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Search relevance bias: How it works

The Relevance Bias feature allows you to adjust your search results based on where you want the search engine to focus – either in the title or within the text of the items.

The Title bias option is useful for finding a specific item. For example, finding a case if you know part of the citation, such as the appellant name and year.

The Text bias option is great when you're looking for information on a particular topic. It helps the search engine focus on the content within the text of items, so titles don’t dominate the results. You'll find items more relevant to the topic rather than just having the search terms in the title.

A useful real-world example is a search for 'HJ Iran' in the EIN case law database. If you set relevance bias to Title, you will find all cases with 'HJ Iran' in the title are ranked at the top of your results. If you set relevance bias to Text, the top results are cases that are about the case of HJ (Iran).

The default option, All (balanced), strikes a middle ground between the Title and Text settings, with a moderate bias towards the Title, providing a good balance for most searches.