The Smart search module allows index-based searching through the content of websites and various types of data within the system. It is based on Lucene.Net (version 2.1.0) which is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform.

 

The module uses indexes to store information about the specified content. When a search request is sent to the system by a user, it is the index that gets searched, which results in significantly better performance compared to linear SQL query search. For more information on how the module works, please refer to Developer's Guide -> Modules -> Smart Search -> How it works.

 

To enable the smart search functionality on your site, you need to perform the following three steps:

 

1. Enable Smart search indexing in the system.

 

2. Create an index. Assign it to a site (and culture) and the define the content that you wish to index. Learn how in the Managing indexes sub-chapter.

 

3. Use the Smart search web parts on your site. You can find an overview of these web parts in the Available web parts and Using the Smart search filter topics in the Developer's Guide.

 

The following topics provide additional information about search related issues:
 

•Search syntax

•Related scheduled tasks

•Searching attachments

•Security

 

In older versions, Kentico CMS supported only linear SQL search functionality. To keep the system backward compatible, this functionality is still available. It is now referred to as SQL Search and you can find further information about it in Developer's Guide -> Modules -> Smart Search -> SQL Search overview.

 

The Smart search internals and API sub-chapter provides information about the database tables and classes used by the module and examples of how smart search indexes can be managed using the API and how search results can be displayed in transformations.