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Threads search examples: does searching "AI" find "paid"?

This page uses real examples to show which posts a keyword finds and which it misses. For the full rules, see Search rules.

Three things to remember

Section titled “Three things to remember”
  1. Chinese is matched character by character: the characters in the keyword must appear in order and next to each other.
  2. English matches by word: case-insensitive, and it never matches “part” of a word. In English posts, singular, plural and other word forms also match each other.
  3. Katakana and Korean are matched by whole word: if more katakana or a Korean particle follows, it counts as a different word.

English

Section titled “English”
Search Post text Found? Why
AI 用 AI 寫文案 ✅ A separate word
AI AI繪圖教學 ✅ English right next to Chinese still counts as a separate word
AI #AI #行銷 ✅ # is ignored
AI ai 工具推薦 ✅ Case-insensitive
AI AI-generated 圖片 ✅ A hyphen splits words
AI I paid for it ❌ “ai” is only part of “paid”
AI Taiwan 必吃 ❌ “ai” is only part of “Taiwan”
AI OpenAI 發表新模型 ❌ “OpenAI” is one whole word
gram Instagram 限時動態 ❌ “gram” is only part of “Instagram”
app 3 個好用的 apps ❌ In a Chinese post, singular and plural aren’t merged
app Best apps for students (English post) ✅ English posts merge singular and plural
top top10 必吃清單 ❌ English and numbers written together form one word, “top10”
top 10 Top 10 必吃美食 ✅ The two words appear in order
work from home Work From Home 一年心得 ✅ The three words appear in order
work from home #workfromhome 日常 ❌ Written as one word, it’s a different word

Chinese

Section titled “Chinese”
Search Post text Found? Why
蛋白 高蛋白質早餐 ✅ The two characters “蛋白” appear next to each other
減脂 減脂期間怎麼吃 ✅ Appears in full
減脂 減少脂肪攝取 ❌ “減” and “脂” aren’t next to each other
減肥 减肥餐推荐 ❌ Traditional and Simplified don’t match: “减” and “減” are different characters
減脂 減，脂，成功！ ✅ Punctuation and spaces between characters are ignored
CP值 這家CP值很高 ✅ English and Chinese are each matched, and they appear in order
5G手機 5G手機推薦 ✅ The English/number part and the Chinese part appear in order
貓 熊貓好可愛 ✅ A single character finds every post containing it

Japanese

Section titled “Japanese”
Search Post text Found? Why
お金 お金持ちになりたい ✅ Hiragana and kanji are matched character by character, like Chinese
コーヒー コーヒーを飲む ✅ The katakana word ends before “を”
コーヒー コーヒー豆 ✅ The katakana word ends before “豆”
コーヒー アイスコーヒー ❌ “アイスコーヒー” is one whole katakana word
コーヒー コーヒーショップ ❌ Same as above

Korean

Section titled “Korean”
Search Post text Found? Why
꿀팁 오늘의 꿀팁 ✅ Spaces around it make it a whole word
꿀팁 꿀팁! ✅ Punctuation doesn’t matter
꿀팁 꿀팁을 공유합니다 ❌ The particle “을” is attached, making it a different word, “꿀팁을”
꿀팁 꿀팁이 있어요 ❌ Same as above, with the particle “이”

Practice: build a complete keyword list

Section titled “Practice: build a complete keyword list”

The web app searches one keyword at a time. For each scenario below, search each keyword in the list one by one. You can also hand the whole list to Throk Agent and ask it to query them at once and summarize the results.

1. Track a topic with many names

Section titled “1. Track a topic with many names”

You want to track conversations about bubble tea (珍珠奶茶). Searching only 珍珠奶茶 misses short forms and other names, because each keyword must appear in full.

Suggested list:

珍珠奶茶、珍奶、波霸奶茶、粉圓奶茶

2. Track the “AI” topic

Section titled “2. Track the “AI” topic”

Searching only AI won’t find posts that only say “OpenAI” or “人工智慧” (artificial intelligence).

Suggested list:

AI、人工智慧、OpenAI、ChatGPT、Claude、Gemini

3. Cover both Taiwan and mainland China spellings

Section titled “3. Cover both Taiwan and mainland China spellings”

Traditional and Simplified Chinese don’t match each other, so list both spellings:

減肥、减肥

4. Korean keywords

Section titled “4. Korean keywords”

List the most common particle forms too:

맛집、맛집에서、맛집은、맛집이、맛집을

5. Japanese katakana

Section titled “5. Japanese katakana”

List the common compound words too:

コーヒー、アイスコーヒー、コーヒーショップ
Section titled “Checklist before you search”
  • Are there other spellings? Short forms, full names, or versions with and without spaces or hyphens (case doesn’t matter)
  • Could your English keyword actually be part of another word? If you need that word, search it separately
  • Do you need the Simplified Chinese spelling?
  • Does the Korean keyword have forms with particles? Does the katakana keyword have compound words?
  • Is the keyword a single character? Too short means lots of noise
  • Is the Publish date range long enough? The default is the last 7 days, up to 30 days on paid plans