Search query language

Boolean operators, query limits, symbols, letter case, etc.

Ekaterina Gordienko avatar
Written by Ekaterina Gordienko
Updated over a week ago

The language for search queries consists of boolean operators, which are intended to:

  • specify the distance between keywords

  • clarify the search terms

  • exclude certain words from monitoring


Basic operators in YouScan:

Logical operator

When to use

Example

What you will get

OR

To list all the possible spellings of the object

colgate OR colgete OR colgait OR colgatetotal

Mentions with any of these spellings

AND

To link selected words or word combinations, only search sentences where these words appear together.

puma AND sneakers

Discussions specifically about Puma sneakers

/N distance between words

To set a specific distance between the words in the search query

hand /2 cream

There can be 1 word between the keywords. Cream for hands or hand cream

( ) brackets

To group words to make operators work for all words inside the brackets

(Ferrari OR McLaren OR Mercedes) AND racecar

Mentions that contain the name of any of these racecars

" " quotes

To find a word or a phrase in precise order and form

"La Roche Posay"

Mentions with exactly the same brand spelling

AND NOT

To exclude mentions with certain phrases or to add stop words to the particular part of the query

(burger OR hamburger) AND NOT mushroom /2 sauce

Mentions about burgers and hamburgers without mentions of mushroom sauce

- stop words

To exclude mentions with specific words

Mask -movie -"Jim Carray"

Mentions about the movie "The Mask" will be excluded, leaving all the rest of the mentions about masks

*

To find all variants and forms of words without writing them down separately. The asterisk in a wildcard matches any character zero or more times.

comp*

comp* matches anything beginning with comp which means comp, complete, and computer are all matched.

<<< >>>

To add comments to the search query.

<<< this part of the query helps to find references to competitors >>>

If your query is complex, you can add comments into different sections, to make it easier for your colleagues to understand the purpose of the words or symbols used.

💡 Tips for basic operators

  • To find words that appear side by side in the text, use the /1 operator. This way, you will find mentions where there is only a space between the keywords.
    For example, coca /1 cola.

  • /N operator sets the distance but does not fix the word order.

  • The space between the words in the query equals the AND operator.

  • We allow wildcards in topic queries only after at least 4 characters. Thus c*mp is not allowed. While comp* is allowed.

Advanced operators in YouScan:

  • Advanced and Author-based operators work as filters for a specific part of your query only.

  • Activate operators by pressing CTRL + Space for Windows or Option + Space for macOS.

Logical operator

When to use

Example

What you will get

country:

To collect mentions only from a specific country

sneakers AND country:US

Mentions with the phrase “sneakers” that have been identified as from country “US”

language:

To collect mentions in a specific language only

sneakers AND language:ENG

Mentions with the phrase “sneakers” that are in a specific language “ENG”

source:

To monitor only certain sources (e.g.: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc)

sneakers AND source:twitter.com

mentions from a particular source “twitter.com” with the phrase “sneakers”

sourceType:

To monitor specific types of sources (e.g.: social networks, news, blogs, forums etc)

sneakers AND sourceType:
reviews

mentions that have the phrase “sneakers” with a specific source type “reviews”

postType:

To collect only specific types of posts (e.g.: comments, posts, reposts, extended reposts)

sneakers AND postType:post

mentions that have a particular post type “post” with the phrase “sneakers”

contentType:

To collect only specific type of content (e.g.: images)

sneakers AND contentType:
image

mentions of a specific content type “image” with the phrase “sneakers”

Author-based operators:

Logical operator

When to use

Example

What you will get

author.nickname:

To find mentions posted by authors with specific nicknames

author.nickname:
"vancityreynolds"

Mentions of authors with vancityreynolds nickname

author.name:

To find mentions posted by authors with specific names

author.name:(Ryan /1 Reynolds)

Mentions by all authors that have Ryan Reynolds in their name, like Ryan Reynolds or Ryan Reynolds Fans

publicationPlace.
nickname:

To find post from pages with specific nicknames

publicationPlace.
nickname:Nelflix*

Mentions from Nelflix publication places

publicationPlace.
name:

To find mentions posted on pages with specific names

publicationPlace.

name:
(Liverpool /4 fan)

Mentions from publication places that contain Liverpool fan name

💡 When you write an author's nickname, enclose it in quotation marks to ensure that you only find the nickname in the correct form. Put the author's name in brackets to combine their first and last names and avoid searching for their correctness.

Author-based operators available only for users with Audience Insights add-on:

Logical operator

When to use

Example

What you will get

author.bio:

To find mentions posted by authors with specific words or combinations of words in their bio

author.bio:(nutritionist OR dietitian OR health /2 coach)

Mentions of users who have the words nutritionist, dietitian, health coach in their bio

author.age:

To collect authors' mentions in a specific age range

author.age:[18 .. 30]

Mentions from authors' age from 18 to 30

author.gender:

To collect mentions of authors with a specific gender detected

author.gender:female

Mentions of all genders except for male

author.subscribers:

To collect mentions of authors with a specific range of subscribers

author.subscribers>1000

Mentions from author with more than 1000 subscribers

author.interests:

To collect mentions of authors with specific interests

author.interests:football OR basketball

Mentions from author who are interested in football or basketball

author.
interestCategories:

To collect mentions of authors with specific interest categories

author.interestCategories:
sports

Mentions from author who are interested in sports

author.occupations:

To collect mentions of authors with specific occupations

author.occupations:
designer

Mentions from author whose profession is designer


Peculiarities of the search query in YouScan

👉🏻 The system recognizes additional symbols, including #, @, %, +, $, etc. This means you can write words, and brand names with all the necessary symbols.

  • You can search for words with additional symbols:
    @nike, #apple, $PYPL

  • You can search for a specific username or person's name with just one character difference: Leo /1 Messi can find @leo_messi, #leo_messi, leo-messi, LeoMessi, #Messi #Leo

  • You can now even track email addresses with our search:
    @tesla.com can find support@tesla.com or director@tesla.com

  • To exclude email addresses from the query, list them with @, without quotes:
    -@gmail.com -@hotmail.com

👉🏻 The maximum size of a search query is 10 000 characters.

👉🏻 Search queries are not case-sensitive, so you can use capital or lower-case letters.

👉🏻 YouScan automatically finds the mentions in different forms. If you want to find a word or phrase in a fixed form, use quotes "".

Read more about how to create a new monitoring topic here.

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