The search type Precise looks for exact and very close matches to the search criteria. Very close matches are those where the first name and surname are inverted or the first name searched is in the middle name field on a profile.

For example:

Search	Match	%
David Cameron	David Cameron	100%
David Cameron	David William Donald Cameron	100%
David Cameron	Bruce David Cameron	96%

Precise does not look for linguistic matches.

Precise does not find a match if there are typos in the searched name or if characters are transposed between the name searched and the name on the profiles.

For example searching Sani Abatcha would not find the record for Sani Abacha, searching David Caberon/David Camreon would not find the profile for David Cameron, David William Donald Cameron or Bruce David Cameron.

Precise is useful for focusing on the closest match to a name.

The search type Near goes beyond Precise to look for linguistic matches such as phonetic and transcription variations and long and short forms of names. It can match common numbers with words and symbols in entity names. It can also match typos in words of a certain length.

For example:

Variation	Search	Match	%
Phonetic	Elizabeth Whyte	Elisabeth Whyte	96%
Transcription	Boris Jelzin	Boris Eltsin	94%
Transcription	Abdülaziz Buteflika	Abdelaziz Bouteflika	90%
Transcription	Mijaíl Sergéyevich Gorbachov	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev	92%
Transcription	Lyu Youqing	Lu Youqing	94%
Transcription	Somsak Kietsuranon	Somsak Kiatsuranont	94%
Short/long form	Joe Allman	Joseph Allman	90%
Entity abbreviation	Aberdeen Management Ltd.	Aberdeen Management Limited	98%
Common number/symbols	1st Transport Management OJSC	First Transport Management OJSC	99%
Typo*	David Caberon	David Cameron	77%

^{*Typos are only tolerated on names over five characters long if another name element is a 100% match. Otherwise typos are only tolerated on Near on name elements over seven characters long.}

On the Search tab, if one element of a person’s name is entered Near will look for that name in the Surname field.

Please note: owing to the characteristics of different scripts, not all of the above variations apply to all scripts.

Near is recommended to take advantage of the linguistic search capability.

Near finds close and feasible matches.