How can I place $content in search results instead of $snippet?
Define yourtheme_preprocess_search_result in your theme's template.php file. Do something like this:

function yourtheme_preprocess_search_result(&amp;$variables) {
  //$variables['result']['node'] should contain the entire node object
  $variables['content'] = $variables['result']['node']-&gt;body[LANGUAGE_NONE][0]['value'];
}


You should be able to use the variable $content inside search-result.tpl.php now.