Use Advanced Search

Use search operators and the advanced search filter to get relevant results faster.

SearchUnify provides three Boolean operators, an exact match capability, and two wildcards—for terms and characters.

Fig. A snapshot of an advanced search query.

The query [# content NOT source] finds all those documents that have the keyword content but don't have the keyword source.

An operator works on the word following it. To use an operator on a phrase (more than one word), either enclose the phrase in double quotes or use parenthesis. Examples:

Advanced Search Query Returns Documents with the Terms Returns Documents without the Terms
[salesforce NOT "search engine"] salesforce "search engine"
[salesforce NOT search engine salesforce search
engine
salesforce NOT (search AND engine) salesforce search
  engine

Search Operators

AND or &&

Returns documents containing the terms or phrases on the left and right of AND. The operator is interchangeable with &&. Although AND is used in the examples, you can swap it with && without impacting search.

Examples:

[# content AND source AND DYNAMICS]

Find documents that have all three keywords in them: content, source, and dynamics, irrespective of the order.

Case has no impact on search. DYNAMICS, dynamics, Dynamics, and dYNaMiCs are all processed identically.

[# "content source" AND dynamics]

Find documents that have the phrase content source and the keyword dynamics.

A second way to run a phrase search is to use parenthesis. (content source) AND dynamics finds all the documents that have the phrase content source and the keyword dynamics.

[# content source AND dynamics]

Find documents that have the keyword source and the keyword dynamics.

The phrase content may or may not be present in the documents found.

[# content source AND dynamics client]

Find documents that have two keywords. The first is either content or source and the second is either dynamics or client.

OR or ||

Finds documents containing either of the terms or phrases around OR. The operator is interchangeable with ||. Although OR is used in the examples, you can swap it with || without impacting search.

[# searchunify OR su OR SFY]

Find documents containing at least one of those three keywords: searchunify, su, and SFY.

OR can be clubbed with ANDfor complex queries, such as blog AND (searchunify OR su) returns documents which have blog and either searchunify or su.

SearchUnify processes uppercase and lowercase words in the same manner, so there is no difference between SFY, sfy, and SFy.

[# "content source" OR dynamics]

Find documents that have the phrase content source or the keyword dynamics or both.

A second way to run a phrase search is to use parenthesis. (content source) OR dynamics finds all the documents that have either the phrase content source or the keyword dynamics or both.

[# content source OR dynamics]

Find documents that have either a keyword from content and source or the keyword dynamics.

[# content source AND dynamics client]

Find documents that either of two keywords. The first is either content or source and the second is either dynamics or client.

NOT or Hyphen (-) or Exclamation (!)

Excludes documents that contain the term or phrase followed by NOT. The operator is interchangeable with - and !. Although NOT is used in the examples, you can swap it with - or !without impacting search.

[# Release NOT Mamba] or [# Release NOT Mamba]

Finds documents that have the keyword Release but not the keyword Mamba.

[# Salesforce Service NOT Console]

Finds documents that have either Salesforce and Service but not Console.

However, Console NOT (Salesforce Service) finds documents but not Service Services.

Keywords between double quotes and parenthesis are considered as exact phrases.

[# Salesforce NOT Services NOT Console]

Finds documents that Salesforce but neither of Services and Console.

Double Quotes (" ") 

Double quotes are used to look up phrases as they are.

[# "install searchunify"]

Finds documents that have the phrase install searchunify in that specific order.

A document with only the phrase searchunify install is not returned.

Question Mark (?) and Asterisk (*)

The question mark is a placeholder for a character and the asterisk for a phrase.

# a?l

Finds documents with three letter words where first letter is A and the last letter is L.

The second letter can be any letter or number.

Therefore, each of the following keywords match all, awl, and AOL.

# search*

Finds documents with keywords that have the query search in them.

When search* is run, documents with the keywords, such as searches, searching, and searched, are returned.

Plus (+)

Limits the search to documents that contain the term or phrase following +.

# mamba +23

Find documents that necessarily have the keyword "23", along with "mamba".

Hash (#)

Turn off synonym search. Assume that "tool" and "machine" are synonyms in an instance. In the first example, looking up "tool" brings results contain "tool" and its synonym "machine." 

Fig. A search query without the hash. Synonyms search works.

Prefixing a query with a hash turns off synonym search.

Fig. A search query with the hash. Synonyms search doesn't work.

Advanced Search Form

The most frequently used operators have been added to the Advanced Search Form.

  1. Run a search.

  2. Click on Advanced Search to view the Advanced Search Form.

  3. Use the following options to refine your query:

    • With the Exact Phrase

      The query is searched exactly as entered. For example, a search for "recognise" will not find documents using the spelling "recognize."

    • With One or More Words

      Returns all documents containing any of the words from the multi-word query. For example, "fast food" will return documents containing "fast," "food," and "fast food."

    • Without the Words

      Excludes documents containing the specified terms. This is equivalent to adding a hyphen before a query in the search box. For example, "fast -food" finds documents that mention "fast" but do not mention "food."

    • With the wildcard search

      The asterisk (*) in a query is replaced by any word. For example, "search *" matches "search clients" and "search analytics."

    • With all the words

      Returns only documents that contain all the entered words, regardless of the word order.

  4. Click Refine Search to run an advanced search.

You can enter your query in more than one field in the Advanced Search form. In case of a logically incorrect query, you will see the following message: "No results found (logical conflict)".

An example of a logically incorrect query is to have the same query in the field "With all the words" and in "Without the words".

Fig. A snapshot of a logically incorrect query in Advanced Search.

Impact on Analytics

Advanced searches are always marked with a hashtag (#) in Search Analytics.

Fig. A snapshot of a logically incorrect query in Advanced Search.

Other Features

Here are the other features available on a search results page.

View Search Tips

Click Search Tips on your search results page to view tips that will help you search more efficiently. The Search Tips are dynamic. If Hybrid Search is turned on, then the Search Tips are different from when the Hybrid Search is turned off.

Right Click Options

Note: This feature works on all search clients except the Salesforce Console search client.

When you right-click (on a computer) or long press (on a mobile) a search result, a customized SearchUnify menu appears. The menu replaces the browser’s default menu and offers the following options:

  • Open link in new tab: Opens the search result in a new browser tab. Opening a link in a new tab counts as a stage-one conversion and is recorded in the Search Analytics reports.

  • Open link in new window: Opens the search result in a new browser window. Opening a link in a new window counts as a stage-one conversion and is recorded in the Search Analytics reports.

  • Preview article: Opens a preview of the article. This option is visible only if the Preview function is enabled. To learn more, see Preview Search Results

  • Summarize result: Displays a summary of the text contained in the search result. This option is visible only if the Summarize function is enabled. To learn more, see Summarize Results

  • Save result: Bookmarks the search result for quick access later. For more information, see Save Search Criteria and Queries in Bookmarks

  • Copy link address: Copies the link address to your clipboard.

The new menu provides a comprehensive view of user engagement in search results.

Fig. A snapshot of the right-click menu from the search results page.

Open Results in New Tab

Results open in a new tab when the left mouse button is pressed and released. To open a result in a new background tab, press the mouse wheel. Right clicking on a result shows the browser menu.

Results Per Page

View up to 25 results right on the first search page, up from the default 10. Scroll down to find Results Per Page and select a value from 10, 15, 20, or 25. The settings will be saved in session history. It means that you will see the preferred number of results during the entire session.

Fig. A snapshot of the search results page, when Results Per Page is 10 (left) and 15 (right).

To return to the default number, start a new session. The setting is available on all search clients and works on all devices. You have already seen Results Per Page on desktops. The next images show how Results Per Page looks like on mobile devices and in Salesforce Console.

Fig. Results Per Page on mobile devices (left) and in Salesforce Console (right).

Facet Search

Facets are a great way to narrow the scope of your search. If you cannot find a facet value immediately, use the search function ().

Note: When a user clicks a tab, all previously selected filters are cleared. Search clients do this to avoid "No Results" searches, which harm the overall search experience. A user's query combined with a selected filter may not always return relevant results within a specific content tab.

  1. Run a search.
  2. Click .

  3. Find your facet value and check it.

Search Terminology

  • Term: A string delimited by space characters.
  • Phrase: An array of terms.
  • File: A Microsoft Word document, PDF, webpage, image alt-text, issue, ticket, meta data, or any piece of content that can be crawled and indexed.