ZSL (Zend Search Lucene) is an exciting new development in search engines that can be adapted to an existing website. A full port of the Open Source Apache Lucene 'information retrieval library' to PHP, ZSL is a robust system that boasts many features, including:
- Ranked searching
- Search by specific field (including boosts)
- Support for Boolean searches, Proximity searches, Fuzzy searches, etc.
- Support for indexed and non-indexed attributes
- Support for UTF-8, case-sensitive & numeric searches
As well, ZSL has functions not found in MySQL, such as:
- No minimum word length
- Can use data from a variety of sources
- Independent from DBMS server
Here is a screenshot of a typical query and the results (note the accurate ranked listings) as implemented using S.L. Feldman & Associates data (click on image for larger size):
While MySQL is a fine and venerable database system that has been successfully utilized in countless situations, you may find that adopting ZSL can take searching on your website to a higher and more precise level.
View a video presentation here:
