Improve search results accuracy

[titush]

WordPress is known to have quite a poor default search results logic. This is the reason plugins like relevanssi come to exist. Would it be possible to allow for customized weighting of content attributes such as title, excerpt etc, to improve the accuracy of search results?

It seems odd one needs to use a plugin to achieve decent search results across a site. Appreciate the time to look into this.

Thanks.

[atomicjack]

This is a common issue I myself hear of - and definitely needs looking into.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Previously: [25632], #7394.

[desrosj]

I wanted to just provide a bit more context on this ticket. A more detailed and up to date explanation of the current state of search in WordPress can be found here: #45606#comment:2. Because that ticket includes considerations for the new block editor, let's direct any conversation to that ticket if a new solution arises that WordPress Core can utilize.

[earnjam]

#39761 was marked as a duplicate.

[desrosj]

#53726 was marked as a duplicate.

[desrosj]

I'm going to close this one out.

Unfortunately, WordPress is beholden to the limitations of MySQL, for better or worse.

For the small minority of sites with extremely large data sets or the need for more accurate searching, something like ElasticSearch is a better option. There are several well documented ways out there that integrate fairly well.

If there's something specific in WordPress blocking you from integrating with an external search, that can certainly be considered. But it's unlikely the premise behind this ticket will be addressed unless there's an update to how search in MySQL works.