Overview

The Smart search module enables index-based search of the content of your web site. It is based on Lucene.Net, version 2.1.0, which is a source code, class-per-class, API-per-API and algorithmatic port of the Java Lucene search engine to the C# and .NET platform.

The module uses indexes to store information about the content of your site. 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 this chapter.

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. Learn here.

2. Create an index. Assign it to a site and culture and define content that will be indexed. Learn here.

3. Use some of the Smart search web parts on your site. Learn here.

The module comes with several web parts. You can find an overview of these web parts, including explanations of the most important web part properties, in this chapter.

In Kentico CMS versions prior to 4.1, there was just the linear SQL search functionality implemented. 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 here.