Using keyword Filters

Find out how to use the keyword filter and structure keywords for improved company searches.

Table of Contents

1. What is the keyword filter?
2. Common search queries
3. Caveats

What is the keyword filter and where can I find it?

Our users commonly use keywords to find companies for training sets in ML lists. They are also used to fine-tune searches in EXPLORE and to retrieve more relevant and targeted companies for analysis.

The keyword searches generally follow boolean logic. 

Common search queries

Use the ‘ALL of these words’ dropdown when you have a set of keywords and want to find companies that use all of the keywords you have mentioned in their website text.

If you want to find companies using any one of the listed keywords, then select ‘ANY of these words’.

1. Using inverted commas. surrounding phrases helps in identifying companies with the same keyword referenced in your search. For example: “data analytics”.
2. Using NEAR in searches. for example: NEAR (“Data” “insights” , 5) you are letting the platform output companies that have ‘data’ and ‘insights’ within 5 words of each other. Be careful to get the syntax right.
3. Utilising an asterisk (*) for broader search terms. For instance, entering “data analy”* allows the platform to query for companies which include phrases starting with 'data analy', such as data analysis, data analytics, etc. This method broadens the search to capture all relevant variations that stem from the root 'data analy'.
4. Combine multiple searches in keywords. For example, the following search returns all the companies that may work with machine learning or data analytics within the artificial intelligence sector.
   (“Artificial Intelligence” OR “AI”) AND (“Data analy”* OR “machine learning”)
5. Complex keyword searches. In the most advanced applications of this technology we develop complex keyword searches such as:
   (“artificial intelligence” OR “ai” OR “neural networks” OR “deep learning” OR “machine learning”) AND (“data analytics” OR “data analysis” OR “insight”* OR “big data” OR “data process”* OR “data governance”)
6. Combining keywords with AND and OR queries. For example: “Data Analytics” AND “Machine learning” will return companies that use both data analytics and machine learning in their website text. This approach is equivalent to utilising the provided dropdown menu, but it offers a more sophisticated method for those who prefer to use keyword filtering in a more advanced manner.

Caveats

Keywords are powerful tools for targeting specific areas, but must be used with caution.

1. Keyword Bias: When using the keyword filter in EXPLORE, it brings up any company with the specified keyword, regardless of its context. This may increase the chance of having false positives. The specific keyword has to appear just once, anywhere on its whole website! To avoid this, it is recommended only to layer keywords on top of RTIC data.
2. Complexity: When creating advanced keyword searches, it is recommended to avoid constructing excessively long keyword strings, as they can potentially slow down the search and they are prone to bugs (due to input formatting).
3. Limited Accuracy: Depending solely on keyword searches in the EXPLORE section to map a sector is not recommended as it can impact the overall accuracy of the list. For such cases, using ML lists is preferable to achieve a more precise and accurate sectoral mapping.