Cluster Merge Rules are those rules which take a cluster as input and produce a record which is a condensed or single view of that cluster. These rules are defined as part of a system. This section contains some examples of these rules. All the rule types can be use in combination and are order dependant.

The Rules are processed in the order listed, removing candidates at each step unless all candidates are removed. Processing stops when a unique record is found, or if the end of the rules is reached. If the end of the rules is reached, and no unique record is found, the first of the remaining candidate records is selected and the result is flagged as ambiguous.

It is also possible for the rules to fail to find a result for one or more columns. This occurs if no rule matches any candidate. One such rule where this can occur is the other column equals rule. When no candidates matches the value stored in this rule it will fail to generate a result and the result will be flagged as such.