treffliste

Treffliste is a term used in German-language information retrieval to describe a list of hits, i.e., search results or matches, produced by a query. The word combines treffen (to hit) and liste (list). In many contexts it is synonymous with Trefferliste or Suchergebnis and is used in libraries, databases, catalogs, and search interfaces.

Purpose and content: The Treffliste presents items that satisfy the user’s query, ordered by a relevance score or another ranking criterion. Each entry typically includes metadata such as title, author or creator, date, and a brief snippet or abstract, together with a link or reference to the resource.

Ranking and interaction: Ordering may be based on text relevance, popularity, recency, or user-context signals. Users can generally sort the list, paginate results, and apply filters for format, language, subject, or date range.

Contexts and applications: In library catalogs and bibliographic databases, Trefflisten help locate books, articles, and other materials. In e-commerce and file search, they function as product or document result lists. Some systems present results with keyword highlighting.

Limitations: Trefflisten depend on index coverage and ranking algorithms and may reflect biases or incomplete data. Personalization can affect results, raising privacy considerations. Duplicate entries and near-duplicate results can occur, and false positives or negatives may arise from fuzzy matching.

See also: Trefferliste; Suchergebnisse; Search results.