Category Component 25.4
Category Component Help

# Change Result Sorting (Display Order)

By default, the Content component lists query results in order of relevance. To weight and rank the documents it returns by statistical relevance, Content uses complex algorithms that use a combination of information theory and Bayesian methods. It makes use of information theoretic values calculated dynamically for all concepts on indexing, which allows it to evaluate relevance both as a percentage, and in the case of agents, as absolute values.

In practice, the relevance acts as a measure of the conceptual overlap between the query text and the text in a document. You can affect the relevance in several ways. You can apply extra weight to certain fields by associating a weighting factor with them at indexing time. For example, you can give extra weight when query terms appear in the document title as opposed to the body of the text.

You can change the order in which Content returns query results by adding the `Sort` parameter to your `Query`, `Suggest`, `SuggestOnText`, `GetTagValues`, or `GetQueryTagValues` action.

## Sort Options for Query, Suggest, and SuggestOnText

For a full list of sort options for the `Query`, `Suggest`, and `SuggestOnText` actions, see the `Sort` parameter in the Content Component Help.

You can sort results by several criteria, by adding multiple sort options, separated by plus symbols (+):

    sortOption1+sortOption2+...

Examples:

    http://MyHost:20000/action=Query&Text=presidential elections&Sort=Date

In this example, Content displays results in order of the document date.

    http://MyHost:20000/action=Query&Text=presidential elections&Sort=DRETITLE:reversealphabetical

In this example, Content displays results in reverse alphabetical order by their `DRETITLE`.

    http://MyHost:20000/action=Query&Text=presidential elections&Sort=Relevance+DRETITLE:alphabetical+Date

In this example, results order by `Relevance`, then by their `DRETITLE`, and then by their `Date`.

## Sort for GetTagValues and GetQueryTagValues

For a full list of sort options for the `GetTagValues` and `GetQueryTagValues` actions, see the `Sort` parameter in the Content Component Help.

For example:

    http://MyHost:20000/action=GetQueryTagValues&FieldName=GRAPE,COUNTRY &Text=A smooth red wine that complements game&Sort=Alphabetical

In this example, Content displays results in alphabetical order.

TIP: The `GetQueryTagValues` action also has a `QuerySort` parameter, which determines how it sorts the results of the associated query when it retrieves values.

For example, if you set `MaxResults` in `GetQueryTagValues`, the action retrieves parametric values from the first `N` results, according to the result sorting method. You can use `QuerySort` to specify how to sort these results. The options for `QuerySort` are the same as for the `Query` action `Sort` parameter (see Sort Options for Query, Suggest, and SuggestOnText).

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Version 25.4 | Last updated October 2025

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Category Component 25.4

Topic Title: Change Result Sorting (Display Order)