Introduction

• Azure AI Search is a powerful search service that can index a wide range of data
from various sources. A core part of search is returning relevant results from search
queries.

• By the end of this module, you'll learn to:

• Improve the ranking of a document with term boosting

• Improve the relevance of results by adding scoring profiles

• Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized terms

• Enhance an index to include multiple languages

• Improve search experience by ordering results by distance from a given

reference point

• This module builds on Create a custom skill for Azure AI Search to explore more
advanced search features supported by Azure AI Search.
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
• Search works best when the most relevant results are shown first.

• All search engines try to return the most relevant results to search queries.

• Azure AI Search implements an enhanced version of Apache Lucene for full text
search.

• Here, you'll explore how to write more complex Lucene queries.

• You'll then improve the relevance of results by boosting specific terms in your
search query.
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Search an index
• Azure AI Search lets you query an index using a REST endpoint or inside the Azure
portal with the search explorer tool.

• If you want a quick recap of the stages of query processing

• In this unit, you'll be focusing on query parsing.

• You'll use the search explorer to see the difference between using the simple and
full query type changes your search results.
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Write a simple
query
• The hotel sample data contains 50 hotels with descriptions, room details, and their
locations. Imagine you run a hotel booking business and have an app that users
can book hotels with. Users can search and the most relevant hotels must be shown
first.

• You have a use case where a customer is trying to find a luxury hotel. Start by
looking at the search results from this simple query:
search=luxury&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,
Description&$count=true
• The query parses will search for the term luxury across all the fields for a document in the index.

• The query string also limits the returned fields from documents by adding the select option.

&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,

Description
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Write a simple
query
• The last parameter on the query asks the index to count the total results.

• $count=true

• There's no lexical analysis needed so document retrieval returns 14 documents.

The first three are:
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Write a simple
query{"@odata.context": "https://advanced-cognitive-search.search.windows.net/indexes('hotels-sample-index')/
$metadata#docs(*)",
"@odata.count": 14,
"value": [
{
"@search.score": 2.633778,
"HotelId": "13",
"HotelName": "Historic Lion Resort",
"Description": "Unmatched Luxury. Visit our downtown hotel to indulge in luxury accommodations. Moments from
the stadium, we feature the best in comfort",
"Category": "Budget",
"Tags": [
"view",
"free wifi",
"free wifi"
]
},
{
"@search.score": 2.1104424,
"HotelId": "18",
"HotelName": "Oceanside Resort",
"Description": "New Luxury Hotel. Be the first to stay. Bay views from every room, location near the piper, rooftop
pool, waterfront dining & more.",
"Category": "Budget",
"Tags": [
"view",
"laundry service",
"air conditioning"
]
},
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Write a simple
query

{
"@search.score": 1.966516,
"HotelId": "40",
"HotelName": "Trails End Motel",
"Description": "Only 8 miles from Downtown. On-site bar/restaurant, Free hot breakfast
buffet, Free wireless internet, All non-smoking hotel. Only 15 miles from airport.",
"Category": "Luxury",
"Tags": [
"continental breakfast",
"view",
"view"
]
},
...
]
}
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Write a simple
query
• The customer might be surprised that the top hotel you have that's supposed to be
luxury is in the budget category and doesn't have any air conditioning.

• If the customer enters multiple words in their search, your app assumes all terms
should be in the results, so it adds + between terms to the query.

• This query it sends to the API is:

• search=luxury + air con&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,

Description&$count=true

• The search service now returns five documents but still the top results are in the
budget category.
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Enable the Lucene Query
Parser
• You can tell the search explorer to use the Lucene Query parser by
adding &queryType=full to the query string.

• search=luxury AND air con&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,

Description&$count=true&queryType=full

• With the Lucene syntax, you can write more precise queries. Here is a summary of
available features:

• Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT for example luxury AND 'air con’

• Fielded search: fieldName:search term for example Description:luxury AND

Tags:air con

• Fuzzy search: ~ for example Description:luxury~ returns results with misspelled

versions of luxury
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Enable the Lucene Query
Parser
• Term proximity search: "term1 term2"~n for example "indoor swimming
pool"~3 returns documents with the words indoor swimming pool within three
words of each other

• Regular expression search: /regular expression/ use a regular expression

between / for example /[mh]otel/ would return documents with hotel and motel

• Wildcard search: *, ? where * will match many characters and ? matches a

single character for example 'air con'* would find air con and air conditioning

• Precedence grouping: (term AND (term OR term)) for example

(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury) AND Tags:air?con*

• Term boosting: ^ for example Description:luxury OR Category:luxury^3 would

give hotels with the category luxury a higher score than luxury in the
description
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Boost search terms
• Using the above you can improve the results. The parser should give a higher
priority to hotels in the luxury category. You can also be more precise and look for
air conditioning in the Tags field.

• (Description:luxury OR Category:luxury^3) AND Tags:'air con'*

• Adding the other query string parameters you get this query string:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury^3) AND Tags:'air

con'*&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,
Description&$count=true&queryType=full

• The top three hotels are now:

Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Boost search terms
{
"@odata.context":"https://advanced-cognitive-search.search.windows.net/indexes('hotels-sample-index')/
$metadata#docs(*)",
"@odata.count": 5,
"value": [
{
"@search.score": 5.3537707,
"HotelId": "8",
"HotelName": "Sapphire Resort",
"Description": "Downtown, close to everything, steps to the park, shopping, and restaurants.",
"Category": "Luxury",
"Tags": [
"free wifi",
"continental breakfast",
"air conditioning"
]
},
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Boost search terms
{
"@search.score": 5.3522806,
"HotelId": "49",
"HotelName": "Old Carrabelle Hotel",
"Description": "Spacious rooms, glamorous suites and residences, rooftop pool, walking access to shopping, dining, entertainment and
the city center.",
"Category": "Luxury",
"Tags": [
"air conditioning",
"laundry service",
"24-hour front desk service"
]
},
{
"@search.score": 4.1448884,
"HotelId": "18",
"HotelName": "Oceanside Resort",
"Description": "New Luxury Hotel. Be the first to stay. Bay views from every room, location near the piper, rooftop pool, waterfront dining
& more.",
"Category": "Budget",
"Tags": [
"view",
"laundry service",
"air conditioning"
]
},
...
]
}
Improve the ranking of a document with term
boosting
Boost search terms
• The Sapphire Resorts search score has increased
from 2.3321536 to 5.3537707 and is now the first hotel the customer will
see.

• The Oceanside Resort is now in third place.

Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
• Azure AI Search uses the BM25 similarity ranking algorithm. The algorithm
scores documents based on the search terms used.

• Here, you'll see how to add scoring profiles to alter the scores for documents
based on your own criteria.

How search scores are

calculated
• Scoring is the last phase of processing a search
query.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
How search scores are
calculated
• The search engine scores the documents returned from the first three phases.

• The score is a function of the number of times identified search terms appear in a
document, the document's size, and the rarity of each of the terms.

• By default, the search results are ordered by their search score, highest first.

• If two documents have an identical search score, you can break the tie by adding
an $orderby clause.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Improve the score for more relevant documents
• As the default scoring works on the frequency of terms and rarity, the final
calculated score might not return the highest score for the most relevant
document.

• Each dataset is different, so AI Search lets you influence a document score using
scoring profiles.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Improve the score for more relevant documents
• The most straightforward scoring profile defines different weights for fields in an
index.

• In the above example, the Hotel index has a scoring profile that has the
Description field five times more relevant than data in the Location or Rooms
fields.

• The Category field is twice as relevant as the HotelName.

• The scoring profile can also include functions, for example, distance or freshness.

• Functions provide more control than simple weighting, for example, you can
define the boosting duration applied to newer documents before they score the
same as older documents.

• The power of scoring profiles means that instead of boosting a specific term in a
search request, you can apply a scoring profile to an index so that fields are
boosted automatically for all queries.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Add a weighted scoring profile
• You can add up to 100 scoring profiles to a search index. The simplest way to
create a scoring profile is in the Azure portal.

1. Navigate to your search service.

2. Select Indexes, then select the index to add a scoring profile to.
3. Select Scoring profiles.
4. Select + Add scoring profile.
5. In Profile name, enter a unique name.
6. To set the scoring profile as a default to be applied to all searches select Set
as default profile.
7. In Field name, select a field. Then for Weight, enter a weight value.
8. Select Save.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Add a weighted scoring profile
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Add a weighted scoring profile
• In the above example, the boost-category scoring profile has been added to the
hotels-sample-index. The Category has a weight of five.

• The profile has also been set as the default profile. You can then use this search
query:

• search=luxury AND Tags:'air con'*&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category,

Tags, Description&$count=true&queryType=full

• The results now match the same query with a term boosted:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury^5) AND Tags:'air

con'*&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,
Description&$count=true&queryType=full

• You can control which scoring profile is applied to a search query by appending
the &scoringProfile=PROFILE NAME parameter.

• Scoring profiles can also be added programmatically using the Update Index
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Use functions in a scoring profile
• The functions available to add to a scoring
profile are:
Function Description
Magnitude Alter scores based on a range of values for a numeric field
Freshness Alter scores based on the freshness of documents as given
by a DateTimeOffset field
Distance Alter scores based on the distance between a reference
location and a GeographyPoint field
Tag Alter scores based on common tag values in documents and
queries
• For example, using the hotel index the magnitude function can be applied to the
Rating field.

• The Azure portal will guide you through completing the parameters for each
function.
Improve the relevance of results by adding
scoring profiles
Use functions in a scoring profile
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
• Azure AI Search is configured by default to analyze text and identify tokens
that will be helpful in your index.

• The right tokens ensure that users can find the documents they need quickly.

• In most cases, the default configuration produces an optimal index.

• However, when you have unusual or unique fields, you might want to
configure exactly how text is analyzed.

• Here, you'll learn how to define a custom analyzer to control how the content
of a field is split into tokens for inclusion in the index.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Analyzers in AI Search
• When AI Search indexes your content, it retrieves text. To build a useful
index, with terms that help users locate documents, that text needs
processing. For example:

• The text should be broken into words, often by using whitespace and
punctuation characters as delimiters.

• Stopwords, such as "the" and "it", should be removed because users

don't search for them.

• Words should be reduced to their root form. For example, past tense
words, such as "ran", should be replaced with present tense words, such
as "run".

• In AI Search, this kind of processing is performed by analyzers.

• If you don't specify an analyzer for a field, the default Lucene analyzer is
used.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Analyzers in AI Search

• Alternatively, you can specify one of the analyzers that are built into AI
Search. Built-in analyzers are of two types:

• Language analyzers. If you need advanced capabilities for specific

languages, such as lemmatization, word decompounding, and entity
recognition, use a built-in language analyzer. Microsoft provides 50
analyzers for different languages.

• Specialized analyzers. These analyzers are language-agnostic and

used for specialized fields such as zip codes or product IDs. You can, for
example, use the PatternAnalyzer and specify a regular expression to
match token separators.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?

• The built-in analyzers provide you with many options but sometimes you
need an analyzer with unusual behavior for a field.

• In these cases, you can create a custom analyzer.

• A custom analyzer consists of:

• Character filters. These filters process a string before it reaches the

tokenizer.

• Tokenizers. These components divide the text into tokens to be added

to the index.

• Token filters. These filters remove or modify the tokens emitted by the
tokenizer.

• Let's examine these components in more detail.

Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?
Character filters
• Some operations might need to be completed on the text before it's split into
tokens.

• Character filters enable these operations.

• There are three character filters that you can use:

• html_strip. This filter removes HTML constructs such as tags and

attributes.

• mapping. This filter enables you to specify mappings that replace one
string with another. For example, you could specify a mapping that
replaces TX with Texas.

• pattern_replace. This filter enables you to specify a regular expression

that identifies patterns in the input text and how matching text should be
replaced.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?
Tokenizers
• The tokenizer is the component that divides the text into the tokens that will
be stored in the index.

• Tokenizers also break down words into their root forms.

• Often, a token is a single word, but you might want to create unusual tokens
such as:

• A full postal address.

• A complete URL or email address.

• Words based on the grammar of a specific language.

Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?
Tokenizers
• There are 13 different tokenizers to choose from. These tokenizers include:

• classic. This tokenizer processes text based on grammar for European

languages.

• keyword. This tokenizer emits the entire input as a single token. Use this
tokenizer for fields that should always be indexed as one value.

• lowercase. This tokenizer divides text at non-letters and then modifies

the resulting tokens to all lower case.

• microsoft_language_tokenizer. This tokenizer divides text based on

the grammar of the language you specify.

• pattern. This tokenizer divides texts where it matches a regular

expression that you specify.

• whitespace. This tokenizer divides text wherever there's white space.

Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?
Token filters
• Once the tokenizer has divided the incoming text into tokens, you might want
to add some extra processing, such as removing stopwords or trimming
punctuation marks.

• You can execute this processing by specifying a token filter.

• There are forty one different token filters available, including:

• Language-specific filters, such as arabic_normalization. These filters apply

language-specific grammar rules to ensure that forms of words are removed
and replaced with roots.

• apostrophe. This filter removes any apostrophe from a token and any
characters after the apostrophe.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
What is a custom analyzer?
Token filters
• classic. This filter removes English possessives and dots from acronyms.

• keep. This filter removes any token that doesn't include one or more words
from a list you specify.

• length. This filter removes any token that is longer than your specified
minimum or shorter than your specified maximum.

• trim. This filter removes any leading and trailing white space from tokens.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Create a custom analyzer

• You create a custom analyzer by specifying it when you define the index.

• You must do this with JSON code - there's no way to specify a custom index in
the Azure portal.

• Use the analyzers section of the index at design time.

• You can include only one tokenizer but one or more character filters and one
or more token filters.

• Use a unique name for your analyzer and set the @odata.type property to
Microsoft.Azure.Search.CustomAnalyzer.

• In this example, a character filter removes HTML formatting, a tokenizer

splits the text according to the grammar of Icelandic, and a token filter
removes apostrophes:
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Create a custom analyzer
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Test a custom analyzer
• Once you've defined your custom analyzer as part of your index, you can use
the REST API's Analyze Text function to submit test text and ensure that the
analyzer returns tokens correctly. Use any REST testing tool to formulate
these requests, such as the popular Postman application.

• Your test REST requests should look like this:

• In this request:

• Replace <search service name> with the name of your AI Search resource.
• Replace <index name> with the name of the index that includes the custom
analyzer.
• Replace <api-version> with the version number of the REST API.
• Replace <api-key> with the access key for your AI Search resource. You can
obtain this key from the Azure portal.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Test a custom analyzer
• Your request must also include a JSON body like this:

• Replace <analyzer name> with the name you specified when you defined
the custom analyzer.

• Be sure to test with lots of different text values until you're sure that the
custom analyzer behaves as you expect.
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Use a custom analyzer for a field
• Once you've defined and tested a custom analyzer, you can configure your
index to use it.

• You can specify an analyzer for each field in your index.

• You can use the analyzer field when you want to use the same analyzer for
both indexing and searching:
Improve an index with analyzers and tokenized
terms
Use a custom analyzer for a field
• It's also possible to use a different analyzer when indexing the field and when
searching the field.

• Use this configuration if you need a different set of processing steps when
you index a field to when you analyze a query:
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
• Support for multiple languages can be added to a search index.

• You can add language support manually by providing all the translated text
fields in all the different languages you want to support.

• You could also choose to use Azure AI Services to provide translated text
through an enrichment pipeline.

• Here, you'll see how to add fields with different languages to an index.

• You'll then constrain results to fields with specific languages.

• Finally, create a scoring profile to boost the native language of your end
users.
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add language specific fields

• To add multiple languages to an index, first, identify all the fields that need a
translation.

• Then duplicate those fields for each language you want to support.

• For example, if an index has an English description field, you'd add

description_fr for the French translation and description_de for German.

• For each field, add to its definition the corresponding language analyzer.

• The JSON definition of the index could look like this:

Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add language specific fields
{
{
"name": "description_fr",
"name": "description",
"type": "Edm.String",
"type": "Edm.String",
"facetable": false,
"facetable": false,
"filterable": false,
"filterable": false,
"key": false,
"key": false,
"retrievable": true,
"retrievable": true,
"searchable": true,
"searchable": true,
"sortable": false,
"sortable": false,
"analyzer": "fr.microsoft",
"analyzer": a"en.microsoft",
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"synonymMaps": [],
"synonymMaps": [],
"fields": []
"fields": []
},
},
{
{
"name": "description_it",
"name": "description_de",
"type": "Edm.String",
"type": "Edm.String",
"facetable": false,
"facetable": false,
"filterable": false,
"filterable": false,
"key": false,
"key": false,
"retrievable": true,
"retrievable": true,
"searchable": true,
"searchable": true,
"sortable": false,
"sortable": false,
"analyzer": "it.microsoft",
"analyzer": "de.microsoft",
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"indexAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"searchAnalyzer": null,
"synonymMaps": [],
"synonymMaps": [],
"fields": []
"fields": []
},
},
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add language specific fields
Limit the fields for a language
• In this module, you've already seen how to limit the fields returned in a search
request. You can also select which fields are being searched.

• Your language specific search solution can combine these two features to focus
on fields with specific languages in them.

• search='parfait pour se divertir'&$select=listingId, description_fr, city, region,

tags&$searchFields=tags, description_fr&queryType=full

• Using the searchFields and select properties in the above results would return
these results from the real estate sample database.
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Enrich an index with multiple languages using
Azure AI Services
• If you don't have access to translations, you can enrich your index and add
translated fields using Azure AI Services.

• The steps are to add fields for each language, add a skill for each language,
and then map the translated text to the correct fields.

• For example, let's add Japanese and Ukrainian translations to an example

retail properties index.
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add the new fields
• You add two new fields to the
index with these properties, the
first to store the Japanese
translation and the seconded
the Ukrainian:
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add the translation skillsets
"skills": [
{
"@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Skills.Text.TranslationSkill",
"name": "#1",
"description": null,
"context": "/document/description",
"defaultFromLanguageCode": "en",
"defaultToLanguageCode": "ja",
"suggestedFrom": "en",
"inputs": [
{
"name": "text",
"source": "/document/description"
}
],
"outputs": [
{
"name": "translatedText",
"targetName": "description_jp"
}
]
},
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Add the translation skillsets
{
"@odata.type": "#Microsoft.Skills.Text.TranslationSkill",
"name": "#2",
"description": null,
"context": "/document/description",
"defaultFromLanguageCode": "en",
"defaultToLanguageCode": "uk",
"suggestedFrom": "en",
"inputs": [
{
"name": "text",
"source": "/document/description"
}
],
"outputs": [
{
"name": "translatedText",
"targetName": "description_uk"
}
]
}
]
Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Map the translated output into the index
• The last step is to update the indexer to map the translated text into
the index.
 Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Map the translated output into the index
• The documents now all have two new translated description fields.

"value": [
{
"@search.score": 1,
"listingId": "OTM4MjI2NQ2",
"beds": 5,
"baths": 4,
"description": "This is an apartment residence and is perfect for entertaining. This home provides lakefront property located close to
parks and features a detached garage, beautiful bedroom floors, and lots of storage.",
"description_de": "Dies ist eine Wohnanlage und ist perfekt für Unterhaltung. Dieses Haus bietet Seeliegenschaft Parks in der Nähe
und verfügt über eine freistehende Garage schöne Zimmer-Etagen and viel Stauraum.",
"description_fr": "Il s'agit d'un appartement de la résidence et est parfait pour se divertir. Cette maison offre propriété au bord du lac
Situé à proximité de Parcs et dispose d'un garage détaché, planchers de belle chambre and beaucoup de rangement.",
 Enhance an index to include multiple languages
Map the translated output into the index
• The documents now all have two new translated description fields.

"description_it": "Si tratta di un appartamento residence ed è perfetto per intrattenere. Questa casa fornisce proprietà lungolago
Situato vicino ai parchi e dispone di un garage indipendente, piani di bella camera da letto and sacco di stoccaggio.",
"description_es": "Se trata de una residencia Apartamento y es perfecto para el entretenimiento. Esta casa ofrece propiedad de lago
situado cerca de parques y cuenta con un garaje independiente, pisos de dormitorio hermoso and montón de almacenamiento.",
"description_pl": "Jest to apartament residence i jest idealny do zabawy. Ten dom zapewnia lakefront Wlasciwosc usytuowany w
poblizu parków i oferuje garaz wolnostojacy, piekna sypialnia podlogi and mnóstwo miejsca do przechowywania.",
"description_nl": "Dit is een appartement Residentie en is perfect voor entertaining. Dit huis biedt lakefront eigenschap vlakbij
parken en beschikt over een vrijstaande garage, mooie slaapkamer vloeren and veel opslag.",
"description_jp": " これはアパートの住居であり、娯楽に最適です。 この家は公園の近くに位置する湖畔のプロパティを提供し、独立したガレージ、美しいベッドルームの床とストレージの多くを備えています。 ",
"description_uk": "Це багатоквартирна резиденція і прекрасно підходить для розваг. Цей будинок забезпечує нерухомість на
березі озера, розташовану недалеко від парків, і має окремий гараж, красиві підлоги спальні та багато місць для зберігання
речей.",
...
},
Improve search experience by ordering results by
distance from a given reference point
• Often, users want to search for items associated with a geographical location.

• For example, they might want to find the nearest coffee shop to their location.

• To help you compare locations on the Earth's surface, AI Search includes geo-
spatial functions that you can call in queries.

• Here, you'll learn how to search for things that are near a physical point or
within a bounded area.
Improve search experience by ordering results by
distance from a given reference point
What are geo-spatial functions?
• In previous units in this module, you saw how users might locate a hotel by specifying fields
to search, such as Description and Category:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury)&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category,

Tags, Description&$count=true

• An important consideration when you're booking a hotel is its geographical location. For
example, if you're booking a trip to see the Eiffel Tower, you'll want a hotel located near it.

• To ask AI Search to return results based on their location information, you can use two
functions in your query:

• geo.distance. This function returns the distance in a straight line across the Earth's surface
from the point you specify to the location of the search result.
• geo.intersects. This function returns true if the location of a search result is inside a polygon
that you specify.
• To use these functions, make sure that your index includes the location for results. Location
fields should have the datatype Edm.GeographyPoint and store the latitude and longitude.
Improve search experience by ordering results by
distance from a given reference point
Use the geo.distance function
• geo.distance is a function that takes two points as parameters and returns the distance
between them in kilometers.

• Suppose you're looking for a hotel near the Eiffel Tower. You can modify the above query,
adding a new filter:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury)$filter=geo.distance(location,
geography'POINT(-122.131577 47.678581)') le 5&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category,
Tags, Description&$count=true

• This query returns all the luxury hotels in the index within five kilometers of the Eiffel Tower.
In the query:

• Location is the name of the field that stores the hotel's location.
• geography'POINT(2.294481 48.858370)' is the location of the Eiffel Tower as a longitude and
latitude.
• le 5 specifies that hotels should be included in the results if the geo.distance function returns
a number less than or equal to five kilometers.
Improve search experience by ordering results by
distance from a given reference point
Use the geo.distance function
• Because geo.distance returns several kilometers, you can also use it in an orderby clause. For
example, this query returns all luxury hotels in the index, but those closest to the Eiffel Tower
are listed first:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury)&orderby=geo.distance(Location,
geography'POINT(2.294481 48.858370)') asc&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags,
Description&$count=true

• In this query, asc specifies that the luxury hotels are returned in the ascending order of their
distance from the Eiffel Tower.
Improve search experience by ordering results by
distance from a given reference point
Use the geo.intersects function
• Suppose you've decided that you want to stay within the seventh arrondissement of Paris for
your trip to the Eiffel Tower. When you search for a hotel, you'd like to specify this area as
precisely as possible. You can formulate such a query by using the geo.intersects function.

• The geo.intersects function compares a location with a polygon on the Earth's surface, which
you specify with three or more points. By using a polygon, you can create a shape that
closely matches an area, such as an arrondissement. Use this polygon to add a geographical
filter to your query:

• search=(Description:luxury OR Category:luxury) AND geo.intersects(Location,

geography'POLYGON((2.32 48.91, 2.27 48.91, 2.27 48.60, 2.32 48.60, 2.32
48.91))')&$select=HotelId, HotelName, Category, Tags, Description&$count=true

• This query returns all luxury hotels within a square around the Eiffel Tower. You can use more
than four points to create a more precise area.

• geo.intersects returns a boolean value, so it's not possible to use it in an orderby clause.
Exercise - Implement enhancements to
search results
Knowledge check
1. What character do you add after a search term boost the term?

a) +.
b) ^.
c) !.
2. Which of the following options is a function you can use in a scoring profile?

d) Tag.
e) Volume.
f) Staleness.
3. What Azure product can you use to enrich an index with different language
translations?

g) Azure AI Search.
h) Azure Speech Service.
i) Azure AI Services.