Ranking is overrated: why query understanding matters more

Hosted by Daniel Tunkelang and Doug Turnbull

219 students

What you'll learn

Why ranking in search can be a crutch

Ranking should be a secondary concern, only done after we know what's in the query.

Getting started with query understanding

Going from zero to hero taking apart queries, classifying them, extracting entities, and routing them.

How query understanding fits into modern retrieval and AI

In today’s RAG and agentic world, learn query understanding’s unique role in retrieving context for modern applications.

Why this topic matters

Context depends on search that understands what users / agents want. That's why retrieval must go beyond ranking and towards understanding, to get the exact thing an agent or human wants! Search for the band "The The" on Google. Normal retrieval would rank endless reams of nonsense. However Google identifies this term as a band, returning to users / agents the exact information they want.

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