Index search for Names close to each other

Question

What if I have an index of people's names and want to search using NEAR, for example? Is that possible, or how can I search the index for a connection between two names like "John" and "Smith" that are close to each other? Is that even possible in the index?

Answer 1

NEAR will search for two terms in close proximity such as:

John Smith

The indexer will create two separate terms:

John
Smith

So searching for 'John NEAR Smith' will work.

Your previous question was about an email address:

john.smith@gmail.com

In that situation the indexer just creates one term:

john.smith@gmail.com

'Smith' does not exist as a separate term.