If you’ve always fantasized that WordPress would fix their search results and return something actually relevant (not ordered by date), but are let down on every new release. You’ve found the plugin to make that dream come true.
Relevant Search actually replaces the default WordPress search with relevant results. After testing a ton of plugins on the Tuts+ network without any luck I finally had to write one that worked. Go check for yourself, search any of the Tuts+ blogs and see this very same plugin in all it’s searching glory.
The basic idea behind this plugin was to add a FULLTEXT index to the post_title & post_content and run a bit of REGEX on the search terms using that index. Then once daily the plugin will update the index with wp_schedule_event() to keep the search results from become corrupted or invalid. Also, since most people don’t want to show pages in search results I removed them, as well.
The plugin just works and does not add extra queries to your WordPress site. There’s nothing to configure, just activate, and you’re done.