Lucene Phrase

The 'Phrase' property defines the exact sequence of words that must appear together in the target text for a match to occur. Phrase queries are enclosed in quotation marks in Lucene syntax and are used to find multi-word expressions, names, or other specific text sequences.

• Enter the phrase exactly as it should appear, including spaces and punctuation if required.
• Phrase queries are case-insensitive by default in Azure AI Search.
• Use phrase queries to avoid false positives from documents containing the words separately but not together.

Example:

• To find John Smith as a phrase: "John Smith"
• To find total amount due: "total amount due"

Use phrase queries when word order and adjacency are important for your search scenario.

The 'Proximity' property enables flexible phrase matching by allowing the words in the phrase to appear within a specified distance of each other, rather than requiring them to be adjacent. This is useful for finding related terms that may be separated by other words in the text.

• Set this property to a positive number to specify the maximum word gap allowed between phrase terms.
• In Lucene syntax, proximity is indicated by a tilde (~) followed by the number (e.g., "hotel airport"~5).
• If left blank, only exact phrase matches are found.

Example:

• To find hotel and airport within five words of each other: "hotel airport"~5

Use proximity to accommodate variations in document text where words may not always appear together.

The 'Boost Factor' property allows you to increase the ranking of documents that contain the specified phrase, making them appear higher in search results. Boosting is useful when certain phrases are more important or relevant to your search scenario.

• Set this property to a positive number greater than 0. The default is 1 (no boost).
• In Lucene syntax, boosting is indicated by a caret (^) followed by the boost value (e.g., "recently renovated"^3).
• Higher values increase the impact of the phrase on ranking; values less than 1 reduce it.

Example:

• To boost "recently renovated" by a factor of 3: "recently renovated"^3

Use boosting to prioritize key phrases or terms that are most relevant to your search goals.

The 'Field Name' property specifies the field in the Azure AI Search index to which the search expression applies. Fielded search operations use the fieldName:searchExpression syntax, allowing you to target specific fields for more precise results.

• Set this property to the name of a searchable field in your index.
• If left blank, the search applies to all searchable fields.

Example: genre: jazz NOT history artists:("Miles Davis" "John Coltrane")

Use quotation marks for multi-word phrases and ensure the field exists in your index schema.

The 'Not' property enables exclusion logic in the search query, allowing you to filter out documents that match the specified criteria.

• Set to true to prepend NOT to the search expression.
• Useful for refining results by excluding unwanted terms or phrases.

Example: "Oklahoma City" NOT Edmond This query finds documents containing "Oklahoma City" but not the term "Edmond".

Note: Queries with a single negation (e.g., NOT "Oklahoma City") are not allowed in Azure AI Search.