Matching Whole Words Only in a Lookup / Search Function

[cquest]

I am using the following formula to find a value from a large set of "reference values" within contents of a cell, and return that value if found:

=LOOKUP(2,1/ISNUMBER(SEARCH(Reference!$A$2:$A$8838,Conversion!$A2)),Reference!$A$2:$A$8838)

In the attached spreadsheet this formula is in column B of the Conversion sheet. The problem is that I need the formula to match only whole words within the cell it is searching for the values. Right now it just finds that string of text anywhere which is returning me the wrong values.

Is this possible?


On a side note, basically what I need is a way to find some alternate or variation of a model number within a string of text and return my variation of that model number. If anyone knows of any other software, formula, add in, etc. that can set up a bunch of rules for converting variations of a data values into another data value on a mass scale that would be what I need.

Thank you!