Upwork’s advanced search helps clients refine freelancer results using Boolean logic. Users can combine keywords with AND, OR, and NOT (in uppercase) or use filters like “exact phrase,” “exclude words,” and “title search.” These tools allow for precise targeting of freelancer profiles to find the best match quickly and effectively.
Advanced search functions help you drill down on more specific results to find the right freelancer faster.
You'll start a search using your own keywords or the auto-suggestions that appear as you type. These suggestions come from Upwork’s search algorithm to help guide your results. (Check out how general search works and explore best practices here.)
How does advanced search work?
Advanced search uses Boolean logic to help you refine your results by combining your search keywords with operators like AND, NOT, and OR.
If you’re already comfortable with Boolean searches, you can enter them directly into the search bar on your home page when you enter keywords.
Need a hand? After you start a talent search, select Advanced Search to open the Boolean menu. You’ll see all available search functions there, including:
- All of these words — Finds profiles that include all the keywords you enter, no matter what order. Example: “Content marketing writer” returns results that include the words “content,” “marketing,” and “writer” but not necessarily as a phrase
- Any of these words — Finds profiles that include at least one keywords you entered. Example: “Content marketing writer” returns results that include the word “content,” “marketing,” or “writer,” or any combination of those
- The exact phrase — Returns only profiles that include the keyword(s) exactly as you entered them, word-for-word. Example: “Content marketing writer” results only include profiles with that exact phrase
- Exclude these words — Filters out keywords you don't want to see in your results. Example: If you're searching for a blog writer but need to narrow results and don't want webpage writers, you can enter "webpage" to filter out those profiles
- Title search — Works like "any of these words," but only within profile titles. Example: Searching "content marketing writer" will return profiles with content, marketing, or writer in the title
You can use these different advanced search fields separately or combine them.
If you use Boolean operators — NOT, AND, and OR — directly in the search bar, they must be in uppercase letters to work. Please note that +, -, and ! operators are currently not supported.