---
title: Searching for a phrase
slug: '1686'
canonical_url: https://docs.coveo.com/en/1686/
collection: searching-with-coveo
source_format: adoc
---
# Searching for a phrase
You probably encounter cases where you want to find [index](https://docs.coveo.com/en/204/) [items](https://docs.coveo.com/en/210/) containing a specific phrase, sentence, or sequence of terms, rather than sparse occurrences of the [keywords](https://docs.coveo.com/en/2738/) throughout the index items.
You can use a phrase match [query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/181/) to find such index items.
Phrase search isn't case-sensitive.

In the search box, type the phrase, sentence, or term sequence that you want to find, surrounded by double quote marks, and then click **Search**.

For example, `"financial statements of the United Oil company"` only returns index items containing the exact phrase or sentence.
Items containing sparse or shuffled occurrences of the keywords aren't returned.

> **Tips**
>
> * Don't use double quotation marks for a single term.
> Instead, use the `+` prefix to [search for an exact term](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1815/).
> 
> * You can use straight (`" "`) or alternate pairs of left and right quote marks (such as `“ ”` or `« »`) to enclose phrases.

Alternatively, you can use any one of the contiguity operators (`. : / \ _ - '`) between keywords for which you want to only find contiguous occurrences.
All these characters have the same effect, so you can use any of them.

For example, `financial.statements-of\the_United:Oil/company` is equivalent to `"financial statements of the United Oil company"`.

Similarly, `financial_statements United_Oil` yields the same results as `"financial statements" "United Oil"`.
Only index items containing contiguous occurrences of the exact words _financial_ and _statements_ as well as contiguous occurrences of the exact words _united_ and _oil_ are returned.

> **Notes**
>
> * If you're searching for error messages that contain several special characters while [query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/181/) is enabled, you might not receive the expected results.
> Like in the previous examples, [query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/181/) can interpret the special characters as contiguity operators, and the query will return results for matching phrases instead of error messages.
> To get the expected results, you can disable [query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/181/).
> See [Query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1552/) and the [`enableQuerySyntax` component options](https://coveo.github.io/search-ui/components/querybox.html#options.enablequerysyntax) for more information.
> 
> * Since the January 2016 version of the Coveo Search API, exact phrase search is always available, even when the Coveo [query syntax](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1552/) ([`enableQuerySyntax` option](https://coveo.github.io/search-ui/components/querybox.html)) is disabled by the search page developer.

If you have querying issues, see [Troubleshoot querying issues](https://docs.coveo.com/en/1870/).