Comparison matrix of search methods in Drupal

Comparison matrix of search methods in Drupal:

Here is a summary of the search methods presented in this article -- see sections below for more detail.

Method	Used for	Strengths	Weaknesses
Core "Search" module	Site-wide Boolean keyword search of Nodes and User names	Easy to deploy Core Drupal module (officially maintained) Uses indexing (fairly efficient) Displays results appropriate to permissions of searcher Includes minimal field-based search in Advanced search of Node content Can configure ordering of search results Full hook API =========	Indexes only Node content, not other pages on site Indexes all Nodes, whether you want it to or not Requires exact full-word keyword match for Nodes (Stemming modules can overcome this), but allows substring match for Users Doesn't take into account how Theme renders Node =======
Contributed "Search by Page" module	Site-wide Boolean keyword search of pages	Easy to deploy Flexible - indexes what you want it to index Relies on core Search module for indexing and searching technology Displays results appropriate to permissions of searcher Takes into account how Theme renders page Full hook API =========	Requires exact full-word keyword match (Stemming modules can overcome this) No field-based or faceted searching capabilities No capability for influencing ordering of search results ========
Third-party crawler-based search engines (e.g. Google)	Site-wide Boolean keyword search of pages	Easy to deploy Indexes content as rendered by your theme You don't have to maintain the index Some control over what content is indexed Good substring matching capabilities ==========	Searches only publicly-available content Headers, sidebars, etc. are indexed along with content, which could lead to false positive matches Little or no control over when your site is indexed, order of search results, or how results are displayed No faceted or field-based searching =========
Search appliances	Site-wide Boolean, keyword, and/or faceted search of nodes or page content, depending on appliance	Efficient, so good for high-volume sites Many appliances offer faceted searching ========	More difficult to deploy than other methods ==========
Contributed "Faceted Search" module	Faceted search of one or more Node types	Faceted searching Easy to set up Flexible =========	Probably not too useful for site-wide searching, for most sites ==========
Contributed "Views" module with exposed filters	Field-based search of Nodes, Users, Files, or Comments	Field-based searching Easy to set up Flexible =========	Probably not too useful for full-site searching, for most sites ==========