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Asked: 2026-05-15T10:23:35+00:00

I was recently watching a google lecture on mysql and learnt that MySQL wont

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I was recently watching a google lecture on mysql and learnt that MySQL wont use indexes for LIKE '%foo' searches.

My site’s ‘live search’ (ajax search) searches the column full_details(TEXT), should i create a reversed version like full_details_rev(TEXT) and index that?

Or should i not index large text fields at all?

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  1. Editorial Team

    For fulltext searching (which is basically what you’re doing), the fulltext index is much more efficient – for a brief intro, see e.g. this article; Google for more.

    Example of use (assuming there is a fulltext index, otherwise you’ll just get an error):

    SELECT some_column FROM yourtable WHERE MATCH (full_details) AGAINST ('foo')

    (a normal index on a reversed column would help you iff the original ends exactly with the search string (i.e. ‘asdfsdafsdfaaaaafoo’)

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