# Identical documents have different scores when using fuzziness

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/identical-documents-have-different-scores-when-using-fuzziness/8200
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [June 22, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/identical-documents-have-different-scores-when-using-fuzziness/8200 "2012-06-22T19:29:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Burrito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc79bd/32.png) [@Burrito](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Burrito)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/identical-documents-have-different-scores-when-using-fuzziness/8200/1 "2012-06-22T19:29:51Z")

</div>

I'm having trouble understanding why identical documents will have  
different scores on occasion. This gist sh file creates an index and  
adds 4 documents. The single string property has the same value  
"crime" for 3 of the 4 documents.

This normally occurs without fuzziness as well, but can be managed by  
setting a dfs search\_type.

Why will identical documents have different scores when using  
fuzziness? Does the distributed idf not work when fuzziness is  
applied?

Any help is appreciated.

(NOTE: You may have to run the script several times)

> <https://gist.github.com/anonymous/2974568>

# example response 1

{  
"took" : 2,  
"timed\_out" : false,  
"\_shards" : {  
"total" : 5,  
"successful" : 5,  
"failed" : 0  
},  
"hits" : {  
"total" : 4,  
"max\_score" : 0.8574929,  
"hits" : [ {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "-4RFpx0QSO-qGnA6jvyxoQ",  
"\_score" : 0.8574929, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "fzt7bXKzRFS1Jll7rwYbOQ",  
"\_score" : 0.5144958, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crimeq"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "NE0o8i7USvCCXwQjLowmfg",  
"\_score" : 0.30685282, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "epcgMCtVTaiF0uyY475X9Q",  
"\_score" : 0.30685282, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
} ]  
}  
}

# example response 2

{  
"hits" : {  
"total" : 4,  
"max\_score" : 1.2066344,  
"hits" : [ {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "0kTpg2KmRLuPQ1balKCUwQ",  
"\_score" : 1.2066344, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crimeq"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "GkPtql3\_SJGhl3vu0ea27g",  
"\_score" : 1.0, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "zBkRROcvTUedKHBG\_shT2g",  
"\_score" : 0.70151186, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
}, {  
"\_index" : "movies",  
"\_type" : "actors",  
"\_id" : "jsp4klQ8T4yBtRQ6Nn13lA",  
"\_score" : 0.70151186, "\_source" : {"actor" : "crime"}  
} ]  
}  
}

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2017, 3:22am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/identical-documents-have-different-scores-when-using-fuzziness/8200/2 "2017-07-06T03:22:52Z")

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