Have you ever had trouble searching for something on our site because you've received too many search results? Well, things have become a lot easier thanks to our new "exact phrase" search function.

Let's say you're looking for the boy group WaT. Last week you'd select "People" from the pull-down menu, type "WaT" into the search box, and get over ten pages of results featuring "WaT," DJ Watarai," and fifty or so different people with the last name "Watanabe."

This is called an "inclusive" search because your search results include every entry that includes the word "WaT." Believe it or not, this is usually the sort of search you want. Let's say you're looking for "Miles Davis," you might also want "Lee Konitz & Miles Davis" or the "Miles Davis Quintet." Inclusive searches are convenient in almost every case.

. . . Every case except short names like "WaT." Well, all that has changed thanks to our new "exact phrase" search function. By searching via "exact phrase" you can receive only the results that exactly match you're entered phrase. That means "WaT" without the "Watanabe," and "UA" without being told you've received too many results.

How do you "exact phrase" search? the search bar at the top of each of our pages now has three pull-down menus: "People," "All," and "Contains." Click on the "Contains" pull-down, select "Exact Phrase," and search! And if you like the search as it was, the system defaults to "Contains" (the original inclusive search) so you don't have to use "exact phrase" search if you don't want to. Yay!

"Exact Phrase" also works with our other search functions like "Album/Movie Titles" and "All," so if you've had trouble sifting through too many search results, defintely give it a try.

- Dan out