Result ranking

vLex ranks your search results to ensure that the most relevant information is listed at the top.

vLex results are, by default, sorted by relevance. This is calculated using a combination of the following factors:

  • Textual ranking: scans the results and shows you information that most closely relates to your search terms.

  • Legal ranking: higher legal status means higher priority. For example, a result from a higher court will have priority over a result from a minor court, and a piece of legislation will have higher priority than a bill.

  • Citation frequency: documents that are cited more frequently rank higher.

  • Social ranking: the way users interact with vLex gives the algorithm clues as to whether a document is helpful or not.

  • Personal ranking: your SmartTopics choices and the documents that you follow indicate what is important to you.

  • Editorial ranking: vLex's editorial team manually selects the key search results for the searches that are conducted most frequently.

The vLex search engine learns with you: the more you and people in your area use it, the more the search engine improves. vLex takes in what is relevant to you and similar users to save you time, and give you more accurate results.

Other sorting criteria

Use the drop-down menu in the top-right hand corner above your results to change the order to one of the following options:

  • Most cited

  • Most recent

  • Oldest

  • Most visited

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