Posted On: Nov 4, 2012

Amazon CloudSearch users can now use field weighting and query time rank expressions to fine-tune their search results. Field weighting prioritizes results from certain fields to improve document ranking. For example, if you are selling books on your site, you could have matches to the title field score higher than matches in other fields. That way, searches for “Harry Potter” will rank the Harry Potter books higher than a book that happens to have a reference to “Harry Potter” in the description. Query time rank expressions enable you to personalize search results by customizing ranking for each search request. As an example you could rank camping books higher for a customer that you know has an interest in camping. You can also use query time rank expressions to rapidly iterate and test changes in how you rank search results for all users without having to rebuild your index.

These features are available immediately. For more information, see Using Field Weighting to Customize Text Relevance and Defining Rank Expressions in Search Requests in the Amazon CloudSearch Developer Guide.