How to make category names searchable in magento?

Question

Is there any way or hacks or extensions or any possible workaround to make the category names searchable? I simply want some results when anybody search with category names.

Answer 1

You can attempt :

1. A quick solution would be to display a listing of matching categories along with the product results by KTastrophy
2. On the advanced search page, “search by category” is not an option by default, but can be very helpful. To add this, you will need to override the following files:
   • app/code/core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Block/Advanced/Form.php
   • app/code/core/Mage/CatalogSearch/Model/Advanced.php
   • app/design/yourdesign/yourdesign/template/catalogsearch/advanced/form.phtml

In app/code/local/Mynamespace/OverrideCatalogSearch/Block/Advanced/Form.php (before the closing brace), add:

    public function getStoreCategories()
    {
        $helper = Mage::helper('catalog/category');
        return $helper->getStoreCategories();
    }

In app/code/core/Mynamespace/OverrideCatalogSearch/Model/Advanced.php, override (replace) the getSearchCriterias() function with the code below:

public function getSearchCriterias()
    {
        $search = $this->_searchCriterias;
        /* display category filtering criteria */
        if(isset($_GET['category']) && is_numeric($_GET['category'])) {
            $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($_GET['category']);
            $search[] = array('name'=>'Category','value'=>$category->getName());
        }
        return $search;
    }

Override (replace) getProductCollection(), with:

  public function getProductCollection(){
        if (is_null($this->_productCollection)) {
            $this->_productCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalogsearch/advanced_collection')
                ->addAttributeToSelect(Mage::getSingleton('catalog/config')->getProductAttributes())
                ->addMinimalPrice()
                ->addStoreFilter();
                Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_status')->addVisibleFilterToCollection($this->_productCollection);
                Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_visibility')->addVisibleInSearchFilterToCollection($this->_productCollection);
            /* include category filtering */
            if(isset($_GET['category']) && is_numeric($_GET['category'])) $this->_productCollection->addCategoryFilter(Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($_GET['category']),true);
        }

        return $this->_productCollection;
    }

In app/design/yourdesign/yourdesign/template/catalogsearch/advanced/form.phtml, after this code:

        <?php foreach ($this->getSearchableAttributes() as $_attribute): ?>
        <?php $_code = $_attribute->getAttributeCode() ?>
        <li>
            <label for="<?php echo $_code ?>"><?php echo $this->getAttributeLabel($_attribute) ?></label>
            <?php switch($this->getAttributeInputType($_attribute)):
                case 'number': ?>
                <div class="range field-row">
                    <input name="<?php echo $_code ?>[from]" value="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeValue($_attribute, 'from')) ?>" id="<?php echo $_code ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeLabel($_attribute)) ?>"  class="input-text validate-number" type="text" />
                    <input name="<?php echo $_code ?>[to]" value="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeValue($_attribute, 'to')) ?>" id="<?php echo $_code ?>_to" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeLabel($_attribute)) ?>"  class="input-text validate-number" type="text"/>
                </div>
                <?php break;
                case 'select': ?>
                    <?php echo $this->getAttributeSelectElement($_attribute) ?>
                <?php break;
                case 'yesno': ?>
                    <?php echo $this->getAttributeYesNoElement($_attribute) ?>
                <?php break;
                case 'date': ?>
                    <?php echo $this->getDateInput($_attribute, 'from') ?>
                    -
                    <?php echo $this->getDateInput($_attribute, 'to') ?>
                <?php break;
                default: ?>
                <input name="<?php echo $_code ?>" id="<?php echo $_code ?>" value="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeValue($_attribute)) ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getAttributeLabel($_attribute)) ?>"  class="input-text <?php echo $this->getAttributeValidationClass($_attribute) ?>" type="text" />
            <?php endswitch; ?>
        </li>
        <?php endforeach; ?>

add:

        <li>
            <label for="category_search_field">Search by Category:</label>
            <select name="category" id="category_search_field">
                <option value="">-- Any Category --</option>
                <?php foreach ($this->getStoreCategories() as $_category): ?>
                <?php if($_category->hasChildren()): ?>
                <option class="parent-cat" value="<?php echo $_category->getId(); ?>"><?php echo $_category->getName();?></option>
                <?php foreach ($_category->getChildren() as $subcategory):
                if($subcategory->getIsActive()) : ?>
                    <option value="<?php echo $subcategory->getId(); ?>"<?php echo ($this->getRequest()->getQuery('category') == $subcategory->getId() ? ' selected="selected"': "") ?>><?php echo $subcategory->getName(); ?></option>
                <?php endif; endforeach; ?>
                <?php elseif($_category->getIsActive()): ?>
                <option value="<?php echo $_category->getId(); ?>"><?php echo $_category->getName();?></option>
                <?php endif; ?>
                <?php endforeach ?>

            </select>
        </li>

Now, If you are going to search only by Category then you will face an error message like “You have to specify at least one search term”. To solve it you need to modify following file:

app/code/core/Mynamespace/OverrideCatalogSearch/Model/Advanced.php

Open the file and search this function addFilters. In this function you can see following codes, replace this

if ($allConditions) {
            $this->getProductCollection()->addFieldsToFilter($allConditions);
        } else if (!count($filteredAttributes)) {
            Mage::throwException(Mage::helper('catalogsearch')->__('You have to specify at least one search term'));
        }

with following codes:

if (($allConditions) || (isset($values['category']) && is_numeric($values['category']))) {
            $this->getProductCollection()->addFieldsToFilter($allConditions);
        } else if (!count($filteredAttributes)) {
            Mage::throwException(Mage::helper('catalogsearch')->__('You have to specify at least one search term'));
        }

Now you won’t face any problem in advanced search only by Category or any single attribute search.

source: How to add search by category to advanced search