Title: Using wordpress as a searchable database?
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Using wordpress as a searchable database?

 *  [Ricky_MTM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ricky_mtm/)
 * (@ricky_mtm)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/)
 * Hello,
 * My name is Ricky. I currently run a wordpress site for my personal business “
   on the side job”, and am now looking to see if I could build a searchable database
   for my “day job”.
 * I have roughly 70,000 PDF documents which I search through using Google Desktop.
   I know what I’m looking for, so it’s fairly effective. I’d like to make the system
   more user friendly though, so others can search for documents on their own.
 * I’ve attached 2 files. The first is the front end example, where I’d like to 
   have some drop down menus (or something similar) where the users can choose the
   search requirements. The second is an example document.
 * The way I see this working is that the documents will have organized meta data,
   perhaps a csv. file where the search data can be organized under corresponding
   headers to the search, such as “Product Series” or “Product Type”. It’ll take
   some time to populate the database and fill in all the back end data, but in 
   the end it’ll be worth it!
 * So, once the user fills in the search, then the “search engine” will sort through
   the .csv files and show only the files with matching search requirements.
 * My question is – am I crazy, or is this actually possible to do with wordpress?
   Each document could be a “blog post”, therefore the search engine would be looking
   for individual “blog posts” and then listing the matching ones.
 * Thanks so much for your help 🙂
 * Ricky

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Thread Starter [Ricky_MTM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ricky_mtm/)
 * (@ricky_mtm)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739046)
 * Example frontend Search: [http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/rimelame/example_frontend_zps4950304a.jpg](http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/rimelame/example_frontend_zps4950304a.jpg)
 *  Thread Starter [Ricky_MTM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ricky_mtm/)
 * (@ricky_mtm)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739047)
 * Example Document: [http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/rimelame/example_zps64915380.jpg](http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx142/rimelame/example_zps64915380.jpg)
 *  [Phil](https://wordpress.org/support/users/owendevelopment/)
 * (@owendevelopment)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739075)
 * You’d probably be better building in custom taxonomies into a custom post type,
   then using an advanced search to filter through those taxonomies.
 *  Thread Starter [Ricky_MTM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/ricky_mtm/)
 * (@ricky_mtm)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739085)
 * Thanks Phil, good suggestion.
 * I could build taxonomies to correspond with the headings and then populate each“
   catagory” with the choices.
 * for example I could build a taxonomoy (sp?) called “depth” and below it I could
   include the choices 18″, 19″, 20″ etc. Then for each post I could choose the 
   appropriate choice for each “taxonomy”.
 * Then, the search engine would look for the matching choice in each taxonomy.
 * Am I grasping that porperly, or am I way off?
 *  [Phil](https://wordpress.org/support/users/owendevelopment/)
 * (@owendevelopment)
 * [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739209)
 * That’s right. You can create the meta boxes for these post types so you can complete
   them while creating the post.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Using wordpress as a searchable database?’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Phil](https://wordpress.org/support/users/owendevelopment/)
 * Last activity: [13 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/using-wordpress-as-a-searchable-database/#post-3739209)
 * Status: not resolved

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