Search Module

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The Search Module enables a Drupal website to provide both a simple and advanced search form which can be used to query website content and locate specific information.
Most Drupal websites have a link to a search page in the header or footer of the website as well as a search field in the header. And generally, this is also available via the URL:
http://<website>/search

  • The search feature provides a basic and advanced search form
  • Basic search provides keyword search across all nodes, whereas
  • Advanced search enables more targeted searches, including:
    • Containing any of the search words
    • Containing the search phrase, or
    • Containing none of the words
    • Only specific node types
    • If the taxonomy (vocabularies and terms) are being used to categorise nodes, then it is also possible to search specific node collections, as defined by the assigned terms

Additional modules can be integrated to further enhance the basic search module features. However, it is best to not rely on search solely for your users to locate the information.

Does Search Index Files?

No. The Search Module only searches nodes and is not capable of searching files at all (e.g. OpenOffice documents, Microsoft Office documents and PDF's).
If you require the ability to index files on your website then a third party search engine must be installed and integrated. Drupal does not provide this functionality.

Search Does Not Appear To Be Returning The Correct Results, Why?

Based on your Drupal configuration, Search will index words contained in your nodes and create a search index approximately every 15 minutes. This search index is then used to quickly locate the nodes containing the search keywords. If new nodes are not yet accessible via search then this means that either:
  1. Search has not indexed the node, or
  2. The node has not been published, or
  3. Access to the node is restricted, or
  4. You are trying to search for information contained in files only, not the node text

It is important to remember that search ONLY indexes the text contained within the node title, node body and any other fields comprising the node. Search does not index files.
So if you are relying on users being able to locate nodes via search, appropriate keywords must exist within the node text.