Search Results Order & Ranking – Wisetail Technical Support

For Admins that are looking to optimize the searchability of Module, Media and User Contribution Module content, we offer the following best practices:

Users mush search with terms greater than 3 characters.
For acronyms, it’s recommended that its full meaning be added to the title or description so that learners can search using both formats.
For content Admins want Users to find easily, include keywords that are commonly searched for in a Module’s, Media’s or User Contribution Module’s title since exact matches on title are prioritized.

Notes for Search clarification

Module Results

Title is weighted high (a multiplier is applied), description is weighted medium, text block and Textract are not weighted
Textract and Text Block – weighted the same, but the number of match occurrences will weigh them higher
Partial match in the title still outweighs text block/Textract full match
All things equal, the modules with a newer creation date will be ranked higher (i.e. Order by descending order of ‘Created At’ date)

Media Results

Title, description and Textract matches are weighted equally
EXACT matches to a multi-term search are ranked higher
When there are multiple occurrences of a matched term, result is ranked higher by the system
All things equal, media that was added more recently will be ranked higher (i.e. Order by descending order of ‘Created At’ date)

Word Stemming

Example: “Running” as the search term will also result in a search for ‘run*’, where wildcard terms are also searched (e.g. runner, runaround, runaway, etc.)
These will be ranked lower than full title match, then follow the existing ranking
Two-term searches are separated and independently searched
Title multiplier still outweighs all other results, even if it’s just a partial match to a word stem word

The below table outlines how components are prioritized and what results you may get back with the provided example searches:

Priority	Keyword Matching Criteria	Examples of Search Term(s) and Result Rank
1	Multiple exact match of keyword(s) in Module Title	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Health and Safety: Level 1 Health and Safety Training” - this Module will be listed first
2	Single exact match of keyword(s) in Module Title	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Health and Safety: Level 1 Training.” This Module will be listed second
3	Multiple exact match of keyword(s) in Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Description: “Completing this Health and Safety: Level 1 Training module grants you one Health and Safety credit.” This Module will be listed third
4	Single exact match of keyword(s) in Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Description: “Completing module grants you one Health and Safety credit.” This Module will be listed fourth
5	Multiple partial matches of keyword(s) in Module Title AND Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Important Health Module - Learn How to Ensure Team Safety” Description: “Learn how to ensure your team’s health and your store’s safety are top priority.” This Module will be listed fifth.
6	Single partial match of keyword(s) in Module Title AND Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Important Health Module” Description: “Learn how to ensure your team’s safety is top priority.” This Module will be listed sixth.
7	Multiple partial match of derivatives of the keyword(s) in Module Title AND Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Healthy Teams 1 - SafetyCaptain Training for Healthy Teams” Description: “Healthy teams start with our SafetyCaptain. Learn how to build healthy teams!” This Module will be listed seventh.
8	Single partial match of derivatives of the keyword(s) in Module Title AND Module Description	Searching for “Health and Safety” Title: “Healthy Teams 1 - SafetyCaptain Training” Description: “Healthy teams start with our SafetyCaptain. Learn how to build them!” This Module will be listed eighth.