FAQ
Does ReadMonkey Pro Support Full-Text Search?
Quick Answer
Yes — full-text search is the Pro-tier upgrade to the free title-and-tag search. Pro indexes the complete body of every saved article (plus your highlights and notes) using a tokenized SearchIndex built at save time, so queries match against article content, not just titles. The free tier still searches titles and tags, which is fast and adequate for a small library. Queries require a minimum of 3 characters; stopwords are filtered automatically.
- Free tier search covers article titles and tags only. Pro tier adds full-text search across the complete article body, highlights, and notes.
- Full-text search is powered by a tokenized SearchIndex built at save time and updated when you edit highlights or notes — significantly faster than scanning raw text.
- Queries are case-insensitive and require a minimum of 3 characters. Common stopwords (the, and, a) are filtered out automatically.
- Results are ranked by relevance: matches in titles score highest, followed by frequency in the body, then mentions in highlights or notes.
By PlugMonkey Team, Editorial
What Free Tier Search Covers
The free tier of ReadMonkey Pro includes title and tag search. When you type in the search box, ReadMonkey Pro matches your query against the stored article title and any tags you have assigned. This is sufficient for a small, well-organized library where you tag articles consistently and save them with descriptive titles. It is fast, requires no extra processing power, and returns results instantly as you type.
- Article title matching — Finds articles where the title contains your query
- Tag matching — Finds articles assigned the tag you searched for
- Instant results — No indexing delay; matches are returned immediately
- Case-insensitive — Queries are normalized to lowercase before matching
How Pro Full-Text Search Works
Pro full-text search is powered by a tokenized SearchIndex that is built when you save an article and updated whenever you edit highlights or notes. When ReadMonkey Pro saves a page, it extracts the cleaned article text, splits it into tokens (words and n-grams), and stores a compact index alongside the article metadata. When you run a search, your query is tokenized with the same algorithm and matched against the index — not the raw article text. This approach is significantly faster than scanning full article bodies and allows results to be ranked by relevance rather than returned in arbitrary order.
- Full article body — Every word in the saved article content is indexed
- Highlights and notes — Text from your highlighted passages and inline notes is included in the index
- Tags and title — Also included, so Pro search is a superset of free search
- Minimum 3-character queries — Queries shorter than 3 characters are not processed to avoid excessive result noise
Phrase Matching and Query Behavior
ReadMonkey Pro full-text search supports phrase matching for multi-word queries. When you type more than one word, ReadMonkey Pro searches for articles that contain all the query terms in proximity — not just scattered anywhere in the document. This produces more relevant results when you are looking for a specific idea or argument rather than any article that mentions individual words. Single-word queries match any article where the token appears in the index. Stopwords (common words like "the", "and", "a") are filtered out automatically and do not affect results.
- Single word — e.g., "compounding" returns all articles mentioning compounding
- Multi-word phrase — e.g., "compound interest calculator" finds articles where these terms appear together
- Minimum 3 characters — e.g., "ai" is too short; try "artificial" or "AI tools"
- Stopwords filtered — Common function words are excluded from matching automatically
How Search Results Are Ranked
Full-text search results are ranked by a relevance score that factors in where and how often your query terms appear in each article. Articles where your query appears in the title score highest, followed by articles where terms appear frequently in the body, then articles where terms appear only in highlights or notes. This ranking means the most relevant article typically appears first, rather than simply the most recently saved. The results list shows each article's title, domain, and a short excerpt that includes the matched passage to help you confirm it is the article you are looking for.
Finding Articles by Content, Not Just Title
Full-text search is most valuable when you remember what an article said but not what it was called or where it came from. For example, if you saved an article weeks ago about a specific programming pattern, you can search for a phrase from the article body and find it immediately — even if the title gave no hint of the content. This is especially useful for researchers and students who build up large libraries over time. For tips on organizing your library to complement search, see the Save and Organize Articles with ReadMonkey Pro guide. To compare all features across tiers, see Free vs Pro: What Do You Get with ReadMonkey Pro?
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