OK Slicers hold on to your cosmopolitans... you're about to make friends with "_" (the underscore).
You will know from using our search string builder, that to build a search string you need to use the 'boolean' commands 'AND', 'NOT' or 'OR'. These commands sit in between the words or phrases we want to track - for example 'Sarah Jessica Parker' AND 'shoes' - this gives us all news items containing both the phrase 'Sarah Jessica Parker' and the word 'shoes' in the same article.
But what happens when the word 'and' is also in the phrase you want to track - like 'Sex and the City' for example?
When creating your search string that contains the word 'and' in a phrase, you need to use an underscore. The underscore should always be included before the "_and" so we can pick it up as a word and not a command. Here's some examples:
Search string #1 - no underscore: Sex and the City
This search string will be read by the search engine as Sex AND the city - so ALL items that contain the word 'sex' and the phrase 'the city' will be delivered, when really you only wanted articles relating to the 'Sex and the City' TV show.
Search string #2 - using the underscore: Sex _and the City
This search term will only return articles with the exact phrase "Sex and the City". Finally, Manolo Blahnik heaven.
Remember, if you come a cropper in the search string stakes, call us and one of the posse will help get your search strings looking as good as Charlotte in vintage Chanel.
Tracking the media, monitoring the message
