MySQL full text search matching similar results - mysql

Question

I'll try to explain my situation: I'm trying to create a search engine for products on my website, so when the user needs to find a product I need to show similar ones, here's an example.
User searches:
assassins creed OR assassinscreed OR aSsAssIn's CreeD assuming there are no letters/numbers mispelling (those 3 queries should produce the same result)
Expected results:
Assassin's Creed AND Assassin's Creed: Unity AND Assassin's Creed: Special Edition
What have I tried so far
I have created a MySQL field for the search engine which contains a parsed name of the product (Assassin's Creed: Unity -> assassinscreedunity
I parse the search query
I search using MySQL's INSTR()
My problem
I'm fine by using this, but I heard it can be slow when the number of rows increases, I've created a full-text index in my table, but I don't think it would help, so I need another solution.
Thanks for any answer, and ask me anything before downvoting.

Answer 1

First of all, you should keep track of performance issues in your queries more precisely than 'heard it cand be slow' and 'think it would help'. One starting point may be the Slow Query Log.
If you have a table which contains the same parsed name in more than one row, consider normalizing your database. In the specific case, store unique parsed names in one table, and only the id of the corresponding parsed name in the table you described in your question. This way, you only need to check the smaller table with unique names and can then quickly find all matching entries in the main table by id.
Example:
Consider the following table with your structure
id | product_name | rating
-----------------------------------
1 | assassinscreedunity | 5
2 | assassinscreedunity | 2
3 | monkeyisland | 3
4 | monkeyisland | 5
5 | assassinscreedunity | 4
6 | monkeyisland | 4
you would have to scan all six entries to find relevant rows.
In contrast, consider two tables like this:
id | p_id | rating
--------------------
1 | 1 | 5
2 | 1 | 2
3 | 2 | 3
4 | 2 | 5
5 | 1 | 4
6 | 2 | 4
id | name
--------------------------
1 | assassinscreedunity
2 | monkeyisland
In this case, you only have to scan two entries (compared to six) and can then efficiently look up relevant rows using the integer id.
To further enhance the performance, you could extend the concept of a parsed name and use hashes. For example, you could calculate the SHA1-hash of your parsed name which is a 160 bit value. You can find entries in your database for this value very efficiently. To match substrings, you can add them to the second table as well. Since the hash only needs to computed once, you still can use the database to match by an integer. Another thing for you might be fuzzy hashing.
In addition, you should read up on the Rabin–Karp algorithm or string searching in general.