Should have read my own comments in the manual.
https://b2evolution.net/man/search-form-widget
https://b2evolution.net/man/search-results-other

Fiddling with the scores will not resolve the issue.

My problem is I used the plural 'pears' and not pear. It seems the engine will not automatically look for whole words as a priority, which would be a nice idea. It is a bit off when the score for parts of a word outweight those for the whole word.

If you enable debug mode while searching , you will get plenty of info on how the scores are calculated.

Yes we should do word matching.

After all these years I've never used the debug mode, scared of what I may find.

Thanks.

Where exactly is the search algorithym? I know I could look for it :)

OK Have just tried it. By the way I will propose a change to the manual.

The result confirms my suspision, a lot of weight is given to the last date the item was modified. There could be a choice on such options. I know it make sthe search more complicated, maybe.

Extra points for [last_mod_date]

8 points. Rule: The number of points are calculated based on the days passed since creation or last modification
days_passed < 5 => ( 8 - days_passed )
8 <= days_passed < 8 => 3
when days_passed >= 8: ( days_passed < 15 ? 2 : ( days_passed < 31 ? 1 : 0 ) )

Total: 16 points

This is the best result. Percentage value is calculated based on the number of matching words and matching quoted terms.
Note: In case of the number of matching words even case insensitive partial matches are counted.

Hi. It may be worth noting, or reminding users, that if the search keyword is placed in quotes with a space before and after, the results are as expected. I have noted this in the manual ~ with spelling mistakes that can't be edited by me :(

It may be a nice idea to have two options on the search widget [Full] and [Partial] that may popup when hovering over the [Search] submit button. Hmm! Searching for (Sea, or ear, would give . . . . )

Ideas for a user friendly option would be appreciated :)