Search packages - relative weighting of data sources

It is possible to apply weightings to the different data sources in a search package to allow up-weighting/down-weighting of results based on the data source from which they are sourced. This approach is similar to that used by query independent evidence but with the following benefits:

  1. No dependency on URL structures

  2. Weighting is applied at query-time (no reindexing required)

  3. Different weightings can be specified per search package.

This is achieved by editing the meta.components.<component>.weight configuration option for each data source included in the search package.

Assign the level of influence of data source relative weighting

The influence that relative weighting of data sources has on the ranking algorithm is controlled by adding the cool.21 ranking option to the query_processor_options, set as part of the search page configuration options. You can test the effect of this before applying by using the CGI cool.21 parameter. The range of the value for cool.21 is 0.0 - 1.0 with 1.0 being the maximum influence that can be applied to data source relative weighting.

query_processor_options=-cool.21=0.75