# What are proximity searches?

### As a search operator

In the main search bar, you can write an exact query in double quotes with the search operator tilde (\~) with a number, at the end of your query. It corresponds to the maximum number of operations (insertions, deletions, substitutions and transpositions) on **terms** needed to make one **phrase** match the other.

Examples:

> the cat is blue -> the small cat is blue (1 insertion = fuzziness is 1)

> the cat is blue -> the small is cat blue (1 insertion + 2 transpositions = fuzziness is 3)

"*While a phrase query (eg "john smith") expects all of the terms in exactly the same order, a proximity query allows the specified words to be further apart or in a different order. A proximity search allows us to specify a maximum edit distance of words in a phrase.*" (source: [Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.0/query-dsl-query-string-query.html#_fuzziness)).

> Example: "fox quick"\~5 (this query will catch "quick brown fox", "quick brown car thin fox" or even "quick brown car thin blue tree fox"

The closer the text in a field is to the original order specified in the query string, the more relevant that document is considered to be. When compared to the above example query, the phrase `"quick fox"` would be considered more relevant than `quick brown fox`(source: [Elastic](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.0/query-dsl-query-string-query.html#_fuzziness)).

### In batch searches

When you run a [batch search](https://icij.gitbook.io/datashare/usage/batch-search-documents), if you turn 'Do phrase matches' on, you can set, in 'Proximity searches', the maximum number of operations (insertions, deletions, substitutions and transpositions) on **terms** needed to make one **phrase** match the other.

> the cat is blue -> the small cat is blue (1 insertion = fuzziness is 1)

> the cat is blue -> the small is cat blue (1 insertion + 2 transpositions = fuzziness is 3)

> Example: "fox quick"\~5 (this query will catch "quick brown fox", "quick brown car thin fox" or even "quick brown car thin blue tree fox"