diff --git a/src/renderer/src/lib/palette-match/palette-assignment-ranking.ts b/src/renderer/src/lib/palette-match/palette-assignment-ranking.ts
index 64b9bb76b7a..202beb7c84b 100644
--- a/src/renderer/src/lib/palette-match/palette-assignment-ranking.ts
+++ b/src/renderer/src/lib/palette-match/palette-assignment-ranking.ts
@@ -34,10 +34,23 @@ function phrasePlacement(field: PaletteIndexedField, normalizedQuery: string): n
   if (text.startsWith(normalizedQuery)) {
     return 0
   }
-  for (const word of field.words) {
-    if (text.startsWith(normalizedQuery, word.start)) {
+  // Merge the ordered occurrence and word-start streams: occurrences only count at word
+  // starts, so each side advances monotonically and never rescans the other.
+  let index = text.indexOf(normalizedQuery, 1)
+  let wordIndex = 0
+  while (index !== -1) {
+    let wordStart = field.words[wordIndex]?.start
+    while (wordStart !== undefined && wordStart < index) {
+      wordIndex += 1
+      wordStart = field.words[wordIndex]?.start
+    }
+    if (wordStart === undefined) {
+      break
+    }
+    if (wordStart === index) {
       return 1
     }
+    index = text.indexOf(normalizedQuery, wordStart)
   }
   return 2
 }