diff --git a/r2/r2/controllers/front.py b/r2/r2/controllers/front.py
index c5ec7fed2..f12f9a037 100644
--- a/r2/r2/controllers/front.py
+++ b/r2/r2/controllers/front.py
@@ -1034,6 +1034,9 @@ class FrontController(RedditController):
         else:
             sr_num = 0
 
+        if feature.is_enabled('link_relevancy') and sort == 'relevance':
+            sort = 'relevance2'
+
         content = None
         subreddits = None
         nav_menus = None
diff --git a/r2/r2/lib/providers/search/cloudsearch.py b/r2/r2/lib/providers/search/cloudsearch.py
index f4a5cea74..0df174218 100644
--- a/r2/r2/lib/providers/search/cloudsearch.py
+++ b/r2/r2/lib/providers/search/cloudsearch.py
@@ -547,7 +547,7 @@ class CloudSearchQuery(object):
 
     def __init__(self, query, sr=None, sort=None, syntax=None, raw_sort=None,
                  faceting=None, recent=None, include_over18=True,
-                 rank_expressions=None, start=0, num=1000):
+                 rank_expressions=None, bypass_l2cs=False, start=0, num=1000):
         if syntax is None:
             syntax = self.default_syntax
         elif syntax not in self.known_syntaxes:
@@ -574,6 +574,7 @@ class CloudSearchQuery(object):
         else:
             self.sort = self.sorts.get(sort)
         self.rank_expressions = rank_expressions
+        self.bypass_l2cs = bypass_l2cs
 
         # pagination
         self.start = start
@@ -595,9 +596,18 @@ class CloudSearchQuery(object):
         if self.syntax == "cloudsearch":
             self.bq = self.customize_query(query)
         elif self.syntax == "lucene":
-            bq = l2cs.convert(query, self.lucene_parser)
-            self.converted_data = {"syntax": "cloudsearch", "converted": bq}
-            self.bq = self.customize_query(bq)
+            # For the most part, conversion to cloudsearch structured query syntax
+            # is not needed, except for fielded searches using ":" and boolean
+            # searches using AND/OR/NOT (in order to avoid transforming the query)
+            lucene_operators = (':', ' AND ', ' OR ', ' NOT ')
+            if (self.bypass_l2cs
+                    and not any(op in query for op in lucene_operators)):
+                self.q = query.encode('utf-8')
+                self.bq = self.customize_query()
+            else:
+                bq = l2cs.convert(query, self.lucene_parser)
+                self.converted_data = {"syntax": "cloudsearch", "converted": bq}
+                self.bq = self.customize_query(bq)
         elif self.syntax == "plain":
             self.q = query.encode('utf-8')
             self.bq = self.customize_query()
@@ -712,6 +722,7 @@ class LinkSearchQuery(CloudSearchQuery):
     search_api = g.CLOUDSEARCH_SEARCH_API
     sorts = {
         'relevance': '-relevance',
+        'relevance2': '-relevance2',
         'hot': '-hot2',
         'top': '-top',
         'new': '-timestamp',
@@ -734,6 +745,12 @@ class LinkSearchQuery(CloudSearchQuery):
     known_syntaxes = g.search_syntaxes
     default_syntax = "lucene"
 
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        if kwargs.get('sort') == 'relevance2':
+            kwargs['bypass_l2cs'] = True
+            kwargs['raw_sort'] = '-relevance2'
+        super(LinkSearchQuery, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
     def customize_query(self, bq=u''):
         queries = []
         if bq: