Selects documents containing specified search terms within close proximity to each other. Document scores are calculated based on the relative number of words between search terms. For example, if the search expression includes two words, and those words occur next to each other in a document (so that the region size is two words long), then the score assigned to that document is 1.00. Thus, the document with the smallest region containing all search terms always receives the highest score. Documents whose search terms are not within 1000 words of each other are not selected, since the search terms are probably too far apart to be meaningful within the context of the document.
The NEAR operator is similar to the other proximity operators in the sense that the search words you enter must be found within close proximity of one another. However, unlike other proximity operators, the NEAR operator calculates relative proximity and assigns scores based on its calculations.
The example in "Sample Topic Outlines" shows how NEAR might be used with the topic "novels."
