Using full text search, you can search for terms, phrases (sequences of terms), or prefixes. You can also combine multiple terms, phrases, or prefixes into boolean expressions, or require that expressions appear near to each other with proximity searches.

You perform a full text search using a CONTAINS clause in either a WHERE clause or a FROM clause of a SELECT statement. You can also perform a full text search as part of the IF search condition (for example, SELECT IF CONTAINS...). Columns specified in a CONTAINS clause must be part of a text index. See Text indexes.

You cannot search for the words and characters that are considered keywords and special characters of the CONTAINS clause grammar. For example, you cannot search for the word "and", or the character "|". For the list of keywords and special characters for the CONTAINS clause, see the Remarks section of CONTAINS search condition.