[ic] HTdig or Googling a local IC Site for better search results on numerous columns

["Barry Treahy, Jr." <suppressed>]

Has anyone assembled an integrated search or advanced search feature 
into IC that would better handle keyword searches across a large number 
of columns in a MySQL database?  At present, the method I'm doing are 
searches against INDEX columns on some of the key fields and then 
attempting to reduce that, but the flexibility sucks and the performance 
is even worse;  I'm 4.8.6. 

What I'm hoping to find is a more intelligent search that someone can 
key into the search field specs related to our product and the search 
would be able to rapidly refine the results.  For example, in a generic 
case that everyone might relate to, pretend I have a bike shop and 
someone wants to search for:
    Blue Ten-Speed Bicycle with 18 inch wheels
would need to word search across many possible columns (presuming 
separate columns for color, speed, wheel size) and may not have a hit on 
all, but if the returned search was ranked, it wouldn't matter, or 
better yet, could also offer the Google style 'Did you mean: Dark-Blue 
Ten-Speed Bicycle with 20 inch wheels' for example.

What I have been thinking about during is exporting all of the columns 
of a record into a single field, linked back to the originating SKU, but 
I just thought there must be a better way to do this, and to have good 
search ranking results and perhaps even the 'Did you mean' fuzzy 
matching on better results...

Please note that this bike shop example is overly simplistic when 
compared to the number of data element columns used to represent our 
products (we're an electronic components manufacturer), which is why I'm 
struggling with this...

Regards,

Barry

--

Barry Treahy, Jr                       E-mail: suppressed
Midwest Microwave                          Phone: 480/314-1320
Vice President & CIO                         FAX: 480/661-7028
                      


_______________________________________________
interchange-users mailing list
suppressed
http://www.icdevgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users