Search results: Exact alias ranked lower than "sequence within a longer term"

MusicBrainz
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State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov” has a (very useful) alias - GASO.

A search for either Artist “GASO” or "GASO " has the orchestra ranked last in multipage search results behind Artists such as The Megasong Project, Eiríkur Hreinn Helgason

The desired result is it that exact matches will be listed before “sequence within a longer term” matches.

The current ranking behaviour degrades the usefulness of Aliases, and increases the likelihood of naming errors by Editors.

The search result ranking is influenced by the presence of the term in the disambiguation. String Ensemble of the Grand Symphony Orchestra (apparently a subgroup of GASO) is ranked 5th of results.

A search of MetaB Tickets gives no obvious matches.

Is this a bug or a misunderstanding on my part?

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This search issue seems very similar to:

About your specific example, the main factor probably is that “GASO” is an alias of random type among numerous other aliases while primary aliases are preferred over other aliases when it comes to search.

Orchestra can be found using advanced query syntax artist:GASO alias:GASO at least.

There are potentially several ways to improve the current situation:

  1. Add an alias type “acronym” and raise its score in search results.
  2. Add different search modes to match different “expectations” such as
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Thanks yvanzo.

Are there sound reasons why “GASO”, " GASO", " GASO " & "GASO " are (?) treated the same way in searches?

(?) That orchestra now has GASO in its disambig and that gets it a #2 ranking in search results.
I’ve ruined “GASO” as a research tool. :cry:

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Because white space is considered as a word separator, leading and trailing white spaces are removed.

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Couple of oddities to add to this:

  • If an "Alias£ is searched for, then the real name is shown as the result and not the search term. This could be tricky if trying to find a release put out by a band under their alias. The person searching may not know that band’s real name.

  • Why are “Artist Credits” not part of this search?

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Unless you mean something different by “artist credits not part of this search”.

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Haha - thanks @chaban, I should have guessed I wouldn’t be spotting something new. I’ll stop reporting this stuff as everything I notice seems to have been there for six years. :smiley:

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