Best way to do a weighted search over multiple fields in mysql?

Question

Here\'s what i want to do:

• match a search subject against multiple fields of my table
• order the results by importance of the field and relevance of th

Answer 1

you can add multiple mysql MATCH() values together, first multiplying each one by their weight.

simplified of course...

'(MATCH(column1) AGAINST(\''.$_GET['search_string'].'\') * '.$column1_weight.')
 + (MATCH(column2) AGAINST(\''.$_GET['search_string'].'\') * '.$column2_weight.')
 + (MATCH(column3) AGAINST(\''.$_GET['search_string'].'\') * '.$column3_weight.')
 AS relevance'

then

'ORDER BY relevance'