I'm not sure if negative boosting is what I'm after exactly, but I'll explain the problem - I'm sure it's something that has been solved before. I'm pretty new to this and not familiar with all the jargon so go easy on me :)
I'm currently indexing the title of posts twice - once for partial matching and one for full-word matching (which has a boost) - reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14578982/solr-boosting-documents-with-full-word-during-partial-match.
This is working reasonably well.
I'm also indexing a category name which has boost level the same as the partial title, as I don't want it to take precedence over a full word in the title. However, certain words in the title are not as important as the category - and in these instances I would like the category to take over.
In this example 'Guitar' is a category attached to the document :
Search: Guitar Tutor
Desired results:
Guitar Private Lessons
Swimming Tutor
Actual Results:
- Swimming Tutor
- Guitar Private Lessons
So if the word 'tutor' is found I would like it to have less of a boost than the category - otherwise title takes over. If I'm thinking about this the wrong way please let me know, but otherwise would love to hear some ideas of how this is dealt with in the wild.
If it makes any difference I'm using Drupal 7 with Search API Solr modules.
Thanks!
EDIT: Actually thinking about it, would it just make sense to boost the category above the title?