{
  "altLabels": [
    "Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency",
    "Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency"
  ],
  "definition": "A term-weighting method that combines term frequency with inverse document frequency to weight terms in documents, queries, or vector-space representations.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "target": "bm25f",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "distinctions": [
    {
      "reason": "TF-IDF is a term-weighting method; BM25 is a probabilistic ranking function with term saturation and document-length normalization.",
      "statement": "TF-IDF is not BM25.",
      "target": "bm25",
      "targetLabel": "BM25",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/bm25/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "TF-IDF is one classical term-weighting method; lexical retrieval is the broader retrieval family based on lexical features.",
      "statement": "TF-IDF is not Lexical Retrieval.",
      "target": "lexical-retrieval",
      "targetLabel": "Lexical Retrieval",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/lexical-retrieval/"
    }
  ],
  "id": "tf-idf",
  "kind": "Method",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "Scoring, term weighting and the vector space model",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/html/htmledition/scoring-term-weighting-and-the-vector-space-model-1.html"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-14T06:43:46Z",
  "prefLabel": "TF-IDF",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "note": "TF-IDF is a term-weighting method; BM25 is a probabilistic ranking function with term saturation and document-length normalization.",
      "target": "bm25",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "TF-IDF is one classical term-weighting method; lexical retrieval is the broader retrieval family based on lexical features.",
      "target": "lexical-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "bm25",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "lexical-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "sparse-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "vector-space-model",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "ranking",
      "type": "usedFor"
    },
    {
      "target": "retrieval",
      "type": "usedFor"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/tf-idf/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/tf-idf.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/tf-idf.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "TF-IDF is commonly associated with vector space retrieval and classical lexical baselines. It is not the same as BM25, lexical retrieval generally, or sparse retrieval generally.",
  "status": "published",
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/tf-idf/"
}