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How Search Results are Ordered
The search engine sorts results most relevant to the user based on search term frequency, order, uniqueness, record activity, and access permissions. Search result relevance can vary for each user. Search returns only the records that you have access to view.
On the search results page, your most relevant records appear first. The order of results depends on several factors, such as:
- How often your search term appears in a record
- Whether there's an exact match
- How unique your search term is
- How much you've interacted with the record
How Records are Ranked
The search engine uses many factors to prioritize records. These factors aren't listed in the order they’re applied or by importance.
| Ranked By: | Why? |
|---|---|
Frequency |
Prioritizes records that include more occurrences of the search term. In addition, records that contain all or more of the multiple search terms entered are prioritized higher. |
Uniqueness |
Prioritizes records that contain unique terms, under the assumption that uniqueness increases the likelihood of a relevant match. |
Location |
Prioritizes records with the search term in the name, title, or subject type fields. |
Proximity |
Prioritizes records with the search terms closer together with few or no intervening words. Records that contain the same sequence of terms are prioritized higher. Similarly, if a single alphanumeric string is indexed with multiple tokens, exact matches are prioritized over matches with intervening words. |
Ownership |
Prioritizes records that you own. |
Length |
Normalizes the number of instances of a term in a record so that longer documents aren't given undue priority over shorter ones. This boost applies to Salesforce Knowledge records only. Normalizes the number of instances of a term in an attachment. Attachments with many instances of a search term aren't given undue priority over more relevant records with fewer instances. Applies only to Salesforce Knowledge records. |
Record Activity |
Prioritizes records that are frequently viewed or edited and records that have more associated records, such as related lists. The creation date of the data doesn't affect result priority. Prioritizes feed posts by various factors, including a higher number of likes and comments. For Q&A relevance, answers marked as best are prioritized. This prioritization applies only to feed and Napili Q&A posts in Lightning Experience and the Salesforce mobile app when the Top Posts view is selected. Prioritizes Salesforce Knowledge records by various factors, including ratings and thumbs-up votes. |
How Objects are Ranked in the Top Results Page
When you use global search in Lightning Experience, you're taken to the Top Results page first. Top Results lists the results for your most frequently used objects. The search engine uses a couple factors to prioritize objects.
- Frequency prioritizes objects that you use most often.
- Search term prioritizes objects that are commonly associated with a search term. For example, a person's name is more commonly associated with contact or user objects.
