Order of Query Processing Events

This section will detail the order in which spellings, rules, redirects are activated. It is useful to understand the order in which events happen to make the best use of the tools at your disposal.

1. If a Redirect exists, all processing of the query stops and the search service returns the redirect URL.
2. If there are " within the search query, none of the query-rewrite apply (Stop Words, Phrases, Spelling, Synonyms).
3. Stop Words are removed from the search query before any further processing is carried out unless the query contains quotes.
4. Spelling correction is then applied to the search query unless the query contains quotes.
5. Related Query Terms are found based on the search query at this point (with spell corrections applied).
6. Phrases are then applied to the search query, incorporating all of the above rewrites. Only the largest phrase will be applied.
7. Synonyms are then applied to the search query unless the search query contains quotes.
8. If you are using the legacy master-variant model, at this point the check for a variant term in the query is done, and the correct collection is determined.
9. A pre-query check of the rule using the original search string is done to determine if a biasing profile, or other rule level configurations, should be applied to this search query. Any query zones within the triggered rule will be fired off.
10. The engine evaluates the Dynamic Navigations that are defined within by the query (following normal precedence of Area - Rule - Query specificity) and fetches the list of Dynamic Navigations to request.
11. The search query is then fired off against the search engine. This will bring back the results and the navigations together.
12. Automatic spell correction: If no results were returned, and there is a Did You Mean, and autocorrect was not disabled, a second query is fired on the first Did You Mean. No query rewrites or rule validations will be applied to that search.
13. If at query time the API defined restrictNavigation, the response is truncated to those navigations.
14. If no rule was fired prior, a post-query check is done on rules with “No Result” and “No Navigation” triggers to see if a rule needs to be activated. Any query zones within the triggered rule will be fired off.
15. Finally, the response is returned to the calling application.