The proximity value of the keyword index is used to control the storing of proximity information, information regarding where a word appears within the text block being indexed. Proximity information is used to support phrase matching and phrase approximation within the search engine.

A value of zero indicates that no information is to be saved.

A value greater than zero indicates that proximity information is to be stored for each word that exists that many times or less within the associated data field or temporary field of a given record. If a word exists more than that many times within the field, no proximity information is saved for that word for that specific record. Whether or not proximity information is saved is specific to each record and each word being indexed for that record.

Note: Saving proximity information does carry a cost. An index with proximity information can be expected to be a minimum of twice the size of the same index without proximity information, and more likely four to six times as large.