Have several search modules with different search output

Question

I'm looking for a solution to have several search modules on one of my sites to search different article categories.

For example I would have 3 search modules located on certain pages, where:
1st search module, searches articles in category 1 and 2
2nd search module, searches articles in category 3 and 4
3th search module, searches articles in category 5 and 6
...etc.

Most search components I've encountered have the option to select categories to search in, in its plugin options. But that effects all search modules.
We found this being possible with the Smart Search component, but it requires a Index which we noticed filled a huge amount of disk space on our server (more than the site itself).

So I guess I kinda need a search modules where you can select categories to search in, in the module paramters or be able to create a filter for each modules to only search specific categories only.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Thanks for clarifying the question. I'll leave the Smart Search option in this answer as it may be useful to others in future.

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Joomla Smart Search

Enable Smart Search by enabling the Content - Smart Search plugin and then go to Components -> Smart Search and click on the Index button.

Create filters for the required categories at Components -> Smart Search -> Search Filters.

You can then create separate Smart Search modules using the filters you created in the previous step.

Minitek Live Search (from €19.99)

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/search-a-indexing/site-search/minitek-live-search

Minitek Live Search module includes an option to filter search results by category:

BT Smart Search (Free)

http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/search-a-indexing/site-search/bt-smart-search

BowThemes Smart Search looks like it has a filtering capability in the module but builds an index like Smart Search so may not suit your requirements.