Advanced search queries cannot be performed against the Confluence REST API

It is not possible to execute complex search queries using the Confluence REST API. Any usages of reserved characters in the query are escaped and treated literally.

For example, the search query title:test gets escaped to title\\\:test before being executed. You can see this escaping happening in com.atlassian.confluence.plugins.rest.search.RestSearchParameters.

This was done to allow the Link browser to search for content that contains special characters in the title, however I think the implementation is wrong. The link browser should escape its own search query before sending it to the search service. The search service should not assume that any special lucene characters are not intended to be used for their actual purpose.