Match threshold
The similarity score at or above which two records are treated as the same thing. Pairs scoring below it are left as separate records.
Raising the threshold gives fewer wrong merges and more missed duplicates; lowering it does the reverse. Many processes use two thresholds, with the pairs that fall between them sent to a person.
Where it comes up
- Near-duplicate recordsTwo rows describe the same real thing but differ enough that an exact comparison misses them.
- Name variantsThe same person or organization appears under several spellings, orders, and abbreviations.
See also
- Fuzzy matchingComparing two pieces of text for similarity instead of exact equality, so that Jon Smith and John Smith count as close.
- False positiveA case that a check or matching step flagged wrongly: two different people treated as one, or a correct value reported as an error.
- False negativeA real case that a check or matching step failed to flag: two records for the same customer left unmatched, or a wrong value that passed validation.