Feature request: Allow to bury documents and fields in search result

[martinbira]

Description

This is a request to enable a document/page or field to be buried in a search result, as in the opposite to boost.

Use case

A bury function is useful in cases where a document, or field (section), is superseded with either new functions, a new versions, or is deprecated and still should be searchable, but not shown high up in a search result. An example for this is when page or section titles are identical but older versions are deprecated and the newer version should be presented:

Page 1: /api/v3/queries/autocomplete/ Page 2: /api/v2/queries/autocomplete/ Page 3: /api/v1/queries/autocomplete/

When a visitor searches for autocomplete we would like to present the latest version first, bury the v2 page a bit and bury the v1 page even more.

Why not just boost the new page?

As pages can share titles and be present in different sections, such as /guides/integration/autocomplete, or /features#autocomplete, we shouldn't have to boost these other pages and sections to the same level of the latest API page for them to rise above the older API pages. From a long term perspective it is also more likely that a document or section that has been buried should remain buried. Continuously managing positive boost levels in large products to mitigate what a bury would solve permanently is also quite cumbersome.