Internal site search overheads

What is the cost of a more thorough internal search?

[mcfly]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure my question doesn't have any real right or wrong answer, but some speculation would be great...

When implementing an internal site search (PHP/mySQL) I'm planning on simply querying a database using LIKE to produce a set of results. However, what kind of overhead is involved in searching a database of eg. 1000 records or 10000 records? Is it a good idea just to search just a varchar(50) field as opposed to a medium-text field, even at the expense of result quality?

I guess the answer depends on the demand on the site from visitors. Would a 10000 hit per week site cope fine whereas a 100000/week fail with the same system? The processor speed of the server must effect the overheads too - I'm working on the assumption of a nothing-special commerical host.

Any comments would be appreciated.

[jaski]

Full text search should not be a problem with the kind of numbers you have given.