Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> Search Type

[avrr]

What are these two search types? How many times I read these search types, I have no clue

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/search_type

Can somebody explain with example?

thanks.

[avrr]

anybody please? how this two types of search imp[acts database and server resources?

[avrr]

Anybody please... I checked search on forums with both. I don't find any difference?

[Jose Amaral Rego]

Usergroups -> Usergroup Manager -> {Choose Usegroup} Edit Usergroup -> Forum Searching Permissions -> Can Use Boolean Search
(Only applies if Fulltext searching is enabled)

Boolean Fulltext Search
This permission allows members of this group to search your forums using the Boolean option. This permission only applies to search performed when your forum's search type is set to Fulltext. This permission allows Boolean searches, which includes the usage of AND, OR, and NOT to limit results. This option can be server intensive for very large forums so its usage is cautioned. When this permission is disabled, the Fulltext search will use a less intensive relevance based search.

For this permission to work you must have the search engine enabled in your vBulletin options and the usergroup must also have search permission.

- Quoted from Admin Help.

Boolean = server intensive searches that may result in non-seaches.

http://library.nyu.edu:8000/research/tutorials/boolean/boolean.html#

Natural Language = indexes(indices), adds to database size, less server intensive seaching, no wild card searches e.g. vBull*

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156359

Not all that is mentioned in link below will work as it goes the same if you use search engines.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-boolean.html

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2155991

From what I could tell from documents is that it needs to be updated or explained better between the two searches. Pros and Cons and if it still creates larger databases if set to one or the other option.

All that reading and trying to understand if one option uses random irrelevant search results or is better in phrase searching. I hope you can understand a little bit more between the two with the links I have provided.

[avrr]

Sorry... I still don't understand. Can you tell examples to 'fulltext search', 'boolean search', 'vbulletin search', indices ?

thanks.

[Floris]

vBulletin Search is a engine build by vBulletin.
FULLTEXT is a feature from MySQL.

I use FULLTEXT type on all my own websites.

[Kaelon]

vBulletin Search is a engine build by vBulletin.
FULLTEXT is a feature from MySQL.

I use FULLTEXT type on all my own websites.

I have a vBulletin with around 1.3 million posts and around 60,000 users (with 400-1000 concurrent users on it at any given time). I just discovered that I'm using the built-in vBulletin search rather than the MySQL Fulltext Search.

Should I make the move to FULLTEXT? Why should or shouldn't I? Are there any caveats I should take into consideration?

[Floris]

Fulltext searching uses a search index that is constructed by MySQL itself. This is the default search as of new installations of vBulletin 3.6 since MySQL 4.0 is required.

This can be done within the vBulletin Control Panel under: vBulletin Options -> Search Options.
Larger forums may have a problem with timeouts so should run the queries manually from the MySQL Command Prompt. The queries are:
Code:
ALTER TABLE vb_post ADD FULLTEXT INDEX (title,pagetext)
ALTER TABLE vb_thread ADD FULLTEXT INDEX (title)

With the vBulletin search and the Fulltext Boolean search you can use AND, OR, and NOT (or put a - before a word).
Natural Language doesn't support any of these option, it just returns results based on MySQL's internal algorithm to select the text that best matches what you input. It is heavily influenced by the number of times the search words appear in the post.
With the Boolean Fulltext you can also include words in quotes to search for a specific string.
There is no parenthesis support.

[oldengine]

So WHICH method is the better way to offer searching?

Not in regard to boolean features, but in regard to server resources consumed?

Threads: 36,806, Posts: 224,731, Members: 10,528

[Jose Amaral Rego]

oldengine you can read though post number 4

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1390461&postcount=4

[Ludachris]

Is there a way to change the word length minimum in fulltext search?

[Steve Machol]

Yes, but you will need root acess to the server to do that. Here are the instructions for changing the default 4 character minimum in MySQL's full text search indexing:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=903957&postcount=7

Here's the list of MySQL stopwords that will not be indexed:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/fulltext-stopwords.html

[Ludachris]

Thanks Steve, saw that in the docs too.

[oldengine]

Well, I was told to reread post #4, but it doesn't tell me crap.

All I'm asking is whether with a board of these contents ( Threads: 36,806, Posts: 224,731, Members: 10,528 ) if I should switch to the new search method or stay with the VB search that I've used for over three years now.

[Steve Machol]

I do not believe there is a siginificant diferrence between the two methods on resources. Fulltext is superior in that it allow much more versatile options.

For future refence please start your own thread rather than hijacking someone else's. Thanks.