Joomla Smart Search is an important feature that allows site users to search most of the site's content from articles, tags, contacts, users, etc. at a fairly fast speed. Joomla Smart Search enables the search function for site visitors. And it's more advanced than the normal search function.
The fundamental difference between Joomla's top searches is its ability to provide search results in real time. If you create a module with the main search, the search box will only display the results after a user clicks the search button. However, if you use Smart Search, users will get results as they type in the search box. This extension works with an active indexer.
Open the “Index” item from the list. Now that the collection of search statistics has been enabled, the site will begin to record what is typed in the search field of your Joomla site. Previous versions of Joomla included a core search feature that is still available, but Smart Search is a big step forward for the way Joomla indexes information. If you still have the old Joomla search available, you'll probably want to delete it once Smart Search is running successfully.
As you go through each section of Smart Search, you will find that there are Statistics for index and content maps. The Smart Search feature is disabled by default because it is only compatible with Joomla core features at this time. Do a search for a key term on your site and you'll see how this intelligent search indexes information differently. By enabling this add-on, the native Content - Smart Search plugin indexes data from third-party components.
Previous versions of Joomla required you to manually index your Joomla site every time you added new content. The filter option provides this functionality to the administrator so they can easily manage content and keep their smart search optimized. When the basic search component cannot meet the demand, Joomla Smart Search can be used as an improved alternative to this popular feature. In the screenshot above, you can see that the statistics for the smart search index are divided into link type and count.
For example, if you choose “Joomla”, the results page will initially display all results with the keyword “Joomla”. Every time you add a new article to the website or any new contact items, Joomla will automatically index them for search results. The options section is very extensive and will be discussed in a separate article: Joomla 4.0 Smart Search Options. For content to be displayed in search results, it must first be indexed using one of the smart search plugins.
