Fulltext Index

Super Speedy Search provides the option to search through posts using a fulltext index. This is highly recommended since it’s both faster and produces more relevant results than using the default LIKE operator.

Choose the fulltext index fields

Choose which fields to search, then hit ‘Yes’.

Then scroll down to the bottom and save your settings.

Create the fulltext index

After you have saved your settings, at the top of the screen there will be an admin notice containing a button ‘Create fulltext index on posts’. This button will actually create the fulltext index – until the index is created, your searches will continue to use the slow LIKE operator.

With large sites, you should choose a quiet time to build this index. You should ensure you have the latest version of MySQL too – InnoDB tables are faster than MyISAM for WordPress websites (because they have row-locking rather than just table-locking) and InnoDB fulltext indexes only got added in MySQL 5.6. Hopefully you’re on MySQL 8 or MariaDB or PerconaDB and if so then you will definitely be able to create the index.

When you’re ready to create the fulltext index, click the button. It will make the DB call to create the index. On larger sites, the ajax call may time out but if you wait long enough the index will still get created.

If you are waiting on the index to be created and you wish to check if Super Speedy Search is in operation yet, you can check out our FAQ article How to check if Super Speedy Search is Working.