# SQL For 'LIKE' based search relevance
**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sql-for-like-based-search-relevance/260803
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [May 20, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sql-for-like-based-search-relevance/260803 "2008-05-20T02:40:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lorren\_biffin](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/lorren_biffin)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sql-for-like-based-search-relevance/260803/1 "2008-05-20T02:40:34Z")
I’m writing a search script into a product inventory list I’ve got. I’ve got the search working great, but I want order the results by search relevance, as opposed to by a given column.
Anybody got a technique/algorithm to use here? (I’m not interested in a full search engine solution, just a method/class/advice/etc.)
Here’s my code (albeit it’s very messy/sloppy…it’s a few minutes worth of coding on a bad day and a tight deadline.
```php
function search_products($string = NULL, $column = 'Description', $rows = '20') {
if(isset($string) && is_string($string)) {
$args = explode(' ', $string);
$arg = " WHERE";
$i = 1;
foreach($args as $item) {
$arg .= ($i == 1) ? "" : " OR";
$arg .= " `$column` LIKE '%$item%'";
$i++;
}
$query = "SELECT * FROM `$this->prod_table`";
$query .= ($arg == NULL) ? '' : $arg;
$query .= ($rows == FALSE) ? '' : ' LIMIT '.$rows;
$query .= ";";
return $this->wpdb->get_results($query, OBJECT);
} else {
return false;
}
}
```
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### Author:  [@kdd](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kdd)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sql-for-like-based-search-relevance/260803/2 "2008-05-20T02:44:21Z")
Using LIKE is slower than using MATCH(someCol) AGAINST (‘str\*’ IN BOOLEAN MODE) and then you can order them by search relevance. I’m sure there’s some way to do similar thing for LIKE, but if I were you, I’d use MATCH … AGAINST …
Please see MySQL manual for MATCH … AGAINST …
Hope this helps. 🙂
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### Author:  [@lorren\_biffin](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/lorren_biffin)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/sql-for-like-based-search-relevance/260803/3 "2008-05-20T03:00:39Z")
Good deal, thanks 🙂 I’d considered MATCH, but in my haste chose LIKE instead.
I’ll update the code in a few moments.