While negating searches for tags is supported (-tag:thistag), there is no way to exclude certain words from a generic search.
The “-” character is often used to allow search users to explicitly list words that the results must not include.
Running the following queries against Search results for '' - Discourse Meta does not give me the results I would have expected:
- “negative search” gives me 43 results with “negative” and/or “search” in them, as expected
- “-negative search” gives me 43 results with “negative” and/or “search” in them, I expected no results that include “negative”
- “-negative -search” gives me 43 results with “negative” and/or “search” in them, I expected results of everything that does not include “negative” nor “search”
Please support “-” in front of any word to exclude/negate it in a general search.