Your Drupal website’s search optimization with ApacheSolr
The search function is such an awesome invention of the digital world that we sometimes miss it in everyday life. It would be great to just click “search” and easily find something in our apartment, in outer space or even in a purse (which, of course, is the next level of complexity). Jokes aside, when it comes to websites, no search is too complex for Apache Solr. This search platform is capable of everything. Let’s discuss ApacheSolr integration for your Drupal website and how we can improve its usability and performance.
What ApacheSolr will give to your Drupal website
ApacheSolr, the famous and powerful Java-based search platform, enriches Drupal websites with exceptional search capabilities.
Firstly, Solr delivers the search results faster than the traditional SQL-based search in Drupal core, and with perfect resistance to the highest load possible. One of the performance advantages is that Solr is designed to successfully run on a separate server.
Because of this, Solr is an especially great fit for large, high-traffic Drupal sites with thousands of nodes. But it can also do a world of good for small ones.
And, of course, Solr offers unique features that let users enjoy truly advanced searching experiences. At the same time, they feel that the website is very easy to use and intuitively understandable. Solr search seems to understand them at first click and gives what they are looking for.
Let’s take a closer look at some of these special search features. Solr can do it all — and more — for your Drupal website:
- index from thousands to millions of Drupal nodes
- search for all attributes of Drupal nodes
- provide faceted searches by using various parameters for more exact results
- do language stemming to get related results
- forgive user’s typos and alternate spellings, as well as offer suggestions
- offer content recommendations for related content
- show the most relevant results on top
- highlight the search queries in the results
- search in attachments (PDF, Word, Excel files etc.)
- provide search based on geographical location
- search across multiple Drupal sites
ApacheSolr integration for your Drupal website
Drupal has handy integration modules that will be your main assistants in the integration. Install them and then make your server settings. In Drupal 7, you can use Apache Solr Search or Search API. In Drupal 8, the leading role has been entrusted to Search API (see more about using Search API in Drupal 8). The Search API Solr Search module provides a Solr backend for the Search API. The Facet API is responsible for Solr’s awesome faceted search.
In addition, there is a whole ecosystem of additional modules to work with ApacheSolr in Drupal. They include Apache Solr Attachments for searching in attachments, Apache Solr Multisite Search for searching on multiple sites, Apache Solr Exclude Node for excluding certain nodes from Apache Solr, Apache Solr Autocomplete for simple autocomplete features, Search API Multilingual Solr Search for multilingual experiences, Sarnia for displaying non-Drupal data, and many more.
If you would like to find developers who will help you bring ApacheSolr to your website, look no further. We work as fast as a Solr search ;) The Drudesk support team is ready to perform Apache Solr installation and setup for you, taking into consideration all the twists and turns of the process.
Talk to us about Apache Solr integration, and always stay updated on other ways to make your website faster and more enjoyable by following us on Facebook or other social networks.