Article updated: May 01, 2024
Advanced searches in Insights
Advanced searches in Insights are searches that contain detailed search criteria, so you can find the most relevant mentions for your topic. The more narrow your search terms, the more accurate your results will be.
Start by entering the most common terms, keywords, and phrases that people use when talking about your topic. Run a quick search to see the results that come up, and then use Boolean operators to filter out irrelevant results.
Insights displays an alert for any search queries that contain formatting errors so you know what to fix.
Search query operators
Insights supports a wide range of search query operators to help you find the most relevant mentions for your search.
Search terms are not case-sensitive (unless you use the { } operator, as described in the following table). If you're searching for a phrase that contains spaces, enter it in quotation marks.
The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions based on keywords and content.
| Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| " " | Matches term(s) exactly as specified. |
Finds mentions that contain the exact phrase "apple juice". |
| AND | Matches mentions that include both specified terms. AND must be uppercase. |
Finds mentions that contain "apple" and "juice" on the same page. Mentions with only one of these terms are excluded. |
| OR | Matches mentions that include at least one of the specified terms. OR must be uppercase. |
Finds mentions that contain "apple" or "juice". |
| NOT | Matches mentions that do not include the specified term. NOT must be uppercase. |
Finds mentions of "apple", as long as "juice" is not mentioned on the same page. |
| () | Groups terms together so that a single operator can be applied to everything in the brackets. |
Finds mentions that contain "apple" and "juice" on the same page, or mentions that contain "apple" and "sauce" on the same page. |
| NEAR/n | Indicates the number of words that can separate the specified terms for a match. This operator is available for saved searches only. |
(apple OR orange) NEAR/5 (smartphone OR phone)Finds mentions of "apple" or "orange" that occur within five words of "smartphone or "phone". |
| ~ | Indicates how close the specified terms need to be to each other for a match. Terms must appear in the order specified. Place the tilde after a phrase in quotation marks, followed immediately by a number. |
Finds mentions of the phrase "apple juice" and mentions where "apple" and "juice" appear within at most five words of each other (for example, "This drink was made with fresh apple, orange and pear juice"). |
| { } | Indicates that the specified term is case-sensitive, and only works for words with five characters or less. If you specify a word with more than five characters, the query finds mentions with any upper or lower case spelling of the word. |
Finds mentions where “BT” appears in uppercase (not “bt” or “Bt”). |
| ? | Matches mentions that contain the term, with any letter where the "?" appears, to accommodate for spelling variations. |
Finds mentions that contain any variation of the word customize (for example, customize and customise). |
| * | Matches mentions that contain the term, with any number of characters where the "*" appears. If you place the "*" at the end of a term, the search finds variations of the root term. |
Finds mentions that contain variants of the root term (for example, educate, educated, education, and so on). |
| Accent |
Matches mentions that contain the accented spelling of the term. Searches with non-accented terms match on accented and non-accented spelling of the specified term. Use the NOT operator to exclude specific accented words (for example, Nino NOT Niño). |
Finds mentions that contain the accented spelling of the word "niño" (but not, for example, nino). |
| <<<>>> | Indicates the text inside the angle brackets is not part of the search (for example, a comment after a section of the query). |
Ignores the text inside the angle brackets. |
The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions by location. See this XLSX spreadsheet for a complete list of location codes.
Note: For the region: and city: location operators, not all mentions contain granular location metadata. Where location is unavailable, the location defaults to the country where the site domain is registered.
| Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| continent: | Matches mentions from a specific continent. continent: must be lowercase. |
Finds mentions of "apple juice" that have been identified as originating from Europe. |
| country: | Matches mentions from a specific country. country: must be lowercase. |
Finds mentions of "apple juice" that have been identified as originating from the UK. |
| region: | Matches mentions from a specific region. You can use the region operator to specify a state, region, or province. region: must be lowercase. |
Finds mentions of "apple juice" that have been identified as originating from Florida. |
| city: | Matches mentions from a specific city. city: must be lowercase. |
Finds mentions of "apple juice" that have been identified as originating from Melbourne, Australia |
|
latitude: longitude: |
Matches mentions coming from specific coordinates. You can use the latitude: and longitude: operators alone or in combination with each other. |
Finds mentions of "apple juice" that have been identified as originating from the geographic area corresponding to the specified latitude and longitude coordinates. |
The following table lists the operators you can use to filter mentions by source.
| Operator | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| language: | Matches mentions in a specific language. Insights uses the ISO 639-1 codes to indicate language. |
Finds mentions that contain the word "apple" and that are in the French language. |
| site: |
Matches mentions from a specific website. Use the site: operator with the NOT operator to exclude mentions from a specific site. When you specify the site, you must include the top-level domain (for example, .com or .co.uk). Do not include “www” before the domain name. The site: operator searches the top level of a domain. Use the url: operator to search for mentions in a particular part of a site. |
Finds mentions of “apple juice” on Twitter. |
| url: | Matches mentions from a specific page on a site. Use quotation marks to specify the URL. Do not include “www” before the domain name. |
Finds mentions of "John Smith" on the news section of the MSN website. |
| links: | Matches mentions that contain a link to a specific website. |
Finds mentions of "Rivian" that also contain a link to the Bloomberg website. |
| title: |
Matches mentions from sites with specific words in the webpage title. Use the title: operator with the NOT operator to exclude mentions from pages with a specific word in the title. |
Finds mentions where “apple juice” appears in the page title. |
| author: | Matches mentions from a specific author. The operator matches exact spelling only. |
Finds mentions by any author named janesmith. This operator matches exact author names only (for example, janesmith95 would not be matched). |
| subreddit: | Matches mentions from a specific subreddit. The subreddit operator is case-sensitive. |
Finds mentions from the "r/nba" subreddit. |
| subredditTitle: | Matches mentions from subreddits with a specific word in the title. The subredditTitle operator only applies to recent mentions (within the last 30 days). |
Finds mentions from any subreddits with "basketball" in the title. |
Advanced search examples
The more granular you make your search query, the more relevant the conversations you'll be able to surface. You can use a combination of the operators described in the previous tables to refine your search and narrow down your results.
A good practice is to test your query as you build it, and then assess the results of your search. You can then refine your query to filter out irrelevant mentions, or to find mentions that your current query isn't catching.
In this example, the search query captures mentions for "Marriott" and one of its hotels across the web.
Specifically, this example query searches for:
- mentions that contain any common variations of the brand's name
- mentions that refer to the brand's website
- mentions posted by the brand's own social handles
- Twitter @mentions of the brand's social handle
- branded hashtags shared on social media
Finally, the query excludes irrelevant mentions that contain words related to the brand name.
Marriott OR "Residence inn" OR "Fairfield Inn & Suites"OR links: marriott.comOR site: marriott.comOR author: (MarriottIntl OR Marriott)OR @MarriottIntl OR @MarriottOR #Marriott OR #LetYourMindTravelNOT ("Willard Marriott" OR "Bill Marriott"
In this example, the search query finds mentions for "Marriott" that include specific references to some of the services offered by the brand.
Specifically, this example query searches for mentions that contain:
- the brand name and its services
- the brand name and its pet-friendly policy
- the brand name and specific amenities
We avoid more generic context terms like "luxury" and "beach" to avoid irrelevant data. After testing the query, you can determine the best context terms to use with the brand name to capture the most relevant mentions.
(("marriott") AND (yoga OR massage OR facial OR spa OR "hot stone" OR pets OR "pet friendly" OR dogs OR cats OR fitness OR gym OR "business center" OR "reception rooms"))
In this example, the search query looks for mentions across all content sources related to self driving vehicles. The complexity of this query reflects all the ways that people talk about "vehicle" and "self driving".
For example, the sample search query uses:
- the AND operator to find mentions that fit the most obvious and specific descriptors for self-driving vehicles
- the OR operator with a wide range of terms commonly used to describe a "vehicle" to broaden the search and capture mentions not returned by the first clause of the query
- the NOT operator to exclude terms that are not relevant to the search intent.
(("self driving" OR autonomous OR driverless) AND (Car OR vehicle OR auto OR suv OR suvs OR "sport utility vehicle" OR sedan OR sedans OR "mini van" OR minivan OR miniaturevan OR truck OR pickuptruck OR "Pickup truck" OR pickuptrucks OR "pickup trucks" OR hybrid OR "two door" OR "2 door" OR 2door OR twodoor OR 2doors OR twodoors OR "four door"))NOT (AI OR "Artificial intelligence" OR artificialintelligence)
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