meilisearch/MeiliSearch

Changing ranking rules order removes hits

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#6185 opened on Feb 25, 2026

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 (3 comments) (0 reactions) (0 assignees)Rust (20,887 stars) (733 forks)batch import
buggood first issue

Description

Hi,

I see that changing the order of ranking rules not only changes the order of hits, but also removes some of them. Is it expected?

In order to reproduce with Meilisearch v1.36, it is enough to:

  1. create a brand new index with default settings,
  2. push the prizes.json file,
  3. run a simple query (e.g. "albert physics") and count hits,
  4. change the ranking rules order (for instance, by moving the attributeRank rule to the top),
  5. re-run the sample simple query as in step 3 and count hits again.

I get 8 hits for "albert physics" if using the default ranking rule order (namely ["words", "typo", "proximity", "attributeRank", "sort", "wordPosition", "exactness"], only 3 hits if ranking rules are ordered as follows: ["attributeRank", "words", "typo", "proximity", "sort", "wordPosition", "exactness"]. These 3 hits correspond to documents for which category is equal to physics.

Thanks to the Meilisearch community for all the efforts that are being put into such an awesome tool!

Alessandro

Contributor guide

Tech stack
rust
Domain
backendsearch
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
3-5 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Meilisearch ranking rulesRust programmingSearch engine scoring
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
Investigate the ranking rule evaluation logic in the Meilisearch codebase, specifically focusing on how the order of rules affects the final set of hits. Look at the implementation of each ranking rule, particularly 'attributeRank', to determine if it prematurely filters out documents that would have matched under other rules. The relevant code is likely in the `src/ranking` directory. Check for any early termination or cutoff behavior that could cause this discrepancy.