diff --git a/docs/reference/docs/delete-by-query.asciidoc b/docs/reference/docs/delete-by-query.asciidoc
index 4621d847abb8d..93e1c0513c69f 100644
--- a/docs/reference/docs/delete-by-query.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/reference/docs/delete-by-query.asciidoc
@@ -19,6 +19,9 @@ $ curl -XDELETE 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/tweet/_query' -d '{
 '
 --------------------------------------------------
 
+NOTE: The query being sent in the body must be nested in a `query` key, same as
+the <<search-search,search api>> works added[1.0.0.RC1,The query was previously the top-level object].
+
 Both above examples end up doing the same thing, which is delete all
 tweets from the twitter index for a certain user. The result of the
 commands is:
diff --git a/docs/reference/search/count.asciidoc b/docs/reference/search/count.asciidoc
index 350ddbe3a2b43..f083e807a62ea 100644
--- a/docs/reference/search/count.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/reference/search/count.asciidoc
@@ -18,6 +18,9 @@ $ curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/tweet/_count' -d '
 }'
 --------------------------------------------------
 
+NOTE: The query being sent in the body must be nested in a `query` key, same as
+the <<search-search,search api>> works added[1.0.0.RC1,The query was previously the top-level object].
+
 Both examples above do the same thing, which is count the number of
 tweets from the twitter index for a certain user. The result is:
 
diff --git a/docs/reference/search/validate.asciidoc b/docs/reference/search/validate.asciidoc
index 9c3a08a7a3d0f..cdf9981f12896 100644
--- a/docs/reference/search/validate.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/reference/search/validate.asciidoc
@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ curl -XGET 'http://localhost:9200/twitter/tweet/_validate/query' -d '{
 {"valid":true,"_shards":{"total":1,"successful":1,"failed":0}}
 --------------------------------------------------
 
+NOTE: The query being sent in the body must be nested in a `query` key, same as
+the <<search-search,search api>> works added[1.0.0.RC1,The query was previously the top-level object].
+
 If the query is invalid, `valid` will be `false`. Here the query is
 invalid because Elasticsearch knows the post_date field should be a date
 due to dynamic mapping, and 'foo' does not correctly parse into a date: