Improve search results

[joepio]

I'm having a hard time improving the Elastic results. I use simple_query_string (#17) when the user has a special character to enable powerful search, and I use multi_match with phrase_prefix as a default.

{
  query: {
    bool: {
      must: [
        {
          multi_match: {
            fields: ["text", "title", "description", "name"],
            type: "phrase_prefix",
            operator: "OR",
            query: searchTerm,
          },
        },
      ],
    },
  },
}

The results are okay for on word queries, but when multiple words are used in one query, it doesn't seem to use the OR operator correctly, resulting in fewer hits for sentences, instead of more.

My reasoning for the above query:

• Multi_match because I want to search across multiple fields.
• phrase_prefix because I want to hit "watertekort" when I search for "water"
• OR operator because it should use the OR operator between words.
• The bool_prefix type seems reasonable, but we're running 7.0 and that doesn't support it.

[breyten]

You might want to try or instead of OR? ;-) (since apparently it is still using and)

Also boosting could also be used to improve search resuts, Ie title^4 to give more importance to matches in titles etc.

[joepio]

Thanks @breyten!

or vs OR give the same results. The problem had to do with phrase_prefix, and it disappeared when I switched to the best_fields type.

However, now the "water" "watertekort" auto complete prefix thingy doesn't work. Maybe something with N-grams / Compound words?