Things were working fine, but for example when searching for Michael Jackson the lookup tool has put him with the least priority?
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Apparently you are using the “direct search” option. Please switch back to the indexed search and things should be working fine again.
The direct search is an historic, simplistic search option that is still available as a fallback when the indexed search isn’t working fine either because the search server is not responding (very rare, mostly for maintenance) or because the search index is incomplete or partially up-to-date (which is effectively the case for a low number of entries only).
It is briefly documented under Search - MusicBrainz. However the user interface isn’t very clear about it. We already had [MBS-12789] Clarify search methods on search page - MetaBrainz JIRA. Thanks to your feedback, I also opened [MBS-12797] Clarify search methods in editing search field options - MetaBrainz JIRA.
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Ah! Good spot, that makes sense - here I was wondering if it was because I’m on a different machine today that I haven’t used in a while 
Indeed I also use direct search when I want only strict match of all words when searching, without having to add AND operators, as it’s its default mode.
It’s very useful when linking publishing labels or writers I don’t know very well for sure.
It usually gives me just 1 result or a very few results, instead of pages.
As indexed search, it also uses the aliases.
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You can do the same and even better using advanced indexed search; Compare:
- Default indexed search with
Michael Jacksonresults - Advanced indexed search with
artist:"Michael Jackson"results - Direct search with
Michael Jacksonresults
So direct search wouldn’t be needed for that if the editing search field had an option to make narrower search.
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I would not have difficulties with this specific artist, but here is just a random example, to see what I mean:
In CJK scripts, each character is a word in the search, which is normal, still.
I totally understood what you meant. No problem with this example either:
What I’m suggesting is to have a strict mode based on Solr instead of the slow and costly direct search.
More generally there is a lack of UI around indexed search fields to make these easier to use.
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Yeah, having a checkbox for “exact match only” seems like the easiest way to solve this particular issue, I guess?
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I’m fine with switching between direct and advanced/indexed, depending on my search needs. 
Yes, but we want to stop allowing use of direct as a basic option because it requires a lot more server work, hence making it easier to have a version of indexed that effectively does the same thing
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Ah ok I see.
I can help testing if needed. 
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