Vector Databases: Pinecone, Weaviate & pgvector · Lesson

Semantic Search & Hybrid Search

Implement advanced search techniques combining vector similarity with keyword matching for superior results.

Beyond Basic Searches

Welcome! In this lesson, we'll dive into advanced search techniques in Weaviate. Moving past simple vector searches, we'll explore how to combine different methods for incredibly precise results.

We'll cover:

Pure semantic search
Traditional keyword (BM25) search
The power of hybrid search

Semantic Search: Meaning First

Semantic search finds items based on their meaning, not just exact words. It uses vector embeddings to represent data, measuring "distance" to find similar concepts. Weaviate uses .with_near_text() for this.

Try this example:

import weaviate
import os

# Connect to your Weaviate instance
# Ensure WEAVIATE_URL is set (e.g., "http://localhost:8080")
client = weaviate.Client(
    url=os.getenv("WEAVIATE_URL", "http://localhost:8080")
)

# Make sure you have an 'Article' class with 'title' and 'content' properties
# and some data imported for this to work!

query_concept = "latest advancements in technology"

response = client.query.get(
    "Article", # Your class name
    ["title", "content"]
).with_near_text(
    {"concepts": [query_concept]}
).with_limit(2).do()

print("Semantic Search Results:")
for item in response["data"]["Get"]["Article"]:
    print(f"- {item['title']}")

All lessons in this course

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