Advanced Search Options

What are the advanced search options?

Default Forrester search makes assumptions to improve result relevancy for your search query. These assumptions – that take the form of text preprocessing, personalization, and inferring intent – can interfere with some search use cases. Advanced Search removes all assumptions and lets you specify exactly how you want search to behave.

What advanced search operators can I use on Forrester?

The sections below outline the advanced search operators Forrester provides to refine your search queries.

Title Search

A “Title:” search will trigger a query which calculates result relevancy by matching only to the title of research content available.

“AND” Search

Case sensitive. Forces both terms surrounding the “AND” to be present in all results. Using “+” instead of “AND” will provide the exact functionality. For example, every search result will include the terms “digital” and “benchmarks”, albeit not combined.

“OR” Search

Case sensitive. Default Search behavior. One of the terms on either side of the “OR” must be present in all results. Using “|” instead of “OR” will provide the exact functionality. For example, all search results will contain the terms “digital” or “benchmarks”, and not the combination of the two.

“NOT” Search

Do not show any results that contain the term after the “-”. Make sure there is NO SPACE between “-” and the term to be excluded from the search query. For example, all search results will only include the term “digital” and omit the term “benchmarks”.

Forced Term

Surrounding a word or phrase in quotes forces that word or phrase to appear in every search result. For example, every search result will be based around the combined terms “digital benchmarks”, not “digital” and/or “benchmarks” on their own.

Date Range

Search queries that include dates will automatically filter results for content with the corresponding publish dates. Refine search queries by adding the desired publish date month and year (e.g., January 2023) or range (e.g., Jan 2023 to Mar 2023).

“GROUP” Search

Surrounding a word or phrase with () will apply anything that precedes or follows those terms. For example, -(abc OR xyz) ensures that the results never contain the term ‘abc’ nor the term ‘xyz’.

Example: What research has Forrester published on Palo Alto Networks but excludes anything about acquisitions or sales?

• Search Query: “Palo Alto Networks” -(acquisition OR sale)
• These results will only return content that contains the exact phrase “Palo Alto Networks”, and will NOT include either the term “acquisition” or the term “sale”

Example: What research has Forrester published on “mobile” or “platforms”?

• Search Query: mobile platforms
• These results will be sorted by relevancy and include the terms ‘mobile’ or ‘platforms’ or terms that are like each of these terms. If you wanted to search for the phrase “mobile platforms” surround it with quotes. If you want results that include both of these terms, use the AND operator. Both mobile AND platforms, and mobile+platforms would work.

How can I see content published within a specific date range?

Example: What research has Sucharita Kodali published in March 2023?

1. Search Query: Kodali March 2023
2. Result: Sucharita Kodali’s research, webinars, and other content published in March 2023

Example: What research has Sucharita Kodali published between January and March 2023?

1. Search Query: Kodali Jan to Mar 2023
2. Result: Sucharita Kodali’s research, webinars, and other content published between January and March 2023

Are there any words that trigger search filters without me knowing?

Yes, there are several “magic words” related to research types and analyst names that automatically trigger search filters.

• Research Types: Wave, New Wave, Landscape, Forecast, Technographics, Consumer Technographics, Business Technographics
• Analyst Names: Unique names (e.g., Julie Ask) and unique partial names (e.g., Pfeiffer, Schadler)
• Dates: Publish date month and year (e.g., January 2023, Jan 2023 to Mar 2023)

When executing these searches, the results will always be date sorted, newest first, unless an additional search term is added.

How can I see the latest research by an analyst?

Example: What research has Emily Pfeiffer published in the last 6 months?

1. Search Query: Emily Pfeiffer
2. Search Filter: Date Range, “Last 6 months”
3. Result: Emily’s research, the most recent first, limited to the last 6 months

How can I see the latest research by an analyst on a particular topic?

Example: What has Julie Ask written about mobile?

1. Search Query: Julie Ask mobile
2. Result: These results will be sorted by relevancy, not date, as an extra query has been added to the analyst’s name.

How can I see all Waves written by an analyst?

Example: What waves has Ted Schadler written?

1. Search Query: Schadler Wave
2. Result: All Waves published by Ted Schadler, the most recent first

How can I see all Waves written by an analyst on a particular topic?

Example: What Waves has Shar VanBoskirk written on Marketing?

1. Search Query: Shar Wave Marketing
2. Result: These results will be sorted by relevancy, not date, as an extra query has been added to the analyst’s name and Forrester product type.