# Prevent leading wildcard in uri search

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/prevent-leading-wildcard-in-uri-search/26153>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [July 23, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/prevent-leading-wildcard-in-uri-search/26153 "2015-07-23T12:42:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andimak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f6c823/32.png) [@andimak](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/andimak)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/prevent-leading-wildcard-in-uri-search/26153/1 "2015-07-23T12:42:33Z")

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Hello ,

I use uri searches and i found out that it took about 20 seconds or more if i use leading wildcard searches.  
For example:

> http:localhost:9200/\_search?q=user:andrea\*&pretty  
> works very fast and  
> http:localhost:9200/\_search?q=user:\*ndreas&pretty  
> takes 10 seconds .

Is there a way from elasticsearch to prevent leading wildcards? something i can put into the elasticsearch.yml or some parameters i can add to make the searches faster (disable leading wildcards in uri searches).

regards  
andi

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/prevent-leading-wildcard-in-uri-search/26153/2 "2015-07-23T21:38:24Z")

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Not natively, no.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/prevent-leading-wildcard-in-uri-search/26153/3 "2017-07-05T23:59:24Z")

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