Finding Positions With MATCH

If INDEX grabs a value by position, MATCH does the opposite job: it tells you what position a value sits in.

You hand MATCH a value to look for and a range to search, and it returns a number, the position where that value was found.

MATCH does not return the value itself, only its location. That number is exactly what INDEX needs to do its work.

MATCH takes three arguments:

• lookup_value — the value you want to find
• lookup_array — the range to search through
• match_type — how to match: 0, 1, or -1

A typical call looks like =MATCH("Cherry", B2:B6, 0). The trailing 0 means "find an exact match."

Almost always you will use 0 for everyday lookups.