diff --git a/cmd/indexer/main.go b/cmd/indexer/main.go
index ff5ec8d..0659892 100644
--- a/cmd/indexer/main.go
+++ b/cmd/indexer/main.go
@@ -107,10 +107,13 @@ func main() {
 	}
 	defer mongoDB.Close()
 
-	// Create Typesense client
+	// Create Typesense client.
+	// Default connection timeout is 5s — too short for large content imports
+	// (magazines and other_documents can ship multi-MB batches).
 	tsClient := typesense.NewClient(
 		typesense.WithServer(cfg.TypesenseURL),
 		typesense.WithAPIKey(cfg.TypesenseAPIKey),
+		typesense.WithConnectionTimeout(5*time.Minute),
 	)
 
 	// Determine which collections to index
@@ -909,7 +912,8 @@ func indexMagazines(sugar *zap.SugaredLogger, tsClient *typesense.Client, mongoD
 	}
 
 	sugar.Infof("[magazines] Read %d documents from MongoDB", len(docs))
-	importBatch(sugar, tsClient, "magazines", docs, 500)
+	// Smaller batch size: each magazine issue can have very large paragraphs
+	importBatch(sugar, tsClient, "magazines", docs, 25)
 }
 
 // ==================== OTHER DOCUMENTS ====================
@@ -983,7 +987,8 @@ func indexOtherDocuments(sugar *zap.SugaredLogger, tsClient *typesense.Client, m
 	}
 
 	sugar.Infof("[other_documents] Read %d documents from MongoDB", len(docs))
-	importBatch(sugar, tsClient, "other_documents", docs, 500)
+	// Smaller batch size: each chapter can have very large paragraphs
+	importBatch(sugar, tsClient, "other_documents", docs, 25)
 }
 
 // ==================== HELPERS ====================
diff --git a/internal/handler/search.go b/internal/handler/search.go
index 51035e5..8fdbeee 100644
--- a/internal/handler/search.go
+++ b/internal/handler/search.go
@@ -181,6 +181,8 @@ func (h *SearchHandler) multiSearch(ctx context.Context, collections []string, q
 	}
 
 	exhaustive := true
+	prioritizeExact := true
+	prioritizeTokenPos := true
 	searches := make([]api.MultiSearchCollectionParameters, 0, len(collections))
 	for _, col := range collections {
 		queryBy := collectionQueryByFields[col]
@@ -196,6 +198,10 @@ func (h *SearchHandler) multiSearch(ctx context.Context, collections []string, q
 			Prefix:           stringPtr("true"),
 			NumTypos:         stringPtr("2"),
 			ExhaustiveSearch: &exhaustive,
+			// Boost docs whose tokens are exact matches and appear early in the field
+			// so "karma" outranks "karmic" and frequent matches outrank single ones.
+			PrioritizeExactMatch:    &prioritizeExact,
+			PrioritizeTokenPosition: &prioritizeTokenPos,
 		}
 		if weights != "" {
 			params.QueryByWeights = stringPtr(weights)
@@ -254,6 +260,8 @@ func (h *SearchHandler) singleSearch(ctx context.Context, collection, query stri
 	}
 
 	exhaustive := true
+	prioritizeExact := true
+	prioritizeTokenPos := true
 	params := &api.SearchCollectionParams{
 		Q:                stringPtr(query),
 		QueryBy:          stringPtr(queryBy),
@@ -262,6 +270,10 @@ func (h *SearchHandler) singleSearch(ctx context.Context, collection, query stri
 		Prefix:           stringPtr("true"),
 		NumTypos:         stringPtr("2"),
 		ExhaustiveSearch: &exhaustive,
+		// Boost docs whose tokens are exact matches and appear early in the field
+		// so "karma" outranks "karmic" and frequent matches outrank single ones.
+		PrioritizeExactMatch:    &prioritizeExact,
+		PrioritizeTokenPosition: &prioritizeTokenPos,
 	}
 	if weights := collectionQueryByWeights[collection]; weights != "" {
 		params.QueryByWeights = stringPtr(weights)