For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t get different results, using SQL Server 2005, for a simple Full-Text Search query and a Full-Text Search query using the FORMSOF and INFLECTIONAL keywords.
What I stumbled across eventually was that when creating and configuring my SQL Full-Text Indexes, I had left the language parameter as the default selection. When I changed this to English, voila!, my FORMSOF (INFLECTIONAL, @query) queries started to produces fantastic search results!
Also, an example query showing how to parameterize the the search term, and how to rank your results:
@query
varchar (100)
SET @query = ‘FORMSOF (INFLECTIONAL, ‘ + @query + ‘)’
SELECT FT.rank, P.id, P.title
FROM Products P
INNER JOIN CONTAINSTABLE (Products, *, @query) AS FT ON P.id = FT.[key]
If you’ve any questions, I’ll do my best to help. Also, if you’re just starting with Full-Text, check out my posts on installing Full-Text Search on SQL Server 2005 and how to setup and configure SQL Server 2005 Express Full-Text Search the easy way.
I recently had to setup a search facility on a website driven by SQL Server 2005 Express. My natural choice was SQL Server’s Full-Text Search feature, but setup was not entirely intuitive, and the web was full of misinformation. I’ve put together a tutorial to save you time.
If you’re not sure if your have Full-Text installed, read my post on installing SQL Server 2005 Express Full-Text Search.
Once, Full-Text is installed, managing your index is actually very simple:
- Browse to the tables of your database, right click and select ‘Design’
- In the main window, right click and select ‘Fulltext Index…’
If you see the message, ‘You need to define one or more full-text compatible indexes on the table to create a full-text index’ and the ‘Add’ button is greyed out, it’s because you don’t have a column the database can use to uniquely identify each row. Make sure you have a primary key, and if you’ve no success, start your troubleshooting with this video - it discusses unique indexes about 1/3 of the way through.
- Otherwise, click ‘Add’, and you have a new index.
- To configure the columns in the index, click the ‘…’ button next to ‘Columns’
- For each column, select the column, and select the appropriate language
To understand why the language parameter is important, see my post on use of the FORMSOF and INFLECTIONAL keywords in SQL Full-Text Search
It’s that easy! Any questions, let me know and I’ll do my best to help.
I’ve just been struggling to enable full-text search on my installation of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, and so want to share the solution.
If, like me, the ‘Use full-text indexing’ checkbox was greyed out under Database > Properties > Files, you first need to test whether Full-Text Indexing is installed or not. To do this, execute the query.
use [dbname]
select fulltextserviceproperty(’isfulltextinstalled’)
If this returns 0, you need to install Full-Text Search.
Firstly, did you install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Advanced Series? Only the Advanced Series contains full-text. If not, you may need to reinstall.
However if so, then you just need to change the installation to include Full-Text Indexing. But if you originally installed from a download from the above link (most of you) then you’ll find that when you try to modify the installation via Control Panel > Applications / Programs, Windows prompts you for the installation file ’sqlrun_sql.msi’. This is because the download unpacked the installation files to a temporary folder which can no longer be found.
To resolve this issue, you need to download the file again from the link above, move it to a folder, and unzip (I used WinRAR). Then point Windows to the sqlrun_sql.msi file (under /setup, wherever you unzipped the download) when it prompts you for the installation file.
For additional info, see here.
For additional support setting up Full-Text Search once installed, watch this video on the topic from Micosoft, BUT I think you’ll find my new tutorial on seting up Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2005 Express much quicker and more intuitive to be honest..
These statistics source from a compilation of SERPS behaviour studies for which I’ve listed source information at the end of the article. If you disagree with a figure, or have additional figures or sources, please do post them to the discussion.
- 42% of search users click the top-ranking link. 8% click the second-ranking link, and the click-through rate (CTR) continues to drop thereof.
- When these two top-ranking links are artificially switched, the click-through ratio of 42-8% drops to 34-12%, demonstrating the importance of engaging copy in addition to rank position.
- 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results
- 23% of searches progress to the second page. Presumably the difference between 62% ans 23% stems from searchers trying either another keyword or another engine, or giving up.
- 80% f unsuccessful searches are followed with keyword refinement.
- 41% of searches unsuccessful after the first page choose to refine thir keyword search phrase or their chosen search engine.
- 77% of search users choose organic over paid listing when searching, 67% choose organic search when purchasing.
- When the searcher is purchasing, organic click-through generates 25% higher conversion rates than equivalent Pay-Per-Click (PP) click-through.
- 40% of SEO campaigns aware of their ROI achieve returns in excess of 500%, while only 22% of PPC campaigns were able to achieve this value.
- Daily use of search engines rose from 33% in 2002 to 59% in 2005. The average day in 2005 reported 60 million people using a search engine. As of March 2007, Google accounts for 64% of US searches and 77% of UK searches
The validity of these statistics depend on various experimental factors (i.e. large, representative samples of searchers/searches), and on accurate statistical analysis.
For more in depth analysis, the sources for this article were:
Please post addition figures or sources, or your view, in the comments.
This is a great image from an eye-tracking experiment that clearly demonstrates the importance of organic SEO. Check it out.
