GeneralConcept

Query Understanding

Canonical ID https://id.searchplex.net/query-understanding/

Interpreting a user's query to infer intent, structure, entities, constraints, and useful retrieval signals.

Also called

Covers analysis before retrieval rather than the retrieval or ranking stages themselves.

Query Transformation Query transformation often uses query-understanding output.
Query Processing

Query Understanding is not Query Expansion. Query understanding interprets intent and structure; query expansion enriches the query with additional retrieval evidence.
Query Understanding is not Query Rewriting. Query rewriting is a transformation step that may use query-understanding output.