Manage Thesaurus Rules

Tune Relevance Coveo Relevance Cloud Developer System Administrator Product Documentation

The thesaurus of a Coveo organization is a list of equivalent words used to transparently add keywords or phrases to the query entered by a user before it’s sent to the index.

The list of thesaurus rules for the index of an organization is empty by default, but members of the Administrators and Relevance Managers built-in groups can define query pipeline thesaurus rules in their organization. Thesaurus rules are defined independently for each pipeline.

Example

Your index contains several items pertaining to the unfortunately named ACME CTRLR game controller (user manual, troubleshooting articles, etc.).

Usage analytics reports indicate that a sizable portion of end users who are obviously looking for information on this product in your Coveo-powered community portal are actually searching for acme pad, and not getting any relevant results.

To address the issue, you create a thesaurus rule that includes acme ctrlr when acme pad is part of the user’s query.

capture of the Administration Console showing a Thesaurus rule

Common Use Cases

Among other things, you can use thesaurus rules because:

  • You use different terminology to designate the same reality (see "Synonym" Thesaurus Rule Type).

    Example

    You have two versions of a document you send to new employees. Depending on the version of the document, one is named New Employee Guide and the other New Employee Manual.

    ExpandAny

  • Your users search for acronyms (see "Synonym" Thesaurus Rule Type).

    Example

    You notice a high query count for b2b. Therefore, you set a thesaurus rule so items that only contain business-to-business are also returned as search results.

    Expandb2b

  • Your users search for a product name that has recently been changed, and some items still refer to the old name (see "One-way Synonym" Thesaurus Rule Type).

    Example

    One of your products named Nice Product has changed to Awesome Product. Therefore, you set a thesaurus rule so users who search for Nice Product also obtain items related to Awesome Product as search results.

    ExpandNP

  • Your service agents search for Salesforce case number with leading zeros. You want them to automatically also search for the case number without the leading zeros (see "One-way Synonym" Thesaurus Rule Type and Use Java-Style Regular Expressions).

    Examples

    • When someone searches for 00001008, you want the system to automatically search for 00001008 OR 1008.

      Thesaurus Example

      The matching regular expression could be:

      /[0]*(?<num>[1-9]{1}[0-9]*)/

      where num is a captured group name. Each captured group name must be inside parentheses (()).

      The replacement expression would be:

      num

    • Inversely, you want people searching for 1008 to automatically also search for 1008 OR 00001008.

      Thesaurus Example

      The matching regular expression can be:

      /(?<num>[0-9]{4})/

      where num is a captured group name. Each captured group name must be inside parentheses (()).

      The replacement expression would be:

      0000_num_

Create Thesaurus Rules

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline in which you want to add a rule, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search Terms tab.

  3. In the Search Terms tab, on the left-hand side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. On the upper-right corner of the page, click Add Rule to access the Add a Thesaurus Rule [1] subpage.

  5. On the Add a Thesaurus Rule subpage, under Type, select the type of thesaurus rule you want to add. Options are Synonym, One-way synonym, Replace, and Match terms exactly.

  6. Depending on your selection, you must enter expressions (keywords or phrases):

    • If you selected Synonym, in the Expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected One-way synonym, in the Original expressions and Additional expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected Replace, in the Original expressions and Replacement expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected Match terms exactly, in the Original expressions and (optionally) the Exact match replacement expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

  7. On the right-hand side, under Condition, you can optionally select a query pipeline condition in the drop-down menu or create a new one. Your rule applies to queries meeting this condition.

  8. Under Description, optionally enter text with information that could help you and your colleagues to manage the rule in the future.

  9. Click Add Rule.

The new thesaurus rule is effective immediately.

Edit Thesaurus Rules

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline in which you want to edit a rule, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search Terms tab.

  3. In the Search Terms tab, on the left-hand side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. Click the rule you want to edit, and then click Edit in the Action bar [2] to access the Edit a Thesaurus Rule subpage.

  5. On the Edit a Thesaurus Rule subpage, under Type, select the type of thesaurus rule you want to edit. Options are Synonym, One-way synonym, Replace, and Match terms exactly.

  6. Depending on your selection, you must enter expressions (keywords or phrases):

    • If you selected Synonym, in the Expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected One-way synonym, in the Original expressions and Additional expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected Replace, in the Original expressions and Replacement expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

    • If you selected Match terms exactly, in the Original expressions and (optionally) the Exact match replacement expressions inputs, enter the desired expressions.

  7. On the right-hand side, under Condition, you can optionally select a query pipeline condition in the drop-down menu or create a new one. Your rule applies to queries meeting this condition.

  8. Under Description, optionally enter text with information that could help you and your colleagues to manage the rule in the future.

  9. Click Save.

The edited thesaurus rule is effective immediately.

Duplicate Thesaurus Rules

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline for which you want to duplicate query pipeline rules, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search terms tab.

  3. In the Search terms tab, on the left-hand side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. In the Thesaurus subtab, click the rule you want to duplicate within the same pipeline (typically to create a slightly different rule).

  5. In the Action bar, click Duplicate.

The duplicated rule appears at the bottom of the list in the pipeline component tab.

Review Information About the Rule’s Creation or Last Modification

You can verify who created or last modified a given thesaurus rule by inspecting the Details column of the Thesaurus subtab. The Details column also indicates the hour and date the rule was created or last modified.

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline containing the rule for which you want to inspect the information of the Details column, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search Terms tab.

  3. In the Search Terms tab, on the left side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. In the Thesaurus subtab, inspect the information of the Details column for the desired rule.

Delete Thesaurus Rules

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline for which you want to delete query pipeline rules, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search Terms tab.

  3. In the Search Terms tab, on the left-hand side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. In the Thesaurus subtab, click the rule you want to delete.

  5. Click Delete to confirm.

Change the Rule Order

Query pipeline rules are executed in the order in which they appear on the page until a condition is satisfied.

In the context of thesaurus rules, this also means that only one thesaurus rule can apply per expression (keyword of phrase). If a given query matches multiple thesaurus rules that expand the same expression, only the first matching rule in the query pipeline applies.

Example

The following Synonym thesaurus rules both contain the same HDMI Expression:

multiple thesaurus rules expanding the same expression

Since the include HDMI, "HDMI cable" when any are present thesaurus rule is the first to appear in the list, this is the only rule that applies if a user query contains either HDMI or HDMI cable.

If you want the thesaurus rule to also consider "high definition multimedia interface", you must add it in a single thesaurus rule as follows:

single thesaurus rule expanding the same expression

  1. On the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click the query pipeline for which you want to manage the rules' execution order, and then click Edit components in the Action bar.

  2. On the page that opens, select the Search Terms tab.

  3. In the Search Terms tab, on the left-hand side of the page, select Thesaurus.

  4. In the Thesaurus subtab, click the rule whose position you want to change.

  5. In the Action bar, click Move up or Move down to change the position of the rule.

Leading Practices

Consider the following leading practices when creating thesaurus rules:

Use Thesaurus Rules for Legitimate Reasons

  • Thesaurus rules are case-insensitive. Therefore entering casing variants in unnecessary.

  • Identify searched keywords that don’t return optimal results because users aren’t entering the indexed synonym keywords, and then create a thesaurus entry that expands the query to the appropriate synonyms.

  • Be careful to enter only legitimate synonyms to prevent excessive search result broadening that can negatively affect search results ranking and confuse users.

  • Avoid using the thesaurus to expand a typo to its correct form. Based on the relative occurrences of a typo and its correct form in the index, the Did You Mean feature automatically corrects or suggests the better spelling.

Use Thesaurus Rules Sparingly

  • When a query pipeline contains Coveo Machine Learning (Coveo ML) models, avoid or minimize the use of thesaurus rules. Thesaurus rules are static and can therefore negatively impact Coveo ML models, which follow trends. Therefore, create thesaurus rules with caution.

  • For synonym rules, the thesaurus entry expansion is omnidirectional or reciprocal to all keywords/expressions in the thesaurus entry, so be careful not to enter many synonyms in a given entry to prevent drastically increasing the length of the query.

  • Be aware that only one thesaurus rule can apply per expression (keyword of phrase). If a given query matches multiple thesaurus rules that expand the same expression, only the first matching rule in the query pipeline applies. This means that you must group equivalent expressions into a single thesaurus entry.

    Example

    The following thesaurus rules both expand the same Original expression ("HD TV"):

    multiple thesaurus rules expanding the same base expression

    Since the thesaurus rule that expands "HD TV" to "high-definition television" is the first to appear in the list of thesaurus rules, this is the only rule that applies if a user query contains HD TV.

    If you want the thesaurus rule to expand "HD TV" to "high-definition television" and "4K television", you must group them into a single rule as follows:

    single thesaurus rule expanding the same base expression

  • Thesaurus rules apply before the stemming expansion made by the index, meaning that thesaurus entries are only expanded for exact matches (see About Stemming). While you can consider entering multiple thesaurus rules for each stem variants (e.g., singular/plural, conjugation, one versus two-word, and other synonym variants), the leading practice is to create a single thesaurus rule that covers the term and all its variants using a regular expression.

    Example

    When a user searches for kitty or kitten, you want the system to also automatically search for cat. Instead of creating two distinct thesaurus rules for each variant, you create the following rule:

    1738-regex-example

Apply Thesaurus Rules Conditionally When Appropriate

In most cases, thesaurus rules don’t need query pipeline conditions. However, there are certain scenarios in which you must add a condition:

  • If the pipeline is used by different search interfaces (each denoted by its own search hub).

  • If the thesaurus entry is specific to a single language.

  • If the thesaurus entry is only used to transform the query (for example, in a Commerce application, you might use thesaurus rules to modify user input and extract certain values only when a specific condition is satisfied).

Test Your Thesaurus Rules

  • Immediately test your thesaurus entry creation or modification in the search interface. You can use the Content Browser (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) search interface to ensure that the rule works as expected.

  • Run A/B tests to monitor the effectiveness of your thesaurus entry on your search results relevance.

Reference

When creating thesaurus rules, consider that they apply to:

Note

Thesaurus rules don’t apply to:

  • Field queries.

  • Keywords entered next to the NOT and NEAR operators.

Use Java-Style Regular Expressions

When creating a thesaurus rule, you can use Java-style regular expressions (see java.util.regex Class Pattern) to match and even replace values in thesaurus entries. You must include the / / delimiters for the matching keyword. If you use named-capturing groups, the syntax to include a named-capturing group in the replacement keyword is groupName.

Example

You want to separate two product name parts that are concatenated (e.g., replacing iphone6 with iphone 6).

Thesaurus Example

The matching expression can be: /iphone(?<ver>[0-9])/ where ver is a captured group name.

The replacement expression would be: iphone _ver_

Note that in the above example, the first part of the expression (iphone) must be present in the user query for the thesaurus rule to apply.

If you want this expression to apply for another product name (ipad for example), you can use the . and * regex characters so that the thesaurus rule can match the keywords used before the matching expression in the user query.

For example, if you want your thesaurus rule to replace iphone6 or ipad6 with iphone 6 or ipad 6, you could enter the following regex in the Original expressions section:

/i.*(?<ver>[0-9])/

Thesaurus Rule Types

When creating or editing a thesaurus rule from the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Administration Console, you can choose one of the following thesaurus sub-type:

Synonym

Searches the index for all thesaurus expressions as soon as one expression is part of the user query.

Important

Synonym rules are evaluated in the order they’re defined. This means that when a query is sent, the Synonym thesaurus rule type evaluates the terms defined in the rule in order until it finds a match with the queried keywords. Therefore, when defining Synonym rules that are meant to expand terms that share a single prefix, you should define more meaningful terms in the first position of the statement to avoid relevance issues.
Example

When considering the following statement:

alias "vacation", "vacation leave", "vacation policy"

When a user queries vacation policy, their query is parsed as follows:

(vacation OR (vacation leave) OR (vacation policy)) policy

However, when defining the same statement using vacation policy in first position as follows:

alias "vacation policy", "vacation leave", "vacation"

The same vacation policy query is parsed as follows:

(vacation policy) OR (vacation leave) OR vacation

One-Way Synonym

Searches the index for all original thesaurus expressions as soon as one term is part of the user query. However, the "One-way synonym" sub-type doesn’t expand original expressions when target expressions are queried.

Tip
Leading practice

You can enter expressions between double-quotes to expand an exact phrase. This is useful to expand acronyms or initialisms.

Replace

Overwrites specific end-users' expressions when queried.

Tip
Leading practice

The Replace rule type should only be created when you’re certain that your index doesn’t, and will never contain the expressions to substitute. The "One-way synonym" rule type should first be considered.

Match Terms Exactly

The Match terms exactly thesaurus rule type lets you specify Original expressions and Exact match replacement expressions.

When you only specify Original expressions, the specified expressions are turned into their corresponding exact phrase match expression.

Example

Considering the following rule:

quote query pipeline rule

When a user searches for king of the jungle in a search box, their query becomes "king of the jungle".

When you also specify Exact match replacement expressions, the specified Original expressions are replaced with the exact phrase match expression of the specified Exact match replacement expressions.

Example

Considering the following rule:

quote query pipeline rule

When a user searches for lion in a search box, their query becomes "king of the jungle" OR "big cat".

QPL Syntax

When creating a thesaurus rule with code or editing the code of an existing thesaurus rule, use the following query pipeline language (QPL) syntax:

Example

The following table summarizes how statements using each of the different thesaurus sub-features would process the basic part (q) of the combined query expression, assuming its current value is kitty cat:

Statement definition Processed q expression

alias /kitt(y|en)/, "cat", "mouse hunter", "feline"

(kitty OR cat OR (mouse hunter) OR feline) (cat OR (mouse hunter) OR feline)

expand /kitt(y|en)/, "cat" to "mouse hunter", "feline"

(kitty OR (mouse hunter) OR feline) (cat OR (mouse hunter) OR feline)

replace /kitt(y|en)/, "cat" to "mouse hunter", "feline"

((mouse hunter) OR feline) ((mouse hunter) OR feline)

quote "kitty cat"

"kitty cat"

quote /kitt(y|en)/, "cat" to "mouse hunter"

"mouse hunter" "mouse hunter"

Parameters

terms

A comma-separated list of quoted strings and/or regular expressions where each quoted string must contain one or more basic query terms (e.g., "foo bar", "baz", /^meo+w$/).

Important

When using the alias feature, <terms> must contain at least one quoted string (i.e., it can’t contain only regular expressions).

otherTerms

A comma-separated list of quoted strings where each quoted string must contain one or more basic query terms (e.g., "hello world", "biz").

Order of Execution

Thesaurus rules apply before the stemming expansion made by the index, meaning that thesaurus entries are only expanded for exact matches (see About Stemming).

The following diagram illustrates the overall order of execution of query pipeline features:

order of pipeline execution

Required Privileges

By default, members of the Administrators and Relevance Managers built-in groups can view and edit elements of the Query Pipelines (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

The following table indicates the required privileges to view or edit thesaurus rules (see Manage Privileges and Privilege Reference).

Action Service - Domain Required access level

View thesaurus rules

Organization - Organization
Search - Query pipelines

View

Edit thesaurus rules

Organization - Organization

View

Search - Query pipelines

Edit
1. (Advanced) You can instead click Menu, and then click Add rule with code to define the rule using the appropriate QPL syntax.
2. (Advanced) You can instead click More, and then select Edit code to edit the rule using the appropriate QPL syntax.