A method and system for searching a collaborative document database. The method comprises the steps of providing parent documents and child documents in said database; and for each parent document, building an index document listing a portion of said child documents. The method comprises the further steps of providing a search term, and searching all said index documents for said search term. Preferably, each child document is related to at least one of the parent documents; and the building step includes the step of identifying in the index document for each parent document, at least some of the child documents related to the parent document. With this embodiment, the searching step may include the step of, for each parent document, searching for the search term in the child documents identified in the index document for the parent document.