# Percolator: Best Practice for Boost/Customizing Relevance Scoring **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [January 25, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring/262164 "2021-01-25T20:00:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jordannb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jordannb/32/82880_2.png) [@jordannb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jordannb)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2021, 8:00pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring/262164/1 "2021-01-25T20:00:02Z")
[Per documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/6.8/index-boost.html), index-time boosting was replaced with query-time boosting in a previous release. This makes sense - [here](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/mapping-boost.html) an explanation is given which explains that index time boost requires re-indexing, so it's better to simply do it at query time, which doesn't require re-indexing to change boost and/or scoring criteria. I'm now using [Percolator](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/query-dsl-percolate-query.html) and want to boost one property match higher than the others. Based on "index time boosting" being bad (and agreeing with the reasoning), and that percolator queries themselves are indexed, is there any way to boost a property when querying the `percolator` field with a document that contains that property? Or does the `boost` need to be saved with the percolator query in this case? Since the request to percolate only includes property names and their values, I'm not aware of a way to change boost or anything else that would impact relevance scoring without saving it with the query or on the index definition, the latter definitely being deprecated, and the former method seeming to have the same issue with it. Thank you! ~Jordan Note that I have also posted this question in the following places: - [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65889873/elasticsearch-percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring:](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65889873/elasticsearch-percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring:) Realized after posting that Elasticsearch questions don't seem to often receive answers there. Feel free to answer there; if you don't and are able to provide an answer, I'll post back to stackoverflow referencing the outcome of discussion here. - [https://elasticstack.slack.com/archives/CNTP6NLTZ/p1611601630145900:](https://elasticstack.slack.com/archives/CNTP6NLTZ/p1611601630145900:) Was advised that this forum is a better fit for more complex or longer-running questions ---
**Author:** ![vinodr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/vinodr/32/28759_2.png) [@vinodr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/vinodr)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 12:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring/262164/2 "2021-02-21T00:38:45Z")
This may be a relevant post: [Understanding Similarity Scoring in Elasticsearch](https://www.infoq.com/articles/similarity-scoring-elasticsearch/) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/percolator-best-practice-for-boost-customizing-relevance-scoring/262164/3 "2021-03-21T00:39:03Z")
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