Ranking is overrated: why query understanding matters more
Hosted by Daniel Tunkelang and Doug Turnbull
Fri, Oct 10, 2025
6:00 PM UTC (1 hour)
Virtual (Zoom)
Free to join
Go deeper with a course
Fri, Oct 10, 2025
6:00 PM UTC (1 hour)
Virtual (Zoom)
Free to join
99 students
Go deeper with a course
What you'll learn
Why ranking in search can be a crutch
Getting started with query understanding
How query understanding fits into modern retrieval and AI
Why this topic matters
You'll learn from
Daniel Tunkelang
Principal, High Class Consultant
Independent consultant specializing in search, machine learning, and AI. Known as “Mr. Query Understanding,” Daniel co-founded Endeca, led a local search team at Google, and served as a search and data science leader at LinkedIn, where he established the query understanding team. He holds a PhD in computer science from CMU and has written extensively on information retrieval, search, and AI.
Doug Turnbull
Principal ML Engineer in Search
Doug Turnbull has led search teams since 2013. He worked on AI in e-commerce going as far back an 2022 at Shopify. Delivered the largest experimental wins on Reddit search, and now advises AI and search teams as they take on modern search challenges. He teaches on Maven with his Cheat at Search and AI Powered Search courses.
Previously at
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