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I'm kinda new to Drupal and I would like some advises.

I have a Drupal website, with a few nodes (1000 - 5000) of a particular content type, let's say a "House".

This "House" content type has a few properties (20) like price, location, number of rooms, etc.

In order to allow my end users to find those nodes, I've build an advanced search with the Finder module.

However, this module is no longer maintained and it is not really appropriate to search through many nodes.

Finder does not work like a typical search module, it does not base it's functionality on search indexes, and therefore is not an efficient choice for searching body content, though it can technically do that. It is more suitable for filtering on short field values.

What are the best options to build an advanced multi criteria search with Drupal 7 ? Do I need to do it by hand ? What are the modules out there that could help achieving that ?

Is Facet API the way to go ?

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1 Answer

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I think facets are a great way to do advanced searching. Facet API is a great module that is flexible.

You can use it with core drupal search using Faceted Navigation for Search or Search API, which can use the drupal database to search.

However, due to the queries that are run in the calculation of facet data, there are performance implications of using faceted search with drupal SQL based searching.

If you have a lot of content, are using a lot of different facets, or have high traffic, I would definitely recommend using a better search engine.

Apache solr, is great and is pretty easy to get set up these days.

You main options are the Apache Solr Search Integration module and the Search API module, in conjunction with the Search API Solr search module.

Both those integrate with the facet API module.

Solr is not really shared host friendly though. Generally you will have to find a host that will provide apache solr hosting, or use a VPS or dedicated server that allows you to install solr yourself.

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Great answer. Thank you. It summarizes everything in a nice way. – Jean-Michel Garcia Apr 26 at 21:12

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