Compare search results

    Compare Search Results is the first search relevance feature in OpenSearch. It lets you compare search results from two queries side by side to determine whether one query produces better results than the other. Using this tool, you can evaluate search quality by experimenting with queries.

    For example, you can see how results change when you apply one of the following query changes:

    • Weighting different fields differently
    • Different stemming or lemmatization strategies
    • Shingling

    Before you get started, you must index data in OpenSearch. To learn how to create a new index, see .

    Alternatively, you can add sample data in OpenSearch Dashboards using the following steps:

    1. On the top menu bar, go to OpenSearch Dashboards > Overview.
    2. Select Add sample data.
    3. Choose one of the built-in datasets and select Add data.

    To compare search results in OpenSearch Dashboards, perform the following steps.

    Step 1: On the top menu bar, go to OpenSearch Plugins > Search Relevance.

    Step 2: Enter the search text in the search bar.

    Step 3: Select an index for Query 1 and enter a query (request body only) in . The HTTP method and the _search endpoint are implicit. Use the %SearchText% variable to refer to the text in the search bar.

    Step 4: Select an index for Query 2 and enter a query (request body only).

    The following example query boosts the title field in search results:

    Step 5: Select Search and compare the results in Result 1 and Result 2.

    The following example screen shows a search for the word “cup” in the description and item_name fields with and without boosting the :

    If a result in Result 1 appears in Result 2, the Up and Down indicators below the result number signify how many places the result moved up or down compared to the same result in Result 2. In this example, the document with the ID 2 is Up 1 place in Result 2 compared to Result 1 and Down 1 place in Result 1 compared to Result 2.

    By default, OpenSearch returns the top 10 results. To change the number of returned results to a different value, specify the size parameter in the query:

    Setting to a high value (for example, larger than 250 documents) may degrade performance.

    One use case for Compare Search Results is to compare raw OpenSearch results with the same results processed by a re-ranking application. An example of such a re-ranker is Kendra Intelligent Ranking for OpenSearch, contributed by the Amazon Kendra team. This plugin takes search results from OpenSearch and applies Amazon Kendra’s semantic relevance rankings calculated using vector embeddings and other semantic search techniques. For many applications, this provides better result rankings.

    To try Kendra Intelligent Ranking, you must first set up the Amazon Kendra service. To get started, see Amazon Kendra. For detailed information, including plugin setup instructions, see .

    Once you’ve set up Kendra Intelligent Ranking, enter a query in Query 1 and enter the same query using Kendra Intelligent Ranking in Query 2. Then compare the search results from OpenSearch and Amazon Kendra.

    The following example searches for the text “snacking nuts” in the abo index. The documents in the index contain snack descriptions in the bullet_point array.

    OpenSearch Intelligent Ranking query

    1. Enter snacking nuts in the search bar.

    2. Enter the following query, which searches the bullet_point field for the search text “snacking nuts”, in Query 1: