Search Glossary

Plain-language definitions of search, indexing, and relevance concepts used across AACsearch documentation and the industry.

The language of search

Search has its own vocabulary. Use this glossary to understand AACsearch documentation and communicate precisely with your team.

A data structure optimised for fast text retrieval. AACsearch maintains a search collection per index, with automatic alias management.

A filterable attribute returned alongside search results with document counts. Enables guided navigation without additional API calls.

How well a document matches a query. AACsearch combines BM25 text relevance, vector similarity, field weights, and custom boost rules.

The core data structure of full-text search. Maps each token to the documents containing it. AACsearch maintains this automatically.

A numeric vector representation of text semantics. AACsearch can store and query embeddings for semantic and hybrid search.

AACsearch billing unit. One search unit equals one search query or one document indexed. Used to calculate your monthly plan allocation.

Create an index, add documents and connect search from your app. Free tier covers a prototype — data persists when you upgrade.