mysql fulltext MATCH,AGAINST returning 0 results

Question

I am trying to follow: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/fulltext-natural-language.html

in an attempt to improve search queries, both in speed and the ability to order by score.

However when using this SQL ("skitt" is used as a search term just so I can try match Skittles).

SELECT 
    id,name,description,price,image, 
    MATCH (name,description) 
    AGAINST ('skitt') 
    AS score 
FROM 
    products 
WHERE 
    MATCH (name,description)
AGAINST ('skitt')

it returns 0 results. I am trying to find out why, I think I might have set my index's up wrong I'm not sure, this is the first time I've strayed away from LIKE!

Here is my table structure and data:

Thank you!

Answer 1

By default certain words are excluded from the search. These are called stopwords. "a" is an example of a stopword. You could test your query by using a word that is not a stopword, or you can disable stopwords:

• How can I write full search index query which will not consider any stopwords?

If you want to also match prefixes use the truncation operator in boolean mode:

*

The asterisk serves as the truncation (or wildcard) operator. Unlike the other operators, it should be appended to the word to be affected. Words match if they begin with the word preceding the * operator.