What are reverse indexes?

A reverse index is a data structure used primarily in search engines. It functions similarly to an index in the back of a book, where terms are listed along with the pages they appear on. In the context of digital documents, a reverse index lists terms and links them to the IDs of the documents where those terms occur, detailing the specific location within the documents and the context in which they appear. This structure allows for efficient searching because it directly connects search terms to the documents containing them, without having to scan all text data 1.

Immutable Indexes and Reverse Indexes

Daniel Whitenack

Hamish explains the concept of reverse indexes and how they are used in search. He also discusses the advantages of immutability in search indexes and the trade-offs involved in working with mutable indexes.

Practical AI

Reinforcement Learning for search

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