Cianplan

Level 2: Data · L2.7 Search & blob/object storage

How search engines index text

Build an inverted index by hand and explain BM25 ranking.

13 min · Pro

What you take away

  • An inverted index maps each term to the list of documents containing it, so a query is a list intersection instead of a scan.

And 3 more inside the class, in Pro.

How the class is laid out

  1. The problem
  2. The simple version
  3. Build one by hand
  4. Ranking: why BM25 is the default
  5. Check your understanding