Abstract: Special lists can be used to perform fast ranked searching of documents containing key terms. The special lists are distinguished from basic inverted indices because they contain a ranking of only a predetermined number of documents that may be identified in the index. During a search, search engines can utilize the special lists to perform fast ranked searching without having to redundantly search through the entire corpus or index of documents available to the search engine. Rather, the search engine can search only the documents listed in the special list, thereby saving the time and resources required to perform the search. The search engine can also be configured to search a combination of the special lists and the index to provide users selective control over the balance between the accuracy and speed of the search.

Abstract: A field-weighted search combines statistical information for each term across document fields in a suitably weighted fashion. Both field-specific term frequencies and field and document lengths are considered to obtain a field-weighted document weight for each query term. Each field-weighted document weight can then be combined in order to generate a field-weighted document score that is responsive to the overall query.

Abstract: Special lists can be used to perform fast ranked searching of documents containing key terms. The special lists are distinguished from basic inverted indices because they contain a ranking of only a predetermined number of documents that may be identified in the index. During a search, search engines can utilize the special lists to perform fast ranked searching without having to redundantly search through the entire corpus or index of documents available to the search engine. Rather, the search engine can search only the documents listed in the special list, thereby saving the time and resources required to perform the search. The search engine can also be configured to search a combination of the special lists and the index to provide users selective control over the balance between the accuracy and speed of the search.