When I type a name or title, in some cases I go directly to the page I want, but often I need to choose again from an intermediate page. Why?

This happens when there are more than one person or title matching the search you've typed in.

If you type a unique name or title (like "Anthony Minghella" or "Glengarry Glen Ross") you are taken directly to the page for that person/film because there's only one page that matches the request.

But if the name is not unique, you need to choose between the available multiple entries. For example, we have over 100 different people called "John Smith" in the database. When someone tries to look up the exact name "John Smith", they will then need to browse through the list of results to choose which one they meant.

Even when there's apparently only one person with that name, the search string may still match more than one entry. For example, there's only one director called "Ron Howard" but there are actually two people and two films with the phrase "Ron Howard" in their names or title; therefore looking up "Ron Howard" will always return an intermediate search results page.

Please note that our numerical URLs are fixed and unique, so you can safely bookmark them or link to them. For example, you can link or jump straight to Mr. Howard's page by going to:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000165/

Our numerical URLs are fixed and unique, so if you can safely bookmark them or link to them.

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