# Search Tips

By default, Sayari Graph runs your search terms against key attribute fields of the entities in our database – currently name, address, identifier, contact information, and position – and simultaneously against the text of those fields in source records, as well as the text of unstructured records (e.g. company meeting minutes or trade register gazettes). The Entities and Records tabs allow you to toggle between the two sets of results, and the Advanced Search and results filters offer additional controls.

We recommend that users become familiar with search operators.

# Operators

# Quotes

" " Quotation marks around more than one term requires an exact phrase, e.g. "apple computer"

# Plus

+ Plus before a term requires it with that exact spelling, e.g. +apple. This is applied by default to all terms in your search

# Hyphen

- Hyphen before a term requires that the result not have that term, e.g. -ibm

# Tilde

~ Tilde after a phrase in quotes allows one or more terms between the words in the phrase, e.g. "big house"~3 returns results that must have big and house, but there can be up to three words between them. Tilde after a word without quotes and followed by a number specifies per-character fuzziness, e.g. sayari~3 returns results with sayari and anything up to three characters different. Fuzzy searches take longer to complete, and will be truncated if they return excessive numbers of results.

# Asterisk

* Asterisk at the end of a word acts as a prefix search, e.g. appl* would return Apple and apples, but also application and apply

# Parentheses

( ) Parentheses around one or more search terms allows separate simultaneous queries, e.g. (apple "infinite loop") | (ibm Armonk) returns results that must contain both the name and headquarters address of either Apple or IBM

# Backslash

\ Backslash before an operator character treats it as text, not as an operator, e.g. \~ returns results that literally contain the ~ tilde character

# Pipe

| Pipe between two terms allows for either term, e.g. birthday | party returns results with either birthday or party