 configuring site search what are search pages  the core search module organizes site search into pages  each page allows users to search a particular type of content with a particular configuration the configuration includes specifying a url that starts with search  a name for the page and additional options for some search page types when users visit the main search page see search  they will see the configured search pages that they have access to each search page has a search form on it and the page will display search results after the user enters keywords into the form and clicks the search button what modules provide site search  the core search module provides the ability to configure search pages search page types are provided by both core and contributed modules the core modules that provide search page types are the node module for searching content pages the user module for searching user profiles the help module for searching help topics as an alternative to the core search module s system of search pages you can use contributed modules to provide site search for example the apache solr and sphinx contributed modules use thirdparty technology to provide site search what are the limitations of the core search module  there are two main limitations of the core search module first it is not appropriate for very large sites if you have a large site look into other search technologies like apache solr second the node search page type only supports exact keyword matching which is not the behavior that most users will expect you can improve this by installing a languagespecific stemming module for your language such as porter stemmer for american english which makes it so that for example a search for the word walk would match pages containing the words walk walking and walked what are the search permissions  users with use search permission can use the search form block and search page this permission is required for any search configured in the core search module in addition to use search   view user information permission is needed for searching users in addition to use search   view published content permission is needed for searching content users with use advanced search permission can use more complex search filtering when performing content searches configuring site search overview in order to configure site search using the core search module you will need to configure one or more search pages you will also need to verify or alter permissions so that the desired user roles can search the site see managing user accounts and site visitors for more information about roles and permissions for content search you will also need to make sure that the search index is configured and that the site is fully indexed finally you may wish to place the search form block on pages of your site or add the search page to a navigation menu to give users easy access to search see the related topics listed below for specific tasks additional resources online documentation for the search module 