The default MySQL Fulltext search is not performing very well on more serious shops. It is slow and the results aren't very relevant. Apache's Solr does a much better job in delivering fast and relevant results. I have used the Solarium PHP library to build Solr into Magento CE. If you have some funds available for improvements, pleas contact me.
This extension is also on Magento Connect.
- Free and Open Source
- Fast results
- Can handle high number of products
- Fast autocomplete search query while typing
- Optional: Show products with images as suggestions
- Autocorrect typos in search terms
- "Did you mean..." suggestions
- Solr 3 & 4 support
- Solr HTTP authentication support
- Magento Community Edition 1.6+
- A working Solr 3.x or 4.x server
The install instructions can be found on this Wiki page
A lot of info can be found in our Wiki Pages
If you have an issue, you can open a bug report in GitHub's issue tracker.