Techniques for performing a database search using a rewritten and annotated query are disclosed herein. In example embodiments, a profile lexicon is generated from a set of raw user profiles. A click-through lexicon is generated from a raw query log. A machine-learning model is trained for entity prediction using selected data. Query tagger data is generated using the profile lexicon, the click-through lexicon, and the machine-learning model. A raw query is received. The raw query is rewritten as an annotated query based on the generated query tagger data. A search of a database is performed using the annotated query. Results of the search are returned in response to the receiving of the raw query for presentation in a user interface.