Magento 1.9 - I want to know the searching algorithms on Magento and how to improve this utility?

[xzxzxzxyy]

I'm looking for searching mechanism on Magento. My Megento version is M1.9 and i don't have any extension for searching catalog or product.

Btw when write down the specific term in searching box, the unrelated result comes out. The stuffs i've used are included in product name, meta-tag and description

For instance, our website is based on hat/cap company.

When i searching for "new york snapback", the related products show on the result side.

Although i combine "ny snapback" as synonym term for "new york snapback" in catalog - search terms , Irrelevant results come out.

How can i solve this situation?

[Sinisa]

Two quick checks:

1. Go to the System -> Catalog -> Catalog Search, and check if your mode is Fulltext. If it's not, set to Fulltext and perform full reindex.

2. Check how many product attributes are included during a search (Catalog -> Manage Attributes -> Attributes). For example, if you have included description attribute, that's why you're getting more results that you thought.

Long term solution for you is to install 3rd party extension which can improve your search results. There are few cheap solutions, like:

https://php4u.co.uk/blast-search-lucene-magento-extension/

https://mirasvit.com/magento-extensions/sphinx-search-ultimate.html

Also, you can check extensions for SOLR or ElasticSearch which will require some additional software/steps in order to achieve it.

The biggest weakness of default Magento search is about missing functionality for attribute weight, and that's something which you can use to improve your search results.

There are many other benefits from using 3rd party search solution, but you can check it on the vendor's sites.