I just thought of this quick alternative to mysql full text search. I have not tested it though, but you can tell me if it works for you.
LETS GET STARTED
Sometimes you might want to search multiple string in one query or if any of the word in a long text occured in your database. You can do this using OR manually:
SELECT * FROM mumu WHERE name = firsttext OR name = secondtext What will happen if you have 10,000 words to check, you will write till your finger hurts. FUNNY SOLUTION
If you are taking each word from your database, iterate through the result and store each in an array, after the loops exit explode it with " " as a delimeter. Or if its a long text just store in a variable. Then you implode the variable with " OR column = ". Then put in your mysql query like this "SELECT * FROM table WHERE column = $variable".
END OF STORY. ITS A SIMPLE SOLUTION. There are other better solution out there, incase you are fed up with the mysql fulltext word length limit and you can't change it. THIS METHOD CAN BE MANIPULATED TO FUNCTION LIKE MYSQL FULLTEXT IN BOOLEAN MODE. JUST BORED

PHP CODE:
<?php
include("connect.php";
$msg = $_POST["msg"];
$filter = $_POST["filter"];
$hay2 = explode(" AND column != ", $filter);
$hay = explode(" OR column = ", $msg);
$query = $db->query("SELECT id, column2, column3, column4 FROM table WHERE column4 = '".$hay."' AND column4 != '".$hay2."' LIMIT 100";
/*IF THE COLUMN YOU ARE SEARCHING AND THE VARIABLE USED FOR THE SEARCH CONTAINS MORE THAN ONE WORD, YOU CAN BUILD A RANK FOR THE RESULT BASED ON HOW MANY WORDS WERE FOUND. IT WORKS WITH AN ID.*/
$words = explode(" ", $msg);
$frequency = array_count_values($words);
//fast way to remove duplicate
array_flip(array_flip($words);
//You can use a stop word dictionary to remove stop words.
$ids = array();
$rank = array();
while($row = $query->fetch_assoc()) {
foreach($words as $value) {
if(in_array($value, $words)) {
if(isset($rank[$row["id"]]))
$rank[$row["id"]] += $frequency[$value];
}
else {
$rank[$row["id"]] = $frequency[$value];
}
}
}
$ids = $row["id"];
}
/*You can use other ways of ranking or other algorithms like tf-lf, etc. This one just use word frequency to determine the rank.*/

Nice work brother. Looking forward to seeing healthy contributions like this on Nairaland