How to search news by title#

To search news by title, send your keywords in the title parameter on the /v1/news/everything endpoint. title=bitcoin returns articles whose headline mentions Bitcoin. The value must be 2 to 100 characters; anything shorter or longer returns HTTP 400 with error ER0007.

curl -G "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything" \
  --data-urlencode "title=bitcoin" \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

You can send the key as a header (X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY) instead of the api_key parameter. The title filter matches the article title only — it does not search the article body.

How does multi-word title search work?#

When you pass more than one word, every word is required: the match uses AND between words, so the headline has to contain all of them. Words can be separated by either a space or a comma — both are treated the same way, and both mean AND (a comma here is not an OR). So title=electric vehicle and title=electric,vehicle behave identically and both return only headlines that contain both “electric” and “vehicle”.

curl -G "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything" \
  --data-urlencode "title=electric vehicle" \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

Matching is done on whole tokens, not substrings, so a short word will not match inside a longer one — searching title=ai matches the word “AI” but not “Jamaica”. Token matching is also case-insensitive: “Bitcoin”, “bitcoin” and “BITCOIN” all match the same articles.

Does title search match synonyms and word variations?#

Yes. Each word in an unquoted title value is expanded with its synonyms and word stems (morphology) before matching, and those variants are combined with OR inside that word’s group. A search for title=car can therefore also match headlines that use a known synonym or a different word form, which widens reach without you listing every variant by hand. Very common words (stopwords such as “the” or “of”) are dropped from the query, so they do not narrow your results.

This expansion is what makes an unquoted keyword search broad. If you need the words to appear together in a fixed order with no expansion, wrap them in quotes for an exact-phrase search instead — title="electric vehicle" matches that literal phrase only.

How to remove unwanted headlines with ignore.title#

To drop articles you do not want, add ignore.title. It excludes any article whose title contains the given words (also 2 to 100 characters, error ER0008 otherwise). Combine it with title and any other filter on the same request:

curl -G "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything" \
  --data-urlencode "title=AI" \
  --data-urlencode "ignore.title=layoffs,job losses" \
  --data-urlencode "language.code=en" \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

This returns English headlines mentioning “AI” while removing any that also mention “layoffs” or “job losses”. For more elaborate include/exclude logic across several words, see how to use AND, OR and NOT in news search.

How are title results sorted?#

By default, results are ordered by publish date, newest first — not by how well they match your keywords. To rank by match quality instead, add sort.by=relevance. Relevance scoring rewards an exact title match the most, then a headline that starts with your term, then a headline that simply contains it as a token, and it further boosts recent, high-ranked and breaking articles. The canonical parameter list is in the official News API parameter reference.

curl -G "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything" \
  --data-urlencode "title=interest rates" \
  --data-urlencode "sort.by=relevance" \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

Common Questions#

• Is a comma in the title value an AND or an OR?
• Why does title=ai not match “Jamaica”?
• How do I match a prefix or a substring in the title?
• What are the length limits on the title parameter?

Is a comma in the title value an AND or an OR?#

A comma is an AND, the same as a space. Both title=electric,vehicle and title=electric vehicle require every word to appear in the headline. There is no comma-separated OR mode on the title parameter; if you need true OR logic between alternatives, use the Boolean query language covered in the boolean-search article.

Why does title=ai not match “Jamaica”?#

Because title search matches whole tokens, not substrings. “ai” is matched as a standalone word, so it hits the headline word “AI” but not the letters ai inside “Jamaica”. This keeps short keywords from accidentally matching unrelated longer words.

How do I match a prefix or a substring in the title?#

Use the dedicated parameters: title_starts_with matches headlines that begin with your text, title_ends_with matches those that end with it, and title_pattern does a substring (LIKE) match anywhere in the headline. These are separate from title and let you target the start, end or any part of the headline.

What are the length limits on the title parameter?#

The title value must be 2 to 100 characters, otherwise the request fails with HTTP 400 and error ER0007. The same 2-to-100 limit applies to ignore.title (ER0008). When you use an exact phrase in quotes, the phrase inside the quotes must additionally be at least 3 characters (ER0340).