve it.

export const SearchQuery = () => <Tooltip tip="The text users enter into a search box. In the Search API, this corresponds to the query parameter. A search query is often used with filters, facets, and other parameters, but these aren't part of the query text itself.">
    search query
  </Tooltip>;

export const Records = () => <Tooltip tip="A record is a searchable object in an Algolia index. Each record consists of named attributes." cta="Algolia records" href="/doc/guides/sending-and-managing-data/prepare-your-data#algolia-records">
    records
  </Tooltip>;

export const Filter = () => <Tooltip tip="A filter is a condition that limits which records Algolia returns. Filters often use one or more facet-value pairs, such as brand:Apple AND color:red. You can also filter by numeric values, dates, tags, booleans, or geographic constraints." cta="Filtering" href="/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/faceting">
    filter
  </Tooltip>;

export const ConversionRate = () => <Tooltip tip="The percentage of searches with `clickAnalytics` set to `true` that result in at least one conversion event." cta="Conversion rate" href="/doc/guides/search-analytics/concepts/metrics#conversion-rate">
    conversion rate (CVR)
  </Tooltip>;

export const AcademyLink = ({href, title}) => {
  return <Card horizontal title="Algolia Academy" href={href} icon="square-play">Learn more about: {title}</Card>;
};

[**Relevance**](/doc/guides/managing-results/relevance-overview/in-depth/defining-relevance) is finding results that match a <SearchQuery /> and ranking them so the best-matched results appear at the top of the list.

* To **find results**, Algolia uses [text-based](/doc/guides/managing-results/relevance-overview/in-depth/textual-matching) comparisons like typos and stop words, and non-textual factors such as <Filter /> criteria and geolocation.
* **Ranking**, which determines the order of results, relies on a [tie-breaking algorithm](/doc/guides/managing-results/relevance-overview/in-depth/ranking-criteria) to present the most relevant items first.

Good relevance is vital because it directly affects the quality of user's search results.
In ecommerce, poorly ranked results decrease user satisfaction and <ConversionRate />.

Some common indications that you need to improve relevance are:

* **Too many irrelevant results**. Relevance suffers when searching large text attributes. Consider searching smaller, targeted attributes instead.
* **Important content is buried**. You haven't implemented custom ranking or failed to set some key attributes as searchable.

<Columns cols={2}>
  <AcademyLink href="https://academy.algolia.com/pages/contentcatalog/training/0199aad2-7472-71b5-9d8b-711feb5d698b/overview" title="Configuring Textual Relevance via the Dashboard" />

  <AcademyLink href="https://academy.algolia.com/pages/contentcatalog/training/0199c715-19fe-7c72-b416-45bd89089083/overview" title="Configuring Textual Relevance via the API" />
</Columns>

## How to improve relevance

If you don't configure anything else, these are the two settings you should change:

* Choose a good set of [**searchable attributes**](/doc/guides/managing-results/must-do/searchable-attributes).
* Apply [**custom ranking**](/doc/guides/managing-results/must-do/custom-ranking) to adapt Algolia to your needs.

### Further relevance optimizations

Algolia has some key features to let you further enhance relevance:

* Use [**rules**](/doc/guides/managing-results/rules/rules-overview) to override relevance in some situations. For example, for seasonal product promotions.
* Use [**synonyms**](/doc/guides/managing-results/optimize-search-results/adding-synonyms) if your <Records /> contain terms that users may be unfamiliar with.
* Offer [**facets**](/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/faceting) so users can fine-tune the relevance of their results.
* Change [**natural language settings**](/doc/guides/managing-results/optimize-search-results/handling-natural-languages-nlp) to help anticipate user errors (such as misspellings) and to optimize for a multi-lingual audience.
* Use **Personalization** ([classic](/doc/guides/personalization/classic-personalization/what-is-personalization) or [advanced](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/what-is-advanced-personalization)) to show returning users results that align with their established preferences, like works by a specific author or clothing from a particular brand.

With any change, use [search analytics](/doc/guides/search-analytics/overview) for insights into what your users search for, and which results they select.
Consider [A/B testing](/doc/guides/ab-testing/what-is-ab-testing) to create two alternative search experiences, put them both live and see which performs best.

## Enhance the user experience

Algolia also offers features that enhance the user experience:

* [Sorting](/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/sorting)
* [Grouping](/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/grouping)
* [Geolocation](/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/geolocation)
* [Prefix searching](/doc/guides/managing-results/optimize-search-results/override-search-engine-defaults/in-depth/prefix-searching)
* [Multi-lingual support](/doc/guides/managing-results/optimize-search-results/handling-natural-languages-nlp).

## See also

For more information, see:

* [Implementation checklist](/doc/guides/going-to-production/implementation-checklist)
* [Empty or insufficient results](/doc/guides/managing-results/optimize-search-results/empty-or-insufficient-results)
* [What is search relevance? (blog)](https://www.algolia.com/blog/product/what-is-search-relevance)
* [Search engine relevance (blog)](https://www.algolia.com/blog/product/defining-what-a-search-index-is-and-the-speed-and-relevance-of-a-search-engine-index/)