SQL Server Freetext match - how do I sort by relevance

Question

Is it possible to order results in SQL Server 2005 by the relevance of a freetext match? In MySQL you can use the (roughly equivalent) MATCH function in the ORDER BY section

Answer 1

If you are using FREETEXTTABLE then it returns a column name Rank, so order by Rank should work. I don't know if other freetext search methods are also returning this value or not. You can have a try.

Answer 2

Both FREETEXTTABLE and CONTAINSTABLE will return the [RANK] column, but make sure you are using either the correct variation or union both of them to get all appropriate results.