# Newbie question - distributed ranking **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [October 3, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/newbie-question-distributed-ranking/5504 "2011-10-03T14:13:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![solmyr72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@solmyr72](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/solmyr72)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/newbie-question-distributed-ranking/5504/1 "2011-10-03T14:13:38Z")
Hi, Could anyone please refer me to documentation on how elasticsearch works "under the hood", especially how it decides on _ranking_ when collection results from several nodes? Could ranking be slightly different from the one we'd have on a single centralized index? For example, will we have to give up the Lucene feature of "IDF" ("rare words")? The background is, I have an application that uses Lucene, and we expect we'll need to Shard due to a leap in the amount of data (moving from "startup / proof of concept" stage - to internationally-marketed stable application). I believe in understanding how stuff works before basing my application on it... Thanks 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ppearcy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ppearcy/32/980_2.png) [@ppearcy](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ppearcy)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/newbie-question-distributed-ranking/5504/2 "2011-10-03T15:57:14Z")
Hey, This should explain things: > **[Elasticsearch Platform — Find real-time answers at scale](https://www.elastic.co)** > > Power insights and outcomes with the Elasticsearch Platform and AI. See into your data and find answers that matter with enterprise solutions designed to help you build, observe, and protect. Try Elasticsearch free today. There are 4 different methods for how the searches get distributed, a couple of them handle distributed term frequencies. Regards, Paul On Oct 3, 8:13 am, solmyr72 [solmy...@yahoo.com](mailto:solmy...@yahoo.com) wrote: > Hi, > > Could anyone please refer me to documentation on how elasticsearch > works "under the hood", especially how it decides on _ranking_ when > collection results from several nodes? > Could ranking be slightly different from the one we'd have on a single > centralized index? For example, will we have to give up the Lucene > feature of "IDF" ("rare words")? > > The background is, I have an application that uses Lucene, and we > expect we'll need to Shard due to a leap in the amount of data (moving > from "startup / proof of concept" stage - to internationally-marketed > stable application). > I believe in understanding how stuff works before basing my > application on it... > > Thanks 🙂 ---
**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, 3:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/newbie-question-distributed-ranking/5504/3 "2017-07-06T03:52:59Z")