title: Ignoring Blanks in an index / rank in Google Sheets
body: <p>I have the below formula which looks up a value of a cell in a column (B3:B14), based on a column of random (rand()) values (J3:J14)-</p>
  
  <pre><code>=INDEX(Wordlist_Upper!$B$3:$B$14, IF(Wordlist_Upper!$B$3:$B$14&lt;&gt;"", RANK(Wordlist_Upper!J7, Wordlist_Upper!$J$3:$J$14)))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This works fine however it sometimes returns blank values as some of the content of cells B3:B14 may be blank.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to instruct it to only return values if the cells contain something (ie. ignore blank cells within the range B3:B14)?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE: I've tried adding <code>IF(Wordlist_Upper!$B$3:$B$14&lt;&gt;""</code>, in the middle, but it still returns blanks</p>