Smarter Search Ranking

Searching for "qr code" on this site used to show the plugin reference page first, with the blog post buried far below. The reference page had search-boost: 20, making it score 20x higher regardless of keyword matches. Blog posts about QR codes could never compete.

Why boost was too strong

Lunr uses BM25 for scoring, where term frequency saturates quickly. A page with 9 keyword matches scores only ~1.94x higher than one with 1 match. Any search-boost above 2 overrides keyword relevance entirely.

What changed

• Boost values reduced to the BM25 range. Marketplace pages now use search-boost: 1.2 instead of 20. The reference doc still ranks above unrelated pages, but a blog post with strong keyword matches now appears right after it.
• Section heading boost fixed. h2 sections now rank above h6 (was inverted). Sections are slightly demoted (h2: ×0.96, h6: ×0.92) while full pages get a 10% boost, ensuring pages always rank above their own sections.
• Field boosts rebalanced. All field boosts (title, tags, content) are now between 1 and 2, letting BM25 handle relevance naturally.
• Search results now show the page URL, making it easier to see where each result links before clicking.

Using search-boost

Keep values between 0 and 2. A boost of 1.2 gives a gentle advantage. Above 2, boost starts overriding keyword matches. See the Lunr Search plugin docs for details.