Performing a sequence of queries can help too. For example, if users commonly search for a product name, you could do an initial query on just the product name field which should be much faster than searching the text of all product descriptions, and highlighting would be less problematic. If that initial query comes up empty, then you could move on to the next highest most likely field, maybe product title (short one line description), and query voluminous fields like detailed product descriptions, specifications, and user comments/reviews only as a last resort.
-- Jack Krupansky On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 6:17 AM, elisabeth benoit <elisaelisael...@gmail.com > wrote: > Thanks to you all for those informed advices. > > Thanks Trey for your very detailed point of view. This is now very clear to > me how a search on multiple fields can grow slower than a search on a > catchall field. > > Our actual search model is problematic: we search on a catchall field, but > need to know which fields match, so we do highlighting on multi fields (not > indexed, but stored). To improve performance, we want to get rid of > highlighting and use the solr explain output. To get the explain output on > those fields, we need to do a search on those fields. > > So I guess we have to test if removing highlighting and adding multi fields > search will improve performances or not. > > Best regards, > Elisabeth > > > > 2015-10-12 17:55 GMT+02:00 Jack Krupansky <jack.krupan...@gmail.com>: > > > I think it may all depend on the nature of your application and how much > > commonality there is between fields. > > > > One interesting area is auto-suggest, where you can certainly suggest > from > > the union of all fields, you may want to give priority to suggestions > from > > preferred fields. For example, for actual product names or important > > keywords rather than random words from the English language that happen > to > > occur in descriptions, all of which would occur in a catchall. > > > > -- Jack Krupansky > > > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 8:39 AM, elisabeth benoit < > > elisaelisael...@gmail.com > > > wrote: > > > > > Hello, > > > > > > We're using solr 4.10 and storing all data in a catchall field. It > seems > > to > > > me that one good reason for using a catchall field is when using > scoring > > > with idf (with idf, a word might not have same score in all fields). We > > got > > > rid of idf and are now considering using multiple fields. I remember > > > reading somewhere that using a catchall field might speed up searching > > > time. I was wondering if some of you have any opinion (or experience) > > > related to this subject. > > > > > > Best regards, > > > Elisabeth > > > > > >
