diff --git a/includes/processor_highlight.inc b/includes/processor_highlight.inc
index 62aa158..384ce96 100644
--- a/includes/processor_highlight.inc
+++ b/includes/processor_highlight.inc
@@ -312,8 +312,8 @@ class SearchApiHighlight extends SearchApiAbstractProcessor {
    */
   protected function createExcerpt($text, array $keys) {
     // Prepare text by stripping HTML tags and decoding HTML entities.
-    $text = strip_tags(str_replace(array('<', '>'), array(' <', '> '), $text));
     $text = ' ' . decode_entities($text);
+    $text = strip_tags(str_replace(array('<', '>'), array(' <', '> '), $text));
 
     // Extract fragments around keywords.
     // First we collect ranges of text around each keyword, starting/ending