Boosting

A boost moves one kind of matching result up or down the ranking. It does not change which results are found, only their order.

Most hubs never need one. Reach for a boost when a whole class of content is consistently in the wrong place: a hub whose members come for the tools, but where a search for a tool's name returns the dozen presentations that mention it first. Boosting the tool resource type moves tools up for every query at once. That is also its limitation — a boost is not per-query and not per-word, so if the problem is one bad result rather than a whole type, a boost is the wrong instrument.

Boosts are the safest thing on these screens. Nothing is re-indexed, nothing is deleted, the change takes effect on the next search, and setting the strength back to zero or deleting the row undoes it completely.

What can be boosted

The Type menu offers one entry for each resource type defined under Components > Resources, plus Citations. Those are the only choices; there is no boost for blog entries, groups, members, or the other indexed types.

Behind the menu, a resource type becomes the Solr clause type:<the type>^<strength> and Citations becomes hubtype:citation^<strength>. Every boost is added to the query as a Solr boost query, so the effect is cumulative with the field weights in Query Fields.

Creating a boost

1. Go to Components > Search.

2. Select the Boosts tab.

   

3. Select the + button in the toolbar.

   

4. Choose a Type.

   

5. Enter a whole number for Strength.

   • A positive value moves matching results higher.
   • A negative value moves them lower.
   • Zero has no effect.

   There is no scale printed anywhere and no preview. Start at a small number, save, run two or three searches you know the right answer to, and raise it only if nothing moved. A large boost pushes that type to the top of every result page on the hub, including searches where it is irrelevant.

6. Save the boost with the tick button in the toolbar.

   

The new boost applies to the next search; nothing has to be re-indexed.

Editing and removing

Selecting a row on the Boosts list opens it for editing. Strength can be changed; Type is shown as a disabled field, because a boost is identified by its type. To boost a different type, delete this boost and create another. The edit screen's trash button deletes the boost outright — there is no trashed state to recover it from.

Only one boost may exist per type. Saving a second one for a type that already has a boost fails with A boost already exists for ….

When boosts are ignored

Turning the Tag Search Box option on disables boosting altogether: the query is built without any boost queries, and the Boosts screen shows the notice Query boosts are currently omitted because tag search is enabled. The boosts stay stored and take effect again when the option is turned off.

This is the first thing to check when a boost appears to do nothing: the notice at the top of the Boosts screen. A boost that is saved, correct, and simply never applied looks identical to one that is too weak.