# How do you do “exact phrase” searches on this board? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [October 17, 2006, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806 "2006-10-17T18:01:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jebert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ec9cab/32.png) [@jebert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jebert)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2006, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/1 "2006-10-17T18:01:15Z")
The search function on SDMB finds threads with any of the keywords entered. There are times when I want to find something with all the keywords or the exact phrase. Google lets you use quotes for an exact phrase, but that doesn’t work here. How does one do it? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/2 "2006-10-17T18:05:19Z")
You don’t. Unfortunately, the search engine is not that sophisticated. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/3 "2006-10-18T04:13:32Z")
[QUOTE=jebert] How does one do it? [/QUOTE] Boolean search using AND, NOT, OR works for me. e.g. _exact AND phrase_ returns this thread, _exact NOT phrase_ does not return this thread in the search result. Let me know if it works for you. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/4 "2006-10-18T04:29:32Z")
That doesn’t quite do the trick, although it’s better than a simple keyword search. AND will return all the threads containing both terms, whereas a simple search will return threads containing either term alone or both. What it won’t do is return threads with that exact phrase, necessarily. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/5 "2006-10-18T05:09:26Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] That doesn’t quite do the trick, although it’s better than a simple keyword search. AND will return all the threads containing both terms, whereas a simple search will return threads containing either term alone or both. What it won’t do is return threads with that exact phrase, necessarily. [/QUOTE] You need to put an AND between each word in your phrase: e.g. _exact AND phrase AND search_ will return this thread, _exact AND phrase NOT search_ will not return this thread. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/6 "2006-10-18T05:25:35Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] What it won’t do is return threads with that exact phrase, necessarily. [/QUOTE] True. Using boolean may return threads containing all the words not necessarily in that exact order. Bonus boolean operator: you can use \* e.g. _exa_ AND phrase AND search\* will still return this thread. Note that ex\* will not work because vB considers ex\* as being below the 4 char minimum for a search term. ---
**Author:** ![jebert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ec9cab/32.png) [@jebert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jebert)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/7 "2006-10-18T17:38:47Z")
OK. Boolean search is better than nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-do-exact-phrase-searches-on-this-board/376806/8 "2006-10-18T17:51:35Z")
**Xash** and I talked about this briefly last night. The reason this issue exists is because of the way the board uses indexed searching. Indexing is a way of making searches easier and therefore less server-intensive. It works much like a library’s card catalog; instead of having to search the entire library book by book to find a particular title, you only need to look it up in the catalog which will tell you exactly where the book is located. The indexing system on the boards is similar. I don’t know the exact structure of the index, but basically it will be a list of words and each word will have a list of threads in which it is used (and possibly other information, such as the number of times a word is used in a given thread). In any case, since the indexing doesn’t index phrases, there’s no way to have it return exact phrase matches. You’d have to do a hard search, which is exactly what the indexing system is supposed to eliminate.