Weighted Search for the Craft CMS

This is a plugin for Craft CMS which provides a custom search function that can be used e.g. to build a search form.

• Search results are weighted based on number of hits in fields and title; hits in the title count more, exact matches of the title count even more
• Show an extract of the text that surrounds the search term
• Associate entries with search terms to editorially boost their relevance

Installation

1. Copy or move the weightedsearch directory into craft/plugins
2. Find the plugin in Craft settings (/admin/settings/plugins) and click Install

Usage

The craft.weightedSearch.substringSearch function takes a search string as its first argument and returns an array of results that is sorted from most relevant to least relevant.

It is also possible to provide a second argument containing an array of section handles; the search will then be restricted to those sections. If this array is empty or the argument is omitted, all sections are searched.

Each result has these fields: entry, excerpt and score. The excerpt is in HTML format, where each instance of the search string has been marked up with the mark element.

You can leverage entry as you would any other ElementCriteriaModel (eg. {{searchresult.entry.title}}).

Example template code:

 {% set query = craft.request.getParam('q') %}
 {% set results = craft.weightedSearch.substringSearch(query, ['articles', 'news']) %}
 {% if results %}
     <ul>
         {% for searchResult in results %}
             <li>
                 <a href="{{ searchResult.entry.url }}">{{ searchResult.entry.title }}</a>
                 <img src="{{searchResult.entry.thumbnail.first().url}}" alt="{{searchResult.entry.thumbnailAltText}}">
                 <p>{{ searchResult.excerpt|raw }}</p>
                 <!-- Score: {{ searchResult.score }} -->
             </li>
         {% endfor %}
     </ul>
 {% else %}
     <p>{{ "No results"|t }}</p>
 {% endif %}

Editorially prioritizing an entry for a search term

To enable manual prioritization of entries, create a field of type Tags, give it the handle prioritizedSearchTerms and add it to the relevant entry types.

To give an entry prioritization in the search results for a given term, add that term as a tag in the entry's prioritizedSearchTerms field. The entry will receive a significant boost to its score, which will most likely be enough to "win" over any other entry (that doesn't also have the same tag).

Possible code adaptations

By editing the constants in the WeightedSearch_EntriesService class, it is possible to adjust the length of the excerpt as well as the relative weights assigned to search hits in entry titles and entries that have been editorially prioritized.

Search hits in one type of entry can be "reassigned" to a different type by adding code for it in the getViewableEntry function. (Example case: an entry type that doesn't have its own URLs/template but whose contents are used by a different entry type's template.)