diff --git a/phpBB/phpbb/search/fulltext_native.php b/phpBB/phpbb/search/fulltext_native.php
index 8fa8bc84ae..7412f02f4f 100644
--- a/phpBB/phpbb/search/fulltext_native.php
+++ b/phpBB/phpbb/search/fulltext_native.php
@@ -289,7 +289,6 @@ class fulltext_native extends \phpbb\search\base
 			'#(\+|\-)(?:\+|\-)+#',
 			'#\(\|#',
 			'#\|\)#',
-			'#(?<!\s)(\+|\-|\|)#',
 		);
 		$replace = array(
 			' ',
@@ -297,11 +296,14 @@ class fulltext_native extends \phpbb\search\base
 			'$1',
 			'(',
 			')',
-			' $1',
 		);
 
 		$keywords = preg_replace($match, $replace, $keywords);
-		$num_keywords = count(explode(' ', $keywords));
+		
+		// Ensure a space exists before +, - and | to make the split and count work correctly
+		$countable_keywords = preg_replace('/(?<!\s)(\+|\-|\|)/', ' $1', $keywords);
+		
+		$num_keywords = count(explode(' ', $countable_keywords));
 
 		// We limit the number of allowed keywords to minimize load on the database
 		if ($this->config['max_num_search_keywords'] && $num_keywords > $this->config['max_num_search_keywords'])