The following thesaurus clean-up rules should be observed to avoid performance problems related to expensive and non-useful thesaurus search query expansions.
top = shirt = sweater = vest
This increases the number of results the user has to go through while reducing the overall accuracy of the items returned. In this instance, better results are attained by creating individual one-way thesaurus entries between the general term top and each of the more-specific terms.
Adam and Eve = Eve
If users type Eve, they get results for Eve or (Adam and Eve) (that is, the same results they would have gotten for Eve without the thesaurus). If users type Adam and Eve, they get results for (Adam and Eve) or Eve, causing the Adam and part of the query to be ignored.
You can use stop words in multi-word thesaurus forms, because multi-word thesaurus forms are handled as phrases. In phrases, a stop word is treated as a literal word and not a stop word.
Aethelstan, King Of England (D. 939) = Athelstan, King Of England (D. 939)should be replaced with the single-word form:
Aethelstan = Athelstan
Pikes Peak -> Pike’s Peakshould be used only if the apostrophe (') is enabled as a search character.