The Truveo Video Search APIs provide a programmatic interface for submitting a search query to the Truveo video search engine and retrieving a set of videos that match the submitted query. Search queries can be as simple as a single word, such as 'madonna', or they can be complex expressions that feature a variety of keywords, filters, operators and sorting options. This section provides an overview of the range of functionality supported by the Truveo video search query syntax.

The simplest and most common type of search query consists of one or multiple keywords. In response to queries like this, the video search service will look through the entire video index and return all video records containing words that match every keyword in your query. If your search query returns too many results, you can refine your search by submitting a more complex query. If your search returns too few results, reducing the number of keywords in your query will typically help.

In addition to basic keyword searches, the Truveo search query syntax also supports several search operators. For example, if you are interested in videos containing an exact phrase, such as "super bowl", you can use double quotes to indicate that an exact phrase match should be used. As another example, if you are interested in videos that contain either the word 'madonna' or the word 'prince', you can use the 'OR' operator in your query expression. A complete description of all of the supported operators can be found in the section on basic searches.

By default, query keywords submitted to the search service will be matched against all text information, or metadata, that exists for each video record. Search modifiers can be used, however, if you would prefer to match a keyword against a specific field of information in a video record. For example, if you would like to find videos where the word 'seinfeld' appears in the video title, the query expression 'title:seinfeld' can be used. In this expression, the 'title:' is referred to as the search modifier. Similarly, if you would like to find videos where madonna is listed as the artist, the query expression 'artist:madonna' can be used. For more details about the modifiers supported by the video search query syntax, please consult the section on using modifiers.

The video search query syntax provides a variety of mechanisms to filter video search results according to specific criteria. In the absence of any specified filters, the search engine will always return all video records that match the submitted query. If, for example, you are only interested in videos that have a runtime over 5 minutes, the 'runtime:>5' filter can be combined with any search query to filter all videos shorter than 5 minutes. Similarly, if you would like to find videos that are only from a specific website, like 'msn.com', the filter 'site:msn.com' can be appended to any search query. For a complete list of the filters supported by the Truveo video search APIs, please see the section on using filters.

For searches that return multiple video results, the results, by default, will be ordered according to Truveo's video ranking algorithm, called vRank. This ranking algorithm prioritizes search results based on several continuously calculated metrics and will typically assign the highest rank to the most relevant, popular, and recent videos. If you would prefer search results to be sorted according to a different ranking scheme, a sorting operator can be explicitly specified in your query. For example, if you would prefer the most recent videos to be listed first in your search results, the 'sort:mostRecent' sorter can be used. Similarly, if you would like the most popular videos to be returned at the top of your search results, you can use the 'sort:mostPopular' sorter. To learn more about sort options, please see the section on using sorters.

In general, entering multiple keywords in your query is the quickest way to zero-in on your favorite video. If you would like, however, to perform more targeted searches, you can build advanced queries containing any combination of search operators, modifiers, filters and sorters. When properly designed, these advanced search queries can be powerful tools for finding exactly the right video. These advanced queries can also be used as the foundation for a variety of video applications that feature novel techniques for video browsing, navigation and discovery. For more details about building complex queries, see the section on advanced searches.