diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f0d62f38..1cba9b00 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@
 - [Docs] Extend FAQ / troubleshooting section with information on Elasticsearch RBAC - [#1324](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1324) - @chr-b
 - Upgrade to Python 3.12 - [#1327](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1327) - @jertel
 - Correction in IRIS and GELF alerter [#1331](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1331) - @malinkinsa
+- Fix handing of compound_query_key values - [#1330](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1330) - @jmacdone
+- Fix handing raw_query_key and query_key values ending with .keyword- [#1330](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1330) - @jmacdone
 - [Docs] Fix broken search function caused by sphinx upgrade a few releases ago - [#1332](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1332) - @jertel
 - [Docs] Fix mismatch for parameter iris_customer_id - [1334](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1334) @malinkinsa
 - [IRIS] Make parameter iris_customer_id optional with default value - [1334](https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1334) @malinkinsa
diff --git a/elastalert/elastalert.py b/elastalert/elastalert.py
index d7a9db71..b8224aae 100755
--- a/elastalert/elastalert.py
+++ b/elastalert/elastalert.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 import logging
 import os
 import random
+import re
 import signal
 import sys
 import threading
@@ -463,25 +464,42 @@ def get_hits_count(self, rule, starttime, endtime, index):
         )
         return {endtime: res['count']}
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def query_key_filters(rule: dict, qk_value_csv: str) -> dict:
+        if qk_value_csv is None:
+            return
+
+        # Split on comma followed by zero or more whitespace characters. It's
+        # expected to be commaspace separated. However 76ab593 suggests there
+        # are cases when it is only comma and not commaspace
+        qk_values = re.split(r',\s*',qk_value_csv)
+        end = '.keyword'
+
+        query_keys = []
+        try:
+            query_keys = rule['compound_query_key']
+        except KeyError:
+            query_key = rule.get('query_key')
+            if query_key is not None:
+                query_keys.append(query_key)
+
+        if len(qk_values) != len(query_keys):
+            msg = ( f"Received {len(qk_values)} value(s) for {len(query_keys)} key(s)."
+                    f" Did '{qk_value_csv}' have a value with a comma?"
+                    " See https://github.com/jertel/elastalert2/pull/1330#issuecomment-1849962106" )
+            elastalert_logger.warning( msg )
+
+        for key, value in zip(query_keys, qk_values):
+            if rule.get('raw_count_keys', True):
+                if not key.endswith(end):
+                    key += end
+            yield {'term': {key: value}}
+
     def get_hits_terms(self, rule, starttime, endtime, index, key, qk=None, size=None):
         rule_filter = copy.copy(rule['filter'])
-        if qk:
-            qk_list = qk.split(",")
-            end = '.keyword'
-
-            if len(qk_list) == 1:
-                qk = qk_list[0]
-                filter_key = rule['query_key']
-                if rule.get('raw_count_keys', True) and not rule['query_key'].endswith(end):
-                    filter_key = add_keyword_postfix(filter_key)
-                rule_filter.extend([{'term': {filter_key: qk}}])
-            else:
-                filter_keys = rule['compound_query_key']
-                for i in range(len(filter_keys)):
-                    key_with_postfix = filter_keys[i]
-                    if rule.get('raw_count_keys', True) and not key.endswith(end):
-                        key_with_postfix = add_keyword_postfix(key_with_postfix)
-                    rule_filter.extend([{'term': {key_with_postfix: qk_list[i]}}])
+
+        for filter in self.query_key_filters(rule=rule, qk_value_csv=qk):
+            rule_filter.append(filter)
 
         base_query = self.get_query(
             rule_filter,
diff --git a/elastalert/util.py b/elastalert/util.py
index e8a9dc34..04c0f274 100644
--- a/elastalert/util.py
+++ b/elastalert/util.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ def new_get_event_ts(ts_field):
     return lambda event: lookup_es_key(event[0], ts_field)
 
 
-def _find_es_dict_by_key(lookup_dict, term):
+def _find_es_dict_by_key(lookup_dict: dict, term: str, string_multi_field_name: str = ".keyword") -> tuple[dict, str]:
     """ Performs iterative dictionary search based upon the following conditions:
 
     1. Subkeys may either appear behind a full stop (.) or at one lookup_dict level lower in the tree.
@@ -64,8 +64,31 @@ def _find_es_dict_by_key(lookup_dict, term):
     element which is the last subkey used to access the target specified by the term. None is
     returned for both if the key can not be found.
     """
+
+    # For compound fieldnames added by ElastAlert.process_hits()
+    #
+    # For example, when query_key is a list of fieldnames it will insert a term
+    #     'key_1,other_fieldname,a_third_name'
+    # and if the rule is set for raw_query_keys, the query_key values may end
+    # with .keyword it will insert instead something like
+    #     'key_1_ip,other_fieldname_number,a_third_name.keyword'
+    # and we need to check for that synthentic compound fielname, including the
+    # .keyword suffix before contnuing
+    #
+    # Of course, it also handles happy path, non-ambuiguous fieldnames like
+    # 'ip_address' and 'src_displayname' that don't have . or [] characters
     if term in lookup_dict:
         return lookup_dict, term
+
+    # If not synthetically added by ElastAlert, matching documents will not have
+    # .keyword fieldnames, even if a .keyword fieldname was used as a term in
+    # the search
+    # e.g. {"term": {"description.keyword": "Target Description Here"}}
+    # will return a document with {"_source": {"description": "Target Description Here"}}
+    term = term.removesuffix(string_multi_field_name)
+    if term in lookup_dict:
+        return lookup_dict, term
+
     # If the term does not match immediately, perform iterative lookup:
     # 1. Split the search term into tokens
     # 2. Recurrently concatenate these together to traverse deeper into the dictionary,
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 825d06cf..8154534f 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@
                             'elastalert=elastalert.elastalert:main']},
     packages=find_packages(exclude=["tests"]),
     package_data={'elastalert': ['schema.yaml', 'es_mappings/**/*.json']},
+    python_requires='>=3.9',
     install_requires=[
         'apscheduler>=3.10.4,<4.0',
         'aws-requests-auth>=0.4.3',
diff --git a/tests/hits_terms_test.py b/tests/hits_terms_test.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0f683779
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/hits_terms_test.py
@@ -0,0 +1,189 @@
+import pytest
+from datetime import datetime, timedelta
+
+from elastalert.util import dt_to_ts
+from elastalert.elastalert import ElastAlerter
+
+# I like the dictionary whitespace the way it is, thank you
+# but I'm not going to tag all the lines with #noqa: E201
+# flake8: noqa
+
+@pytest.fixture
+def example_agg_response():
+    res = {
+        'took': 1,
+        'timed_out': False,
+        '_shards': {'total': 3, 'successful': 3, 'skipped': 0, 'failed': 0},
+        'hits': {
+            'total': {'value': 9, 'relation': 'eq'},
+            'max_score': None,
+            'hits': []},
+        'aggregations': {
+            'counts': {
+                'doc_count_error_upper_bound': 0,
+                'sum_other_doc_count': 0,
+                'buckets': [{'key': '10.0.4.174', 'doc_count': 2},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.241', 'doc_count': 2},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.76', 'doc_count': 1},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.123', 'doc_count': 1},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.156', 'doc_count': 1},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.231', 'doc_count': 1},
+                            {'key': '10.0.4.248', 'doc_count': 1}]}}
+    }
+    return res
+
+
+def _mock_query_key_option_loader(rule):
+    '''
+    So, some copypasta from loaders.load_options,
+
+    if query_key is a string:
+        no compound_query_key is created
+    if query_key is a list:
+        if len() > 1:
+            compound_query_key is created
+            query_key is replaced with ",".join() of the original query_key values
+        if len() == 1:
+            the query_key list with one string is normalilzed back to just a string
+        if len() == 0:
+            somehow it was an empty list and query_keys is silently dropped from the config
+    '''
+    raw_query_key = rule.get('query_key')
+    if isinstance(raw_query_key, list):
+        if len(raw_query_key) > 1:
+            rule['compound_query_key'] = raw_query_key
+            rule['query_key'] = ','.join(raw_query_key)
+        elif len(raw_query_key) == 1:
+            rule['query_key'] = raw_query_key[0]
+        else:
+            del rule['query_key']
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    ["qk_value", "query_key"],
+
+    # scenario A: 3 query keys
+    [ ( ['172.16.1.10', '/api/v1/endpoint-foo', 'us-east-2'],
+        ['server_ip', 'service_name', 'region'] ),
+
+    # scenario B: 2 query keys
+      ( ['172.16.1.10', '/api/v1/endpoint-foo'],
+        ['server_ip', 'service_name'] ),
+
+    # scenario C: 1 query key, but it was given as a list of one fieldname in the rule options
+    # as of this writing, 707b2a5 shouldn't allow this to happen, but here is a test regardless
+      ( ['172.16.1.10'],
+        ['server_ip'] ),
+
+    # scenario D: 1 query key, given as a string
+      ( ['172.16.1.10'],
+        'server_ip' ),
+
+    # scenario E: no query key
+      ( None,
+        None )
+   ],
+)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("query_key_values_separator", [",", ", ", ",      ", ",\t"])
+def test_get_hits_terms_with_factored_out_filters(ea, example_agg_response, qk_value, query_key, query_key_values_separator):
+
+    if query_key is not None:
+        ea.rules[0]['query_key'] = query_key
+
+    # emulate the rule['compound_query_key'] creation logic which prob should be
+    # factored out of loaders.load_options() instead of copypasta'd for the test
+    _mock_query_key_option_loader(ea.rules[0])
+
+    try:
+        # ElastAlert.process_hits() is expected to insert the filedname values
+        # from _hits as a commaspace csv
+        qk_csv = query_key_values_separator.join(qk_value)
+    except TypeError:
+        qk_csv = None
+    index = 'foo-2023-13-13' #lousy Smarch weather
+    top_term_key = 'client_ip'
+
+    endtime = datetime.now()
+    starttime = endtime - timedelta(hours=1)
+    ea.thread_data.current_es.search.return_value = example_agg_response
+
+    hit_terms = ea.get_hits_terms(
+        rule=ea.rules[0],
+        starttime=starttime,
+        endtime=endtime,
+        index=index,
+        key=top_term_key,
+        qk = qk_csv,
+        size=None
+    )
+    assert endtime in hit_terms
+    assert hit_terms[endtime] == example_agg_response['aggregations']['counts']['buckets']
+
+    expected_filters = [
+        {'range': {'@timestamp': { 'gt': dt_to_ts(starttime), 'lte': dt_to_ts(endtime)}}}
+    ]
+    try:
+        cqk = ea.rules[0]['compound_query_key']
+        for fieldname, value in zip(cqk, qk_value):
+            filter = {'term': {f'{fieldname}.keyword': value}}
+            expected_filters.append(filter)
+    except KeyError:
+        #not a compound, eh?  it must be a string of a single filedname
+        try:
+            fieldname = ea.rules[0]['query_key']
+            filter = {'term': {f'{fieldname}.keyword': qk_value[0]}}
+            expected_filters.append(filter)
+        except KeyError:
+            pass # maybe the rule never had a query_key, or it was an empty list and purged
+
+    expected_query = {
+        'query': {'bool': {'filter': {'bool': {'must': expected_filters}}}},
+         # 50 harded coded in get_hits_terms as a default for size=None
+        'aggs': {'counts': {'terms': {'field': top_term_key, 'size': 50, 'min_doc_count': 1}}}
+    }
+    ea.thread_data.current_es.search.assert_called_with(index=index,body=expected_query, size=0, ignore_unavailable=True)
+
+
+def test_query_key_filters_single_query_key():
+    rule = { 'query_key': 'a_single_key_as_a_string' }
+    qk_value_csv = 'a single value'
+    filters = list(ElastAlerter.query_key_filters(rule,qk_value_csv))
+    expected_filters = [{'term': {f'{rule['query_key']}.keyword': qk_value_csv}}]
+    assert filters == expected_filters
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("query_key_values_separator", [",", ", ", ",      ", ",\t"])
+def test_query_key_filters_compound_query_key(query_key_values_separator):
+    rule = { 'query_key': 'compound,key',
+             'compound_query_key': ['compound', 'key'] }
+    qk_value_csv = query_key_values_separator.join( ['combined value', 'by commaspace'] )
+    filters = list(ElastAlerter.query_key_filters(rule,qk_value_csv))
+    expected_filters = [
+        {'term': {'compound.keyword': 'combined value'}},
+        {'term': {'key.keyword': 'by commaspace'}},
+    ]
+    assert filters == expected_filters
+
+def test_query_key_filters_brittle_query_key_value_logs_warning(caplog):
+    rule = { 'query_key': 'university,state',
+             'compound_query_key': ['university', 'state'] }
+    #uh oh, a commaspace we didn't expect
+    qk_value_csv = 'California State University, San Bernardino, California'
+    filters = list(ElastAlerter.query_key_filters(rule,qk_value_csv))
+    log = caplog.records[0]
+    assert log.levelname == "WARNING"
+    assert 'Received 3 value(s) for 2 key(s).' in log.message
+
+def test_query_key_filters_none_values():
+    rule = { 'query_key': 'something'}
+    qk_value_csv = None
+    filters = list(ElastAlerter.query_key_filters(rule,qk_value_csv))
+    assert len(filters) == 0
+
+def test_query_key_filters_unexpected_passed_values_for_a_rule_without_query_keys(caplog):
+    rule = { }
+    qk_value_csv = 'value'
+    filters = list(ElastAlerter.query_key_filters(rule,qk_value_csv))
+    assert len(filters) == 0
+    log = caplog.records[0]
+    assert log.levelname == "WARNING"
+    assert 'Received 1 value(s) for 0 key(s).' in log.message
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/tests/util_test.py b/tests/util_test.py
index dbb0e8f1..32dcbc26 100644
--- a/tests/util_test.py
+++ b/tests/util_test.py
@@ -117,6 +117,7 @@ def test_looking_up_nested_keys(ea):
     }
 
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'Fields.ts') == expected
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'Fields.ts.keyword') == expected
 
 
 def test_looking_up_nested_composite_keys(ea):
@@ -131,6 +132,7 @@ def test_looking_up_nested_composite_keys(ea):
     }
 
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'Fields.ts.value') == expected
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'Fields.ts.value.keyword') == expected
 
 
 def test_looking_up_arrays(ea):
@@ -148,10 +150,14 @@ def test_looking_up_arrays(ea):
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'flags[0]') == 1
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'flags[1]') == 2
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[0]foo') == 'bar'
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[0]foo.keyword') == 'bar'
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[1]foo[0]bar') == 'baz'
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[2]foo.bar') == 'baz'
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[2]foo.bar.keyword') == 'baz'
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[1]foo[1]bar') is None
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[1]foo[1]bar.keyword') is None
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[1]foo[0]baz') is None
+    assert lookup_es_key(record, 'objects[1]foo[0]baz.keyword') is None
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'nested.foo[0]') == 'bar'
     assert lookup_es_key(record, 'nested.foo[1]') == 'baz'