Designing a database for classified site

What will be the best approach for designing a database for classified ad site like www.gumtree.com?

Problem here is that we have different entities with different attributes while we need to implement powerful search functionality too.

I was thinking to have separate table for each main category will that be a wise move?
How that will affect search functionality?

Any thoughts please?

Regards

Start with a pen and paper and brain storm every bit/type of information you think you might need to store in the database. Once you have that break it into small chunks or individual entities (These will be your tables). The next step is to work out the relationships between those entities (Which tables will be linked to which other ones).

Once you have this draw up a diagram so you can see it all visually.

When going over it look for any duplicated redundant data and try to eliminate that.

Now think about how you want to get the information out of the database.

Look at what elements of the tables can be indexed.
Look at what groups of tables need to be joined for your queries.

Play around with it till it all looks clean and efficient.


Personally I would make a table of categories. Rather than a table for each category.

Check out this tutorial.