Reading Pre-search results
Pre-search results in Tender Navigator are live tender notices, not evaluations: every row is marked Not evaluated. Visitors see a five-result preview; signed-in users see 20 rows per page with a side panel per notice. The percentage on the homepage preview cards is a keyword and recency heuristic, not an AI verdict.
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What a result row contains
Each row in the Pre-search tool shows:
- the Not evaluated badge, on every row, because a search result has not been judged against any filter;
- occasionally a tag: New for notices published within the last week, Deadline soon for deadlines within two weeks;
- the notice title and the beginning of its description;
- the deadline date, or "No deadline" when the notice states none;
- Open, which shows the notice in the side panel (dashboard) or on its own page (public search);
- Evaluate (dashboard only), which explains that evaluation happens through filters and offers Save as Filter.
Results come back in the order the tender database returns them. Tender Navigator does not re-sort them.
Visitors: the five-result preview
On the public search page and the homepage, a visitor sees at most five results, with a strip such as "You're seeing a 5-result preview of N matching tenders" and Sign in / Get Started buttons. The cap cannot be widened by editing the address; it is applied on the request and again on what is displayed. Opening a preview notice shows the title, dates, country, language and source, while the full description, the link to the original notice and the AI evaluation are shown locked with a "Create free account" call to action.
Signed in: paging and the side panel
In the dashboard the Pre-search tool returns 20 rows per page with Prev and Next and a "Showing a-b of N" counter. Opening a row shows the notice in a panel beside the results; the form and the list stay in place, and the address carries the open notice so that the browser back button and a copied link both work. On a narrow screen the panel takes over the content area with a Results button to go back.
The relevance indicator on the homepage
The compact search on the homepage and the Tender search page shows a relevance percentage and tags such as "High relevance" or "AI matched" on each preview card. That indicator is computed in the browser from how many of your keywords the notice contains, whether they appear in the title, and how recent the notice is. It is a reading aid for the preview only. It is not the AI evaluation, it is not stored, and the dashboard does not show it. AI evaluation is what a filter does, against your own prompt.
Empty results
"No results in this search" means the database has nothing matching all of the criteria combined. Broaden the search by removing the budget range, adding synonyms as extra keywords, or clearing the countries. See No tenders found.
Errors
If the search service cannot be reached, the tool shows "The search service could not be reached. Please try again." with a Retry button that re-runs the same search. A re-search keeps the previous results on screen while the new one runs, so a good answer is never replaced by a loading state.
Related articles
- Using the Pre-search tool in Tender NavigatorThe Pre-search tool runs a live search across the Tender Navigator tender database by keywords, countries, classification codes and budget. Where it lives, what it returns, and how it becomes a filter.
- The tender notice page (Tender Detail)What a tender notice shows in Tender Navigator: title, buyer country, language, dates, deadline, estimated budget, source, external ID, classification codes, AI summary and description, and what is locked for visitors.
- Understanding Matched and Unmatched resultsHow to read the Results page in Tender Navigator: the Matched and Unmatched verdicts, the reasoning, the filters and date range, the seven-day default window, and the actions on a result.