diff --git a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/hnsw/HnswGraphSearcher.java b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/hnsw/HnswGraphSearcher.java
index 98c00ebb75ff..499a09ac9e26 100644
--- a/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/hnsw/HnswGraphSearcher.java
+++ b/lucene/core/src/java/org/apache/lucene/util/hnsw/HnswGraphSearcher.java
@@ -191,7 +191,7 @@ public static NeighborQueue search(
     return search(query, topK, vectors, graph, graphSearcher, acceptOrds, visitedLimit);
   }
 
-  static <T> NeighborQueue search(
+  private static <T> NeighborQueue search(
       T query,
       int topK,
       RandomAccessVectorValues<T> vectors,