# How to set multi\_match default to phrase instead of best\_fields in Kibana?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-multi-match-default-to-phrase-instead-of-best-fields-in-kibana/370555>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [November 14, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-multi-match-default-to-phrase-instead-of-best-fields-in-kibana/370555 "2024-11-14T13:24:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Leonardo\_Santos](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/leonardo_santos/32/139224_2.png) [@Leonardo\_Santos](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Leonardo_Santos)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-set-multi-match-default-to-phrase-instead-of-best-fields-in-kibana/370555/1 "2024-11-14T13:24:56Z")

</div>

Hi there,

I've observed that most of my users are searching in Kibana with queries like `my nice query`, which expands to a `multi_match` search with `type: best_fields`, triggering separate searches for each token in the phrase and impacting performance at peak times.

However, after analyzing audit logs, it seems that most of the time users actually intend to search for the exact phrase, `"my nice query"` (or `message: "my nice query"`). I’ve already configured `index.query.default_field` to `message`, so explicitly specifying `message:` isn’t necessary.

Is there a way, either in Elasticsearch or Kibana, to adjust the default `multi_match` type from `best_fields` to `phrase`, or alternatively, to fully disable `best_fields`?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Kind regards,