The Mentioned Keyword field in Media Relations > Discover Contacts searches recent published coverage to identify journalists based on what they've written during the last 90 days. Unlike Covering Subjects, which searches Agility's editorial classifications, Keyword Search looks at actual published content.
Keyword Search is especially useful for finding journalists covering:
Emerging topics
Brands and competitors
Products and services
Industry trends
Events
Niche subjects
🔹 Using the Keyword Search
To begin, open the Mentioned Keyword field and type in your chosen keyword or phrase.
For example, if you enter “Recycled Plastic”, Agility will search all monitored coverage and return contacts who have published content containing that phrase within the last 90 days.
Use Boolean Operators (Optional)
Expand the Mentioned Keyword section to build more advanced searches.
You can combine keywords using:
Operator | Example | Finds |
OR | recycling OR sustainability | Journalists mentioning either term |
AND | electric AND vehicles | Journalists mentioning both terms |
NOT | batteries NOT lithium | Excludes articles containing the excluded term |
When your search is ready, click Search to review your results.
🔹Refine the Results
Keyword Search works best when combined with additional Discover filters.
For example, you can narrow results by:
Covering Subjects
Job Role
Job Title
Location
Publishing Language
Media Type
Target Audience
Market Sector
Coverage Focus
Audience Reach
The more specific your search, the more relevant your results will be.
🔹Review Contact Profiles
The results screen gives you a clear overview of your search:
The middle panel lists your contact results.
The filters appear across the top for quick refinement.
The right-hand panel displays media and profile information for the selected contact.
To see each journalist’s published content, switch the right-hand panel to Recent Coverage. From here, you can view the articles they’ve written and filter to highlight only the pieces containing your keyword.
If you’re an Agility Monitoring user, you can save and manage mentions or create monitoring topics directly from this view. You can also apply media type filters to focus on articles only, excluding social media content if you prefer.
🔹 Step 7: Save Your Search
If you expect to perform the same search again, save it for future use.
A Saved Search stores your search criteria—not the contacts themselves.
Each time you reopen a Saved Search, Agility searches the latest media database using the same criteria, allowing you to:
discover newly added journalists
identify updated contact profiles
compare results against your existing Targeted Lists
keep your media lists current over time
🔹 Understanding Search Limits
Keyword Search is designed to return relevant, manageable results.
Each search returns approximately 10,000 matching contacts.
When you perform a search:
Agility searches recent published coverage.
Matching articles are associated with journalists in the media database.
Your selected filters are applied to those results.
Using specific keywords generally produces more focused and complete results.
🔹 Why OR Doesn't Always Return More Results
Adding additional keywords with the OR operator creates a brand-new search rather than expanding the previous results.
For example:
apples
apples OR oranges
are treated as two separate searches.
The second search rebuilds the entire dataset before applying the result limit, so the number of results may not simply increase.
🔹 Best Practices
Use specific keywords instead of broad industry terms.
Combine Mentioned Keyword with Covering Subjects to improve relevance.
Review Recent Coverage before adding journalists to your Targeted Lists.
Save searches you plan to reuse.
Try different keyword variations if your topic is commonly described using different terminology.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between Keyword Search and Covering Subjects?
Mentioned Keyword searches what journalists have recently written about.
Covering Subjects searches the editorial subjects assigned to each journalist's profile.
Using both together often produces the most targeted results.
How recent is Keyword Search?
Keyword Search searches coverage published within approximately the last 90 days.
Can I search for brands, competitors, or products?
Yes.
Keyword Search works well for brands, products, organizations, competitors, events, and emerging topics.
Why can't I find a journalist I expected to see?
Results are limited to approximately 10,000 matching contacts.
If your search is very broad, try using more specific keywords or additional filters to narrow the results.
Can I save my Keyword Search?
Yes.
Saving your search allows you to rerun the same criteria at any time and discover newly added or updated journalists without rebuilding the search.
📝 Support & Resources
Help Center: Media Relations
Need help? Chat with Support from your dashboard