MySQL Fulltext Search, increase minimum character

Question

I'm trying to do MySQL fulltext search using the following query:

SELECT * FROM files WHERE MATCH(title) AGAINST ($q) limit $limit

The problem is, if any words under 4 characters are included in the search phrase than it ignores them. This is very bad for my search engine because a lot of possible things people will be searching for will include 3 and sometimes even 2 letter words.

I read somewhere that it was possible to change this in MySQL settings but after searching around I can't find any information on how to do this.. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Answer 1

Check this page in the documentation -- basically you set ft_min_word_len=3 (or 2), restart the server, and rebuild your FULLTEXT indexes.