User acceptance of a given data extraction template and the number of data fields that the data extraction template can extract accurately is used to calculate data extraction template ranking, or a ranking score, to be associated with the data extraction template. Then the data extraction template having the highest data extraction template ranking score is used in a first attempt to extract data from a source documents of the source document type associated with the data extraction templates. As more data extraction templates associated with a given source document type are received, data extraction template ranking scores are updated/modified, and, in one example, the data extraction templates having the lowest data extraction template ranking scores are detected/eliminated.