Searching with Dynamic Content

The Dynamic Content search feature lets you perform basic searches, for example sale, and more advanced searches using wildcard characters and parameters, for example deliveryKey:"home*".

When you search for content with Dynamic Content, the following characteristics apply:

• Search is performed in the context of the currently selected repository or folder. When searching in the context of a folder, subfolders are not included.
• Each word in a search term must contain at least 3 letters or numbers to start matching with content. See Searching for part of a word
• Results of searches are returned ordered by relevance. Where a match is found in an item name it is listed before matches found within the content.
• Search is not case sensitive. Entering Glasses and glasses returns the same results.
• Search works in combination with filters. For example, if you have set a filter to show items updated in the last 7 days, the search is restricted to those items only. See Filtering.

Basic search

A basic search is simply one that doesn't include any parameters.

When you enter a basic search term, the search looks in the name and body of content. It also checks content IDs, but not delivery keys.

Here's a simple example searching for the word sunglasses. Note one of the items doesn't contain sunglasses in its name, however it's included in the search results because the word sunglasses is within the actual content.

When you enter a search phrase, the search will look for content that includes all of the words in your phrase, in any order.

For example, the phrase summer sale will return content items that contain both the words summer AND sale, as shown in the table below.

Content name results for summer sale	Reason content is returned
Summer fashion picks	The name contains summer and the body contains sale
Spring Sale now on!	The name contains sale and the body has the word summer
Get ready for our Summer sale	The name contains summer and sale
White dresses for all occasions	The content body contains summer and sale

Expand your search

To expand a basic search, put your search phrase in quotes, like this: "Summer sale". This way, you'll get results that include either the word summer OR sale.

Searching for specific content names

To find content with a specific name, for example, Summer collection sale, you need to use an advanced search parameter, like this label:"summer collection sale".

Read more about searching with parameters.

Searching for part of a word or string

Searching for part of a string, finds results when your search term matches the start of a string. For example, searching for glass or glasses will find:

• red-glasses
• glasses-with-frames
• glasseswithframes

But doesn't find:

• sunglasses

Each word in a search term must have at least 3 letters or numbers to provide enough context for searching. For example, you can enter June sal to find content named June sale. However, entering June s or June sa will not find any matches.

tip

To find part of a word in content names we recommend using the label parameter with a wildcard. For example, label:"*glasses". See parameter searches.

Advanced search

From the content library in Dynamic Content, you can perform targeted searches using search parameters and wildcards. The parameters can be combined with each other and use wildcards.

Parameters

To search for specific names and delivery keys, you can use label and deliveryKey parameters in your searches. Note, the label parameter corresponds with the content name property.

Parameter name	Example
label	label:"summer-sale"
deliveryKey	deliveryKey:"homepage-banner"

The complete list of parameters that can be used with search is:

label, deliveryKey, text, contentType, contentRepositoryName, contentRepositoryId, status, folderId

In addition to using parameters, you can also use Dynamic Content filters to narrow your search for facets such as content type and status.

This search example uses a parameter to find items with summer in their name AND a delivery key containing sale. The search term is: label:"summer" deliveryKey:"*sale*", and there is one matching content item.

Wildcards

Wildcard characters give you greater control with your searches.

Searching for part of a parameter value

Use the * wildcard character to search for part of a parameter value.

These examples use the * wildcard with a parameter to search for content with the delivery keys: home-page-sale, home-page/sale-banner, sale-banner.

To find delivery keys...	Search term	Finds item with delivery key
Ending with sale	deliveryKey:"*sale"	home-page-sale
Starting with sale	deliveryKey:"sale*"	sale-banner
Containing sale anywhere	deliveryKey:"*sale*"	home-page-sale, home-page/sale-banner, sale-banner

Excluding content from a search

Use the - to exclude content containing specific words or terms. For example, typing guide -buying will find content that contains guide, but will exclude any content that contains buying.

Combined parameter searches

Parameters can be used on their own and in combination with other parameters. Each parameter can be used once only in a search statement.

When searching with several parameters, you can refine your results by using AND and OR.

• To use AND leave a space between parameters. Items must meet both criteria of the AND to be returned in the search results.
• To use OR put a comma (,) between values. Items can meet one or the other of the criteria to be returned by the search.

These examples show how to use AND and OR with search parameters:

To find items containing...	Enter
A name starting with sale AND a delivery key including home	label:"sale*" deliveryKey:"*home*"
A name containing sale OR offers and a delivery key including home	label:"sale,offers" deliveryKey:"*home*"

These examples show how to combine basic searches with parameters and wildcards. In the examples, summer is the basic search, with parameters appended to it.

To find items containing...	Enter
summer AND a name starting with sale	summer label:"sale*"
summer AND a name containing sale AND a delivery key starting with home	summer label:"sale" deliveryKey:"home*"
summer AND a name starting with sale OR denim AND a delivery key starting with home	summer label:"sale*,denim*" deliveryKey:"home*"

Special characters

Dynamic Content search assigns the following characters as 'advanced search characters':

Search character	Description
:	Used to identify the presence of a parameter within a search term
,	Used to denote an OR condition in a search
-	Used as a wildcard to exclude content from a search when placed immediately before a search term. See Excluding content from searches.

Using special characters in your searches

You can use these characters in your searches, but search will not find results if you finish a search term with a space followed by more than one special character. For example, homepage --.

Here's an example, where we have the naming convention homepage - for our website homepage content items:

• homepage - top banner
• homepage - slider
• homepage - top slider
• homepage - footer

The naming convention homepage - for our example content items (above) includes the special character -. Here's how we can include that character in our searches:

1. Searching for homepage -- (with the -- at the end), won't find anything because of the trailing --.
2. To retrieve all of our example content items, we can search for homepage - .
3. To retrieve items excluding the word top, we can enter homepage -top. This will find the content that doesn't contain top, that is, homepage - slider and homepage - footer.
4. The search term homepage - top will find all of our example items, because the search finds items that include homepage or top.

Tips for searching

• Using quotes ("") will help find more accurate results when searching with a specific parameter, such as label.
• Understand the differences between searches with and without parameters and quotes:
  • Entering a basic search for homepage banner will match items that have homepage AND banner in them. Including more words will help to reduce the number results that are returned.
  • Entering a basic search for "homepage banner" (with quotes) will match items that have homepage OR banner or both. Using quotes in a basic search makes the search less strict than without quotes.
  • Entering an advanced search for label:homepage banner will match items that have a label of homepage and which also mention banner in the body.
  • Entering an advanced search for label:"homepage banner" will match items that have a label that contains homepage AND banner. Using quotes with parameters makes the search stricter than without quotes.
• To reduce the results returned by searches:
  • Apply filters to reduce the amount of content to search
  • Use the - special character to exclude content.