How Search Breaks Up Information

To efficiently store and find information, the search engine breaks up record content into smaller pieces, called tokens. The tokens are stored in the search index. See how common types of information, including emails, websites, and phone numbers are tokenized.

Here are some examples of the tokens created and indexed from record information. You can find a record with a search using any token listed.

Note
Note Alphanumeric terms are split at letter-number boundaries. Terms with non-alphanumeric characters, such as punctuation marks are split at the non-alphanumeric characters into alphabetic, numeric, and alphanumeric tokens.
Record Information Indexed Tokens

Web2Lead

web2lead

web

2

lead

Acme, Inc.

acme

inc

Exhibit-XYZ1234

exhibit-xyz1234

exhibitxyz1234

exhibit

xyz1234

xyz

1234

+1 (555) 123-4567

1(555)123-4567

15551234567

5551234567

1234567

john.smith@domain.com

john.smith@domain.com

@domain.com

john.smith

john

smith

johnsmith

domain.com

domain

com

domaincom

Tokenization Search Tips

  • If your search contains punctuation, such as commas, or special characters, and you’re not getting the expected results, add white space before, after, or in place of the punctuation and special characters.
  • When searching for a record using a phone number:
    • Enter a complete number. Searching for part of a phone number doesn’t always return the results you expect. For example, you search for 567 to find the phone number 1(555)123-4567. Search doesn’t find a result because it breaks up the number as 1, 555, 123, 4567. If you search for 4567, you get the expected result.
    • When you add a phone number to a record, include the country code before the number to ensure expected results.
  • With the autonumber or ID field type, tokenization removes all the zeros. For example, when you search XXXX000012, search breaks up the term as XXXX, 00000012, and 12. Keep in mind, you can’t search for a term less than 1 character long.
  • How a record is broken up can differ depending on the field. For example, a record's phone number field can be tokenized differently from one in a Chatter post.
  • For searches in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai (CJKT), the search engine returns accurate results using a special form of tokenization.
Record Information Indexed Tokens
東京都 (Tokyo Prefecture)

東京 (Tokyo)

都 (Prefecture)