: The issue is best described with an example:
: search for canon - matches multiple categories, which will have very
: different schemas
: http://cnet.search.com/search?chkpt=astg.cnet.fd.search.cnet&q=canon&tag=srch

I just so happen to have a bit of insight into how that page works, and
while it's true that it queries multiple indexes with differnet schemas,
it makes no attepts to merge the results -- the "product" results come
from one index, the "features" come from another, the "downloads" come
from a third, the "blogs" come from a forth, etc...  but all of hte
"products" are from a single index, even if the products are in differnet
categories (ie: cameras vs printers) they are still kept in a single index
with a single schema -- but dynamicFields are used to store category
specific fields, so that if you are doing a category specific search,
category specific filters can be offered to you...

http://shopper.cnet.com/4144-6501_9-0-1.html?query=canon

: 1. Have 1 index that has ALL categories of products. Possibly 1
: generic index with all searchable text, and separate indices when you
: know the categroy user is looking for. But with this ranking products
: well becomes very difficult.

as i said, you don't relaly need the category specific indexes ... but why
do you think this approach makes "ranking products well" difficult ?


-Hoss

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