I’ve installed Fast Search on this blog and — yow! Searches that used to take take 15, 30, 60 seconds with the out-of-the-box search capabilities all come back in just 2 or 3. It’s fantastic.
There are a few limitations vs. the normal MT search. It doesn’t do comments (yet) — but that’s not really a problem here. It’s search parameters are a bit more limited — no Regex, no Case Sensitivity, no OR or NOT.
But if you’re looking for a word or two in a quotation here (or a fragment of 4 letters or more), the new Search will rock your world.
I’ll probably be installing it (as an option) on my other blogs. But the best fit was here. If it continues to perform the way it has over the next week, I’ll definitely be dropping something in the tip jar.
I do note that FastSearch doesn’t seem to exclude punctuation from its search — i.e., a search for “dog” will not find “dog,”. Rrg.
The Google search in the sidebar is more powerful — but it has its own limitations (it tend to find too much on the pages, ironically).