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 website content. When a users sends a search request, the system searches through the appropriate indexes, which results in significantly better performance compared to linear SQL query search. For more information on how the module works, please refer to the How it works topic.

 

To set up the smart search functionality on your website, you need to perform the following three steps:

 

1. Enable Smart search indexing in the system.

 

2. Create search indexes. Assign the indexes to your site (and culture) and define their exact content. See the Managing indexes sub‑chapter for more details.

 

3. Add Smart search web parts to the pages of your site. You can find an overview of these web parts, including explanations of the most important web part properties, in the Available web parts and Using the Smart search filter topics.

 

The following topics provide additional information about search related issues:
 

•Search syntax

•Related scheduled tasks

•Searching attachments

•Search results in transformations

•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 the SQL Search overview topic.

 

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.