Semantic search earns its cost when wording varies
If users search “stop my plan temporarily” and the document says “membership suspension,” keyword matching may miss the result. Semantic search helps when intent is stable but vocabulary is not.
Keyword search is still the right tool for
- Order numbers and exact product IDs.
- Legal phrases that must match precisely.
- Dates, statuses, and numeric filters.
- Small collections where a simple index is faster and easier to maintain.
Choose hybrid when both matter
| Need | Good starting point |
|---|---|
| Find a policy by meaning | Semantic search with source metadata |
| Find invoice INV-1048 | Keyword or SQL search |
| Find current policies for one product | Metadata filter plus semantic ranking |
| Search names and descriptions together | Hybrid search |
The test before switching
Take real queries that currently fail. Label the correct result, then compare keyword, semantic, and hybrid results. If semantic search returns relevant-sounding but wrong documents, the problem may be source structure or filtering rather than the search engine.