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MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel: Indexes, Relevance Scoring, and Boolean Mode MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel: Indexes, Relevance Scoring, and Boolean Mode ================================================================================ Skip the Elasticsearch overhead for most apps. MySQL full-text indexes with Laravel give you ranked search, boolean operators, and phrase matching — all through Eloquent and raw expressions. ![](https://cdn.msaied.com/01M22N44A70A5MC2S599JP0MPH.webp) [Mohamed Said](https://msaied.com#person) Published 4 Oct 2026 · Updated 4 Oct 2026 · 4 min read ShareCopy linkCopied ![MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel: Indexes, Relevance Scoring, and Boolean Mode](https://cdn.msaied.com/739/2d6897fdcdcf090613f96f72a64b8a78.png) On this page +1. [MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel](#mysql-full-text-search-in-laravel) 2. [Creating the Index](#creating-the-index) 3. [Natural Language Mode with whereFullText](#natural-language-mode-with-codewherefulltextcode) 4. [Surfacing the Relevance Score](#surfacing-the-relevance-score) 5. [Boolean Mode for Power Queries](#boolean-mode-for-power-queries) 6. [Combining Full-Text with Regular Clauses](#combining-full-text-with-regular-clauses) 7. [Stopwords and Minimum Word Length](#stopwords-and-minimum-word-length) 8. [Takeaways](#takeaways) MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel --------------------------------- For most mid-sized applications, reaching for Elasticsearch or Meilisearch is premature. MySQL's built-in full-text search handles millions of rows comfortably, supports relevance ranking, boolean operators, and phrase matching — and integrates cleanly with Eloquent. Here is how to use it properly. ### Creating the Index Add a `FULLTEXT` index in your migration. You can span multiple columns in a single index, which is the typical pattern for searching across a title and body together. ```php Schema::table('articles', function (Blueprint $table) { $table->fullText(['title', 'body']); }); ``` MySQL requires the table engine to be InnoDB (the default since MySQL 5.6) and the columns to be `CHAR`, `VARCHAR`, or `TEXT`. Numeric or JSON columns are not eligible. ### Natural Language Mode with `whereFullText` Laravel 9+ ships with `whereFullText`, which wraps `MATCH … AGAINST` for you: ```php $results = Article::whereFullText(['title', 'body'], 'laravel performance') ->get(); ``` Under the hood this emits: ```sql SELECT * FROM `articles` WHERE MATCH(`title`, `body`) AGAINST ('laravel performance' IN NATURAL LANGUAGE MODE) ``` Natural language mode filters rows whose relevance score is above a threshold relative to the total row count. This means on small tables (fewer than a few hundred rows) you may get zero results — MySQL considers every row "relevant" and suppresses them all. Keep that in mind during local development. ### Surfacing the Relevance Score Filtering is only half the job. You almost always want to order by relevance: ```php use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB; $term = 'laravel performance'; $results = Article::select('*') ->selectRaw( 'MATCH(`title`, `body`) AGAINST (? IN NATURAL LANGUAGE MODE) AS relevance', [$term] ) ->whereFullText(['title', 'body'], $term) ->orderByDesc('relevance') ->get(); ``` The `relevance` column is a float. You can expose it on your model via `$appends` or simply use it for ordering and discard it before returning an API response. ### Boolean Mode for Power Queries Boolean mode gives you operator syntax: `+` (must include), `-` (must exclude), `*` (wildcard), and `"…"` (phrase). Pass the mode option through the fourth argument: ```php $results = Article::whereFullText( ['title', 'body'], '+laravel -lumen deploy*', ['mode' => 'boolean'] )->get(); ``` This matches rows that contain *laravel*, do not contain *lumen*, and contain any word starting with *deploy*. Boolean mode does not compute relevance scores by default, but you can still select a `MATCH … AGAINST (… IN BOOLEAN MODE)` expression and order by it. ### Combining Full-Text with Regular Clauses Full-text expressions compose naturally with the rest of the query builder: ```php Article::whereFullText(['title', 'body'], '+queue +horizon') ->where('published', true) ->where('created_at', '>=', now()->subYear()) ->orderByDesc('created_at') ->paginate(20); ``` MySQL evaluates the full-text predicate first (it uses the index), then applies the remaining `WHERE` clauses as a post-filter. Keep selective non-full-text conditions to reduce the working set. ### Stopwords and Minimum Word Length MySQL ships with a default stopword list (`ft_stopwords`) and a minimum token length (`ft_min_word_len`, default 4 for MyISAM; `innodb_ft_min_token_size`, default 3 for InnoDB). Short words like "PHP" or "API" are silently ignored unless you lower the threshold or add them to a custom stopword table. Check your server config before assuming a term is indexed. ```sql SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'innodb_ft_min_token_size'; ``` After changing the variable, you must rebuild the index: ```sql ALTER TABLE articles DROP INDEX articles_title_body_fulltext; ALTER TABLE articles ADD FULLTEXT INDEX articles_title_body_fulltext (title, body); ``` ### Takeaways - Use `$table->fullText([...])` in migrations; multi-column indexes search across fields in one pass. - Always select and order by the `MATCH … AGAINST` expression to surface relevant results first. - Boolean mode unlocks must-include, must-exclude, and wildcard operators without extra infrastructure. - Watch `innodb_ft_min_token_size` — short technical terms are often silently dropped. - On small datasets, natural language mode suppresses results; test with realistic data volumes. - [laravel](https://msaied.com/articles?search=laravel) - [mysql](https://msaied.com/articles?search=mysql) - [search](https://msaied.com/articles?search=search) - [eloquent](https://msaied.com/articles?search=eloquent) - [performance](https://msaied.com/articles?search=performance) Frequently asked questions --------------------------- Does `whereFullText` work with PostgreSQL in Laravel?No. `whereFullText` targets MySQL/MariaDB syntax (`MATCH … AGAINST`). PostgreSQL uses `to\_tsvector` and `to\_tsquery`. You would need raw expressions or a dedicated package for Postgres full-text search. Can I use full-text search with Laravel Scout?Yes. The `laravel/scout` package ships with a `database` driver that uses `whereFullText` under the hood when the underlying connection is MySQL. It is a convenient abstraction but hides some tuning options like custom modes and relevance ordering. Why do I get no results on my local database?Natural language mode suppresses results when too many rows match — MySQL treats them as non-discriminating. On small seed datasets this triggers constantly. Switch to boolean mode during development or seed enough rows to exceed MySQL's internal threshold (roughly 50% of total rows). ![Mohamed Said](https://cdn.msaied.com/01M22N44A70A5MC2S599JP0MPH.webp)About the author ---------------- [Mohamed Said](https://msaied.com#person)Senior Backend Engineer specializing in Laravel, scalable SaaS platforms, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. I build secure, high-performance web applications that help businesses grow. [About](https://msaied.com#about) [GitHub ↗](https://github.com/EG-Mohamed) [LinkedIn ↗](https://www.linkedin.com/in/msaiedm/) [WhatsApp ↗](https://wa.me/201094619204) [Email Address ↗](mailto:hello@msaied.com) [My CV ↗](https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/1MF20IPRJyzfy32mhEutjL5EpSls0w2Q8/view) [Previous articleLaravel Queue Rate-Limited Middleware: Throttling Jobs Without Losing Work](https://msaied.com/articles/laravel-queue-rate-limited-middleware-throttling-jobs-without-losing-work) On this page ------------- 1. [MySQL Full-Text Search in Laravel](#mysql-full-text-search-in-laravel) 2. [Creating the Index](#creating-the-index) 3. [Natural Language Mode with whereFullText](#natural-language-mode-with-codewherefulltextcode) 4. [Surfacing the Relevance Score](#surfacing-the-relevance-score) 5. [Boolean Mode for Power Queries](#boolean-mode-for-power-queries) 6. [Combining Full-Text with Regular Clauses](#combining-full-text-with-regular-clauses) 7. [Stopwords and Minimum Word Length](#stopwords-and-minimum-word-length) 8. [Takeaways](#takeaways) ### Have a technical challenge? Tell me what you’re building. I reply within two working days. 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