Unable to get Confluence to search for an exact word
Asked by Rhys:

I'm trying to perform a straightforward specific word search in Confluence but the search return backs results that are are additionally a subset of that word. For example, I'm trying to search for the word 'Tagging' but the results returned are for both 'Tagging' and 'Tag' which is not what I want.

As an alternative I've tried using the search term 'Tagging NOT Tag' but this does not work.

Any advice?


Answers:
author: Alex Medved _ConfiForms_
body: Hi

I think, this is what happens - <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-69222>

We suffer from this issue on server (there is a similar ticket on this for Confluence server, which is 11 years old)

Alex

comments: author: Rhys
body: Hi, reading through the Jira ticket, I undertand this has been an outstanding Confluence issue for years.

I now have a good workaround, by typing: "T?gging" (with a question mark). This pulls back only the records I want.

Thanks!


author: Alex Medved _ConfiForms_
body: We have had recently the requirement to search (exact search) for "relationshipism". I dont even know what that term means, but it seems there is one and it was important to return the matches for "relationshipism" and not (for example) for "relationship" or anything a like.

And no... we have not been able to :(

But I have checked that using "r?lationshipism" works for us as well :-) Thanks a lot for sharing!

However, it would be hard to explain to end users...


author: Robby Holtmann_IntraFind Software AG_
body: Hi Rhys,

if you interested on a high qualtiy search solution for Confluence, [iFinder Confluence Search](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1220508/ifinder-confluence-search?hosting=server&tab=overview) is available at Atlassian Marketplace. You can start directly with a trial.

Our [article](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Enterprise-Search-for-Confluence/ba-p/1584172) in the Atlassian community will give you more information. If you like a demo first, please contact us at atlassian@intrafind.com


author: Anne-Kathrin Menzel
body: Hi there,

regarding your search problem I would recommend you to have a look on our plugin - see here: [https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1222773/intergator-search-for-confluence?hosting=server\&tab=overview](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1222773/intergator-search-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview) .

On our website you'll also find further information --\> [https://www.intergator.de/en/solutions-and-showcases/use-cases-with-intergator/enterprise-search-atlassian-confluence/](https://www.intergator.de/en/solutions-and-showcases/use-cases-with-intergator/enterprise-search-atlassian-confluence/%C2%A0)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Kind regards,

Anne


author: Andrew Dildy
body: Hi Rhys,

To exclude other word forms (words with the same lemma), you can put your search term in quotes. So in your case, searching for

```
"tagging"
```

will exclude results that only contain tag.

If you want results that explicitly contain tagging and not tag, you could do

```
"tagging" NOT "tag"
```

comments: author: Rhys
body: Hi, after reading the response of Alex (another contributer), it really appears that Confluence is unable to search for an exact word only. So using the phase "tagging" NOT "tag" ought to work but it does not as it still returns results from both words.

The answer I've found is to use the search term: "T?gging" (with a question mark). This pulls back only the records I want.


author: Andrew Dildy
body: The ticket linked is specifically regarding exact match for special characters. The behavior I described above should work with your example since it doesn't contain special characters.

If you're still having issues, please reach out to our support team and they can help you more directly.


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