Azure AI search Synonyms map is not working

Question

Azure AI search - synonyms map is not working

i have synonym map in azure ai search like below

ups, uninterruptible power system => uninterrupted power supplies

i have indexed data with Type(field) with value as 'uninterrupted power supplies'.

if i search 'ups' , it is mapping to 'uninterrupted power supplies' ans returning the result.
but if i search 'uninterruptible power system' , it is not mapping to 'uninterrupted power supplies' and returns no result .

single words synonym-> working

multiple word synonym -> not working

need technical support to fix this issue ASAP.

Answer 1

Hi @Giri Dharan,
The issue you're having with multi-word synonyms not working in Azure AI Search is likely due to how Azure handles tokenization and synonym expansion. Single-word synonyms work fine, but for multi-word synonyms, you need the right formatting. In Azure AI Search, multi-word synonyms must be in double quotes ("") to be recognized correctly. Update your synonym map to: 

sqlCopyEdit"ups, \"uninterruptible power system\"" => "uninterrupted power supplies"

 After updating the synonym map, make sure to re-index your data since changes won't apply to already indexed documents. Also, Azure AI Search tokenizes before matching synonyms, so check if your analyzer is splitting terms differently. You can debug this with the Analyze API (/indexes/{index-name}/analyze) to see how tokens are processed.

This issue has come up in other forums, where users faced challenges with multi-word synonyms. The recommended approach is to ensure proper formatting in the synonym map and validate tokenization.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51200616/synonym-maps-in-azure-search-synonym-phrases?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Azure AI Search Synonyms documentation.
Let mi know if you have any further assistances.
Please accept the answer, so that others can get help from it.