Reranking
By HubAI editorial team · Source checked: 24 October 2026What does it mean?
A second pass that reorders candidate search results using a more detailed relevance assessment. It operates after an initial retrieval step.
Picture this
Search first finds 30 possible policy passages. A reranker moves the passages most relevant to your particular question closer to the top.
Where you’ll come across it
Improving retrieval quality where the first search returns too much loosely related material. Measure whether correct answers become easier to find.
What it doesn’t mean
A reranker cannot recover a useful document that never reached its candidate list. It can also add latency and cost, so compare the full workflow.
Test whether the evidence survives
A short exercise · use fictional or non-sensitive material.
- Write a short fictional policy with one rule and one exception. Ask a question that needs both.
- Try a second question whose answer is deliberately missing from the policy.
- Check whether the answer points to the right passage and admits when the policy cannot answer.
Does the cited passage support this exact answer, including its exception?
Did that make it clearer?
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Written and explained by HubAI. The reference below lets you go deeper; it is not an endorsement of a particular product.
Technical reference: huggingface.co ↗