Not matching purchased songs in iTunes match

Question

I purched a sampler of sons from iTunes, but when I signed up for iTunes Match it did not match this sampler album.

Answer 1

Bob Clark wrote:
Problems include:
- over 1000 songs labeled uploaded when they should be matched.
- often some songs from the same album are matched and others uploaded
- albums purchased from the itunes store sometimes show some songs matched, some purchased, some ineligible, and some removed, sometimes all for single album.
These are realities of the iTunes Match service. No, that isn't satisfying, I agree. However just because a track is available in the store does not mean that track will "match" to what is in your library. Apple's matching algorithyms are based on a variety of criteria which we have been able to determine include the waveform of the song, file size, song length and probably other things we are not aware of. If a track doesn't meet these criteria it isn't matched.
As to why purchased music might be "matched" instead of "purchased" this is a little easier to answer because it is directly related to what is available in your store purchase history. So if you have an album that has 6 "purchased" tracks and 2 "matched" this generally means the tracks are no longer in your purchase history. Even if that same album is available in the store it may not be the same files you originally purchased. For example I have a copy of The Rolling Stones' Black and Blue in my library that I purchased from the iTunes store. This album is still on the store, but it is no longer in my purchase history because the copyright owner made changes at some point and remove the exact version of the files I originally purchased. So now this album in "matched" in my library and it not available for me to download it again. Again, this is frustrating and not satisfying and I voiced my extreme displeasure to the iTunes Store rep that I was originally working with about this policy but it is what it is and there's not anything I can do about it so I live with it and make sure I have backups.
The hiding/unhiding trick can sometimes work to restore missing tracks to albums in your purchase history but my success rate has been rather low. YMMV.
So, if you are looking at iTunes Match with the expectation that it will "match" 100% of the non-iTunes purchases in your library you will be disappointed. At this time there really is no way for and end-user to force a song to "match."