Full Text Search
Full text search is a technique that finds entries in a collection of text based on the presence of specific keywords and phrases. For instance, consider a movie review site that lets users search for movies. Movie titles would benefit from full text search, since users are likely looking for exact keywords likeHarry
and Potter
.
Similarity Search
Similarity search matches documents based on semantic meaning. In the movie review example, movie descriptions may benefit from similarity search. Users that query forthe boy who lived
may be looking for Harry Potter
even though these phrases share no common keywords.
This is achieved through a technique called vector search. A vector is a fixed array of numeric values that captures
the semantic meaning of a piece of text. Vectors are typically generated by embedding models.