It is important to configure Match Studio to best suit the goals of any given search. This might mean minimizing false negatives at the expense of increased false positives, or vice versa. A false negative is a name that does not match with the searched name when it should. A false positive is a name that does match the search name when it should not.
Whether two names match or not depends on the match threshold. The match threshold is a configurable value percentage at or above which two names are considered a match. The default match threshold is 70%. This means, for example, that two names with a match score of 60% would not be considered a match, but two names with a match score of 80% would be. A match threshold that is too high increases the risk of false negatives, while a match threshold that is too low increases the risk of false positives.
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Select the Search tab from the navigation bar.
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Select Search for the quickstart index.
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Type "Heart Kirsten" in the Name field.
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Ensure that the Business field is blank.
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Select Search. The best result is "Kristy Hart".
Their match score of 62% is below the default threshold of 70%, but it isn't hard to see why one might want to match these names up. The names are spelled slightly differently and out of order, but phonetically they are very similar. We could easily make them match by changing the match threshold.
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Select the gear icon next to the Run Search button to Configure this index.
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Select the Results Pane tab beneath the index name.
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Change the Match Threshold value to 62%.
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Select Save.
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Select Search in the upper-right corner to return to the Search page.
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Search for "Heart Kirsten" in the Name field. The "Kristy Hart" match score is now green, indicating a match.
The problem with decreasing match threshold to force a match between two names is that it increases your risk of false positives without actually tuning Match Studio to better suit your search goals. Later in the tutorial, we will look at how Evaluations can help us determine the ideal match threshold. For now, let's reset the match threshold to the default value.
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Select the gear icon next to the Run Search button to Configure this index.
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Select the Results Pane tab beneath the index name.
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Change the Match Threshold value back to 70%.
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Select Save.
The Search Configuration page also has options to edit the display threshold and choose a match configuration. The display threshold's function is very similar to that of the match threshold, only instead of determining whether a name matches for a searched name, it determines whether a name appears in the list of results for a searched name. We will learn about match configurations later in the tutorial.