MySQL Fulltext Tables Rationale

Question

I'm currently trying to develop a basic full-text search for my website, and I noticed that some of the words “touch” are listed as MySQL full-text search tables. This does not bother me too much right now, because people who are looking for this news will not necessarily look for the word "relative" (but of course I cannot speak for everyone!). However, I was hoping that someone here could tell me the rationale for having a list of stop words. Thanks!

To clarify: I am using MyIsam for my full-text table. Stop words are words that MySQL will not index (for any full-text index). As noted in the commentary on this question, there is a complete list of stop words without any explanation. I just wanted to know if the rationale for the words “they” was chosen.

Answer 1

Stop words are just common words in English. In most cases, your search results will be more relevant - and your indexes will be smaller and faster - if you do not index these words.

You can edit the stop word list using the ft_stopword_file variable (or set it to "to index all words longer or longer than ft_min_word_len) if it suits your needs better. You can also change the minimum index word length using the ft_min_word_len variable, which exists for the same reason.