Special Characters Allowed When Searching

B2C Service supports wildcard search and also allows other characters to produce more accurate results.

Tip: All of these guidelines apply when you are searching using a complex expression. When you are searching using phrases, similar phrases, and exact search, only the following characters apply: + - _ / @ : < > & and white space. Other punctuation is ignored and also acts as a word separator.

This table contains a list of the characters you can use, including how the characters are interpreted as well as the importance of the placement of the characters in the text string. Also included is a list of invalid search characters.

Character	Description
+	Always considered the logical operator meaning “must include.”
-	May appear in the middle of a word or number, but when it is placed at the beginning of a word or number, it is always taken to mean “must not include.”
.	May appear in the middle of a word or number, but is otherwise considered punctuation.
_	May appear in the middle of a word, but is otherwise unrecognized.
/	May appear in the middle of a capitalized word or a number, but is otherwise considered punctuation. And/or uses the / as punctuation to separate the word “and” from “or,” but I/O is recognized as a single word.
@	May appear in the middle of a word, but is otherwise unrecognized.
*	Allowed only at the end of a word or number. It will act as a word separator otherwise. One exception is that it is specifically recognized as a leading character when directly preceding the @ to allow regular expression searching of the sort: *@example.com.
:	Allowed within a number only. Otherwise, it is considered punctuation.
< >	Text enclosed within the angle brackets “<” and “>” is ignored. Otherwise, the angle brackets are treated as punctuation.
&	Allowed as part of an embedded word, but is otherwise considered punctuation.
Whitespace (tab, return, space)	Ignored and acts as a word separator.
~	Allowed after a word to specify a broader search on the following word by using synonym expression and spelling correction.