Do Not Highlight Stop Words in the Results of a Keyword Search
There is no value to highlighting words in the search results of a keyword search that were considered STOP words when the search was conducted.
Words such as AND, THE, OR, IN, TO, etc., provide no value on their own and should not be highlighted. Not only does highlighting them add visual noise to the search results, it sends the wrong message to users about how to construct a strong search string.
As the screenshot shows, the highlighting is only adding noise.

6 comments
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Gordon Xu commented
The highlighting of stop words happens even when the stop words are not part of the original query itself. This is the same thing to us. When searching "new york times". Primo highlights every single "the" in the search results. There are so many "the" in there.
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François Renaville commented
Agreed.
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Agree - it is just visual disturbance
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Stacey van Groll commented
I'm not seeing 'the' highlighted in my Primo, Lacey.
Can you provide a link to your environment? -
Lacey M. commented
The highlighting of stop words happens even when the stop words are not part of the original query itself. For example, searches for "peloponnesian war" results in highlights for the word "the" in the search results.
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Lacey M. commented
Any update on this?