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YYasir Haque

Founder | Research-Driven Builder

Building in public across finance, software, and economics.

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Testing search ranking before semantic retrieval

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Author

Yasir Haque

Published

Preview only

Updated

March 26, 2026

Version

v0.4

Reading time

5 min

Status

Preview

Track

Search quality

Topic tags

SoftwareEconomics

Experiment links

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What I tried
A search-first approach grounded in PostgreSQL full-text search instead of prematurely introducing semantic retrieval.
What I did
Separated the search problem into ranking, filtering, and archive discovery so the future search UI can mature from a clear baseline.
What broke
It is easy to reach for vector search before understanding whether ranking and metadata quality are the real bottlenecks.
What I learned
The public site needs better relevance discipline before it needs more retrieval machinery.
Next step
Ship the first server-backed search page and measure whether the remaining quality problem is actually semantic.

Section

Premise

Search quality usually fails on weak metadata, vague ranking logic, or poor information architecture before it fails on model sophistication.

Section

Constraint

The stack rules for this project are explicit: full-text search first, vector search only when it solves a real problem.

Section

Practical implication

This note format keeps the experiment honest by showing the current decision, what remains unclear, and what should be measured next.

Version history

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v0.4
March 26, 2026

Layout validation

Aligned the public reading surface with the live App Router routes and detail-module system.
v0.3
March 25, 2026

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Separated proof links, methodology notes, and version history so credibility does not rely on tone alone.

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Finance, software, and economics operating track

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