Enabling exact matches for full text searches

Enabling exact matches functionality is available only for on-premises deployments.

Action Request System returns search results that exactly match the phrase in a quoted string even if the quoted string contains words included in the Ignore Words List. An ignore word is a commonly used word for example, "the" that a search engine ignores, when indexing entries for searching and when retrieving them as the result of a search query.

When exact matches for full text searches are enabled, inconsistencies in search results are eliminated, and exact matches are returned instead of other related search results.

Example

Consider a scenario where you search for the phrase "out of memory". The search results containing the phrases "Lost my memory the other day", "That was a bad memory", and "My computer is out of memory" are returned. This is because "out" and "of" are ignore words defined in the Ignore Words List. So, these ignore words are considered as placeholders and search results that are similar to the searched phrase are returned instead of an exact match.

However, after you enable the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting, only the search result with the phrase "My computer is out of memory" is returned.

Related topics

Configuring-full-text-search-for-a-server-group

Configuring-the-Ignore-Words-List-for-FTS-indexing

As an administrator, you can use the AR System Administration Console to enable the setting to support exact matches for Full Text Search (FTS) and Multi-Form Search (MFS) for quoted strings even if the quoted strings contain the ignore words. 

To enable the setting for exact matches for FTS and MFS:

  1. Open AR System Administration Console.
  2. Select System > General > Server Information.
    The Server Information page is displayed.
  3. On the FTS tab, select the Support Exact Matches for Phrases check box.
    The following warning message is displayed:
    Selecting this option will result in a significant increase in the size of the full text indexes because the Ignore Words List will not be used during indexing. (ARWARN 47032)
    22_1_FTS_support_for_exact_match.png
  4. Click OK and then click Apply.
  5. Click OK.
    Exact matches for full text searches are enabled on all indexing servers.

Alternatively, you can enable this setting from AR System Management Console.

Click here for instructions...
  1. Select AR System Management Console > AR System Server Group Console.
    The Server Group Dashboard page is displayed.
  2. Click FTS Management.
  3. On the FTS Management page, in the Configuration section, click Advanced.
    The advanced options for FTS are displayed.
  4. Select the Support Exact Matches for Phrases check box.
    The following warning message is displayed:
    Selecting this option will result in a significant increase in the size of the full text indexes because the Ignore Words List will not be used during indexing. (ARWARN 47032)
  5. Click OK.
  6. Click Apply.
    Exact matches for full text searches are enabled on all indexing servers.

By default, the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting is disabled. This setting is applicable only for the indexer server. The searcher server does not have any impact. This setting is defined per server locally and not as a global setting. If you want to define this setting at a global level, you must set the value of this setting on each server and then move this setting at a global level. If you have multiple indexer servers, and you set the value of this setting to True only on a particular server, you might notice inconsistent search behavior. To avoid this, you must ensure that this setting has the same value on all servers.

Warning

When you enable this setting from AR System Administration Console, reindexing is activated on the local server (the server that is currently connected to AR System Administration Console) if that server is a full text indexing server. If the local server is not an indexing server, reindexing is not activated. Hence, as an administrator, you have to manually perform reindexing as appropriate.

Conversely, when you enable this setting from AR System Management Console, it directly contacts each indexing server in the server group and activates reindexing on each server. This action starts all reindexing at the same time. We recommend that you enable this setting from AR System Management Console only if full text searching can be unavailable on all indexing servers at the same time.

Troubleshooting

After you enable the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting:

  • There can be a significant increase in the size of full text indexes because all words in the Ignore Words List are indexed. Also, there might be an increase in the time taken for reindexing. If the increase is problematic, disable the Support Exact Matches for Phrases setting. We recommend that you analyze the cost versus benefit to determine if this setting should be enabled.
  • The search performance might be affected to some extent because of the increase in the index size. We recommend that you compare the benefit to the decrease in performance and determine if this setting should be enabled.

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*