12. The method of claim 9 , where the documents are HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) documents.
9. A method performed by one or more server devices, comprising: identifying, using a processor of the one or more server devices, a semantic structure associated with terms in a plurality of documents, where a plurality of rules are associated with the semantic structure, and where the semantic structure includes a list including a header and a plurality of items associated with the header; locating, using a processor of the one or more server devices, a first term and a second term occurring within the list; selecting, using a processor of the one or more server devices and based on a relationship of the locations of the first and second terms, at least one of the plurality of rules, as a selected rule, to be used in determining a distance value between the first and second terms; where a first rule of the plurality of rules is selected when the first term is located in one of the plurality of items and the second term is located in a different one of the plurality of items, where a second rule of the plurality of rules, different than the first rule, is selected when the first term is located in one of the plurality of items and the second term is located in the same one of the plurality of items, and where a third rule of the plurality of rules, different than the first rule and the second rule, is selected when the first term is located in the header and the second term is located in one of the plurality of items; determining, using a processor of the one or more server devices when the first and second terms occur in a search query, the distance value, between the first and second terms within the semantic structure, using a function that is based on the selected rule, where the function differs based on whether the selected rule corresponds to the first rule, the second rule, or the third rule; ranking, using a processor of the one or more server devices, the documents for relevancy to the search query based on the determined distance value; and outputting, using a processor of the one or more server devices, the rankings of the documents in response to the search query.