Search for person/company/product
Learn to use different techniques when searching for a proper noun
Looking for news mentioning a specific Person, Company or Product is a common application for our users.
Use the following recommendations to maximize your chances of getting the most relevant results using our News API.
Advice #1: Always use double quotes ("
) in q
parameter
Use double quotes ("
) for the exact match.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles about Elon Musk.
Query to do it
When you want to search for articles that mention Elon Musk
you should do the
following query:
If you write q=Elon Musk
then, it will be treated as q=Elon AND Musk
. In
that case, every article that mentions both elon
and musk
somewhere in the
text will match.
Advice #2: Use all available operators In q
parameter to search with more context-related articles
Here are the Operators that can help you narrow down your search.
AND
AND
operator makes tokens from both sides to be present in the text of an
article.
AND
is the default operator. When your **q**
input is more than 1 word,
**AND**
operator is added between each word behind the scenes.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles where all three Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla company names are mentioned
Query to do it
Since AND
is the default operator, these two queries are exactly the same:
q=Apple AND Microsoft AND Tesla
q=Apple Microsoft Tesla
OR
OR
operator means that either the left or the right sides of OR
have to
be satisfied.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for an article where at least one of these wealthy men Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Bill Gates is mentioned.
Query to do it
Round brackets ()
AND
and OR
operators can be used together. You can also logically group a
set of words or phrases by using round brackets ()
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles where either Elon Musk is mentioned with either Starlink or Tesla.
Query to do it
NOT
Use NOT
operator when you want the token from its right to not be present.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles about Apple and MacBook product series, but I do not want any news related to iPhone or IPad
Query to do it
More examples
The more operator and logical combinations you use, the more relevant results you get.
Let’s look at some more examples
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles about Apple company. “Apple” as a word, can have multiple definitions. So, when I search for the word “Apple”, I want to have some other words related to Apple in this case, like their products: MacBook, iPhone, IPad, or executive Chiefs, like Tim Cook, Katherine Adams, Eddy Cue. I add to the search “Apple Inc” as well because I am pretty sure it is about Apple company. I do not want to have any other big tech company mentioned in the article, so I filter out Microsoft, Amazon, Tencent, and Facebook.
Query to do it
We have around 60 000 news sources, but not all of them are relevant to you.
[sources]
Use [sources]
parameter to filter down your search to the articles coming only
from mentioned news sources.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for business-related articles about “Elon Musk”. Personally, I have already seen relevant news coming from businessinsuder.com, businessjournaldaily.com, businessreport.com. I want to have articles only from these sources.
Parameters to use
[not_sources]
Use [not_sources]
parameter to exclude concrete news domains from your search.
Example of the search intent
I am looking for business-related articles about “Elon Musk”. I am not aware of any business-related news source. But, I am sure that news coming from gossipbucket.com, hollywoodlife.com, or hollywoodreporter.com is not the type of news I would like to get. So I exclude these news domains.
Parameters to use
/v2/sources
endpoint
Use our /v2/sources
endpoint to get a list of news sources available in our
database. So, this can give you a hint of where to look for. On
this page, you
will find more info about this endpoint.
Example of the search intent
I would like to search for “Elon Musk” in business-related news sources. But I do not know any business-oriented source.
Make a call with /v2/sources
endpoint
Check the Quickstart guide to know how to make a call.
Results from the call
Parameters to use
Get the first five sources a put them into the sources parameter
In /v2/sources
endpoint the list of news sources is sorted by the number of
articles for the last 24 hours.
Advice #4: Use to_rank
Or from_rank
To Vary From Global News Sources To More Local Once
Our rank
parameter is based on the
Majestic Million Rank system.
The smaller the rank, the more popular the news domain. The “popularity” is
measured by the number of backlinks and referrers on the web. Some examples of
ranks:
- nytimes.com => 40
- reuters.com => 86
- china.com.cn => 962
- stthomassource.com => 120496
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles about Microsoft Patents. I trust only global media.
Parameters to use
Example of the search intent
I am looking for articles about Microsoft Patents. I am not interested in the most popular news sources like Forbes or Washington Post. I am curious to know what other small media posted.
Parameters to use
By default, ranked_only
parameter is set to True
. It means that if a news
domain is not in the Majestic List, we will attribute the value 999,999 to this
domain. If you want to get articles from these unranked domains, you should set
ranked_only=False
Contact us to get help
A well-configured query is the best way to get the most relevant results.
If you need any private suggestions or advice, do not hesitate to contact us at
team@newscatcherapi.com
.
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