Improving Magento search results (either via extension or free)

I went through a similar process recently considered the following extensions.

Blast Lucene: https://php4u.co.uk/blast-search-lucene-magento-extension/ Sphinx: https://mirasvit.com/magento-extensions/sphinx-search-ultimate.html?v=1 and Klevu: http://klevu.com/magento.html (which has a free, pro and premium version)

I ultimately chose Klevu PRO as it suited my needs best. You can play with the demo store for each of them to test them out.

At the top end of the price range ($1000+/month) is SLI, Celebros and Fred Hopper but these will "break the bank" depending on the size of your store.

I'm going to go against all my morals and recommend you take a look at this:

Better magento search - Lucene powered - $80

Have been using this for a year and a half & never looked back.

The pros:Extremely fast, accurate & simple to use. Excellent support staff & only a once off fee.

The cons: Code is obfuscated

I tried a bunch of other extensions prior to this in order to make search more accurate, but most of them had complex configurations, slowed down the search function & weren't as accurate.

You can give it a shot & if you don't like it they have a 7 day money back guarantee.

Take a look at this one https://mirasvit.com/magento-extensions/sphinx-search-ultimate.html

Search query time for 200k will be ~ 0.1 sec (with sphinx engine) + you can set up weight (priority) for attributes (sku, name)