How does WordPress search work behind the scenes?

by

I am using WordPress search to search a range of custom post types and allow the user to drill-down into each individual post type.

However I’m finding that WordPress is not returning what I’d deem to be the ‘best’ matches first. For example, if I search for Microsoft, pages that contain the term irregularly are still returned before pages that regularly use the term.

Basically I’m trying to find some information on how WordPress ranks pages and determines relevance and if I can influence this without having to install any plugins.

Any help much appreciated.

2

EDIT – The current version of WordPress supports relevance, so this answer is no longer accurate.

There’s no concept of rank or relevance, it’s just a simple LIKE query on the post title and content:

($wpdb->posts.post_title LIKE '{$n}{$term}{$n}') OR ($wpdb->posts.post_content LIKE '{$n}{$term}{$n}')

You can use the posts_search filter to modify or completely replace the search query with your own. From /wp-includes/query.php:

// Allow plugins to contextually add/remove/modify the search section of the database query
$search = apply_filters_ref_array('posts_search', array( $search, &$this ) );

Also see the available query filters on the WP_Query Codex page.

Leave a Comment