Presented at Lucene/Solr Revolution 2016

1. O C T O B E R 1 1 - 1 4 , 2 0 1 6 • B O S T O N , M A

2. It’s Just Search
Erik Hatcher
Co-founder and Senior Solutions Architect, Lucidworks

3. it’s just search

4. it’s just +search

5. search
?q=

6. search

7. Think inside the box. Inside the search box, that is.
The "best"* search results incorporate many more factors than (just) textual matching
and relevancy. Search experience owners manage query context rules, signals
automatically feed back machine learned factors, users implicit and explicit behaviors
filter and weight future interactions. Synergy emerges with several cooperating (just)
searches.
This talk will showcase and detail several (just) search examples including rules,
typeahead/suggest, signals, and location awareness, bringing them all together into a
cohesive search experience.
Abstract

8. • Lucene/Solr Committer
• Apache Software Foundation Member
• Creator of Blacklight
• Co-author of “Ant in Action” and “Lucene in Action”
• Co-founder and Senior Solutions Architect at Lucidworks
About me
@erikhatcher

10. anatomy of search results

11. Anatomy of Search Results

12. Anatomy of Search Results
Relevancy ranked results

13. Anatomy of Search Results
Facets

14. Anatomy of Search Results
Highlighting

15. Grouping

16. • relevancy ranked results
• faceting
• highlighting
• grouping (collapsing)
• more-like-this
• did-you-mean (spellcheck)
Search Features

17. typeahead,
autocomplete,
suggest,
instant search

19. spell checking

21. • query a “typed” n-grammed index, and get “typed” results
• type examples: brands, categories, specialties,
treatments, providers/doctors, products
• suggest Things Not Strings
• things have attributes: metadata
(known) entity detection

22. • /select?q=sea…
• q=<what user typed>
• Response includes grouped and ranked results,
highlighting, and spellcheck suggestions
typeahead request

23. signals

24. • clicks and queries
• add-to-carts
• user history, behavior, and preferences
• geo-location, device
signals and recommendations

26. signals workflow

27. • <collection>/select?q=search
• <collection>_signals_aggr/select
• ?q=${q}
• qf, pf, sort
• ==> bq: "id:7^1.0"
signals sub-query

28. rules

29. • trigger off query context
• query, filters, date/time, tags
• actions -
• boost, block, banner, redirect, set parameters,
rewrite query, etc
• superset of signals
• signals: automated feedback
• rules: manually created
rules

32. • <collection>/select?q=solr search
[&tags=mobile,production]
• <collection>_rules/select
• ?q=${q}
• &fq=-enabled:false
• &fq=…effective_range:$now…
• &fq=…tags:($tags)…
• process rules returned
• manipulate request, append to response
rules sub-query

33. geo-lookup

34. • /providers/select?q=jones&zipcode=10301
• /zipcodes/select?q={!term f=zipcode_s v=$zipcode}
zipcodes collection
zipcodes.csv
ZipCode,State,City,County,Latitude,Longitude,AreaCode,TimeZone,DST
85701,AZ,Tucson,Pima,32.216091,-110.97099,520,-7,N
10301,NY,Staten Island,Richmond,40.6226,-74.0992,718,-5,Y
22901,VA,Charlottesville,Albemarle,38.071751,-78.503937,434,-5,Y,
fl += dist:geodist()
fq += {!geofilt}
pt = ${zipcode_doc.latlon_srpt}
sfield = locations_rpt
d = 10
sort = geodist() asc

36. conclusion

38. •simple things working
together
•whole is greater than
the sum of the parts
•feedback loops
•emergent behavior
Synergy

40. • Presentation materials:
• https://github.com/erikhatcher/searchcamp
• Search Hub:
• http://searchhub.lucidworks.com/
• Fusion (platform used for presentation):
• https://lucidworks.com/products/fusion/
See Also
@erikhatcher

42. Lucidworks Fusion Is Search-Driven Everything
Access data from
anywhere to build
intelligent, data-
driven applications.
Data Acquisition
Indexing & Streaming
Smart Access API
Recommendations &
Alerts
Analytics & InsightsExtreme Relevancy
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
RESEARCH
PORTAL
DIGITAL
CONTENT
CUSTOMER
INSIGHTS
FRAUD
SURVEILLANCE
ONLINE
RETAIL

43. • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ant_bridge.jpg
• http://jillian.rootaction.net/?p=340
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Turtles.on.a.stone.in.brazil.jpg
image credits