diff --git a/src/TermBuilder.php b/src/TermBuilder.php
index 109e832..c328b79 100644
--- a/src/TermBuilder.php
+++ b/src/TermBuilder.php
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ public static function terms($search)
 
         // Remove every boolean operator (+, -, > <, ( ), ~, *, ", @distance) from the search query
         // else we will break the MySQL query.
-        $search = rtrim(preg_replace('/[+\-><\(\)~*\"@]+/', ' ', $search));
+        $search = trim(preg_replace('/[+\-><\(\)~*\"@]+/', ' ', $search));
 
         $terms = collect(preg_split('/[\s,]+/', $search));
 
diff --git a/tests/TermBuilderTest.php b/tests/TermBuilderTest.php
index 16bc3f1..975b92f 100644
--- a/tests/TermBuilderTest.php
+++ b/tests/TermBuilderTest.php
@@ -17,6 +17,18 @@ public function test_termbuilder_builds_terms_array()
         $this->assertCount(0, $diff);
     }
 
+    public function test_termbuilder_does_not_build_empty_terms()
+    {
+        global $configReturn;
+        $configReturn = false;
+
+        $termsResult = ['<hi', 'im', 'a', 'few', 'terms>'];
+        $terms = TermBuilder::terms(implode(' ', $termsResult));
+        $termsResultWithoutSpecialChars = ['hi', 'im', 'a', 'few', 'terms'];
+        $diff = $terms->diff($termsResultWithoutSpecialChars);
+        $this->assertCount(0, $diff);
+    }
+
     public function test_termbuilder_builds_terms_array_with_wildcard()
     {
         global $configReturn;