diff --git a/lisp/gnus-logic.el b/lisp/gnus-logic.el
index 954295438c953c2500b9c1959a49e52312cc9653..1b4fc22bc11ee0d599fb40a0adef53588b4f9ca4 100644
--- a/lisp/gnus-logic.el
+++ b/lisp/gnus-logic.el
@@ -181,8 +181,10 @@
   (with-current-buffer nntp-server-buffer
     (let* ((request-func (cond ((string= "head" header)
 				'gnus-request-head)
+                               ;; We need to peek at the headers to detect the
+                               ;; content encoding
 			       ((string= "body" header)
-				'gnus-request-body)
+                                'gnus-request-article)
 			       (t 'gnus-request-article)))
 	   ofunc article)
       ;; Not all backends support partial fetching.  In that case, we
@@ -196,6 +198,14 @@
       (gnus-message 7 "Scoring article %s..." article)
       (when (funcall request-func article gnus-newsgroup-name)
 	(goto-char (point-min))
+        ;; Searching base64/qp-encoded message body produces more
+        ;; satisfactory results if we decode the message first
+        (unless (or (eq ofunc 'gnus-request-head)
+                    (eq request-func 'gnus-request-head))
+          (let ((encoding (gnus-fetch-field "content-transfer-encoding")))
+            (cond
+             ((string= "base64" encoding) (article-de-base64-unreadable t))
+             ((string= "quoted-printable" encoding) (article-de-quoted-unreadable t)))))
 	;; If just parts of the article is to be searched and the
 	;; backend didn't support partial fetching, we just narrow to
 	;; the relevant parts.
diff --git a/lisp/gnus-score.el b/lisp/gnus-score.el
index f86b6f837a70ce54b06668187821fe57c3f80f4c..776194a31c6702441d3bae74c8f6048778270e67 100644
--- a/lisp/gnus-score.el
+++ b/lisp/gnus-score.el
@@ -1752,8 +1752,10 @@ score in `gnus-newsgroup-scored' by SCORE."
 	       (all-scores scores)
 	       (request-func (cond ((string= "head" header)
 				    'gnus-request-head)
+                                   ;; We need to peek at the headers to detect
+                                   ;; the content encoding
 				   ((string= "body" header)
-				    'gnus-request-body)
+                                    'gnus-request-article)
 				   (t 'gnus-request-article)))
 	       entries alist ofunc article last)
 	  (when articles
@@ -1773,6 +1775,14 @@ score in `gnus-newsgroup-scored' by SCORE."
 	      (widen)
 	      (when (funcall request-func article gnus-newsgroup-name)
 		(goto-char (point-min))
+                ;; Searching base64/qp-encoded message body produces more
+                ;; satisfactory results if we decode the message first
+                (unless (or (eq ofunc 'gnus-request-head)
+                            (eq request-func 'gnus-request-head))
+                  (let ((encoding (gnus-fetch-field "content-transfer-encoding")))
+                    (cond
+                     ((string= "base64" encoding) (article-de-base64-unreadable t))
+                     ((string= "quoted-printable" encoding) (article-de-quoted-unreadable t)))))
 	    ;; If just parts of the article is to be searched, but the
 	    ;; backend didn't support partial fetching, we just narrow
 		;; to the relevant parts.