Understanding How Search by Meaning Finds What Really Matters

For anyone searching for specific information from large bodies of text, it can be frustrating and difficult to think of all the possible keywords or keyphrases that will return relevant search results and not miss important ones.

Searching by meaning — also known as semantic search — is a huge improvement over keyword search which returns irrelevant results and misses others because:

• Words have more than one meaning depending on context
• The same idea can be expressed many ways

Semantic search eliminates off-topic results that happen to include the keyword and instead finds results that match the meaning — and intent — of the searcher.

In this tech brief, “Understanding How Search by Meaning Finds What Really Matters,” you’ll learn about the technology that makes semantic search possible and how Babel Street uses it. We also present use cases for how semantic search is transforming and accelerating labor-intensive tasks in eDiscovery, government intelligence, and adverse media screening for financial compliance.