How to make this code work on 5.7 ?

well http://www.gerd-riesselmann.net/archives/2005/11/display-related-nodes-i... has a great hack which I had used on 4.7 some years back but now I am trying to use it and its not working. Here is the code -

<?php if ($page != 0) 
{   $words = search_index_split($node->title);   
     $searchArgs = "";   
     foreach($words as $word) 
     {     
           if (strlen($word) > variable_get('remove_short', 3)) 
           {       
                     if (!empty($searchArgs)) 
                     {         $searchArgs .= " OR ";       }       
                     $searchArgs .= $word . " ";     
           }   
     }   
    if (strlen($searchArgs) > 0) 
    {     
           $results = node_search('search', $searchArgs);     
           if (is_array($results) && count($results) > 0) 
           {       print '<hr />';       
                   print '<div id="related_nodes">';       
                   print '<h2>The following articles may be of interest to you, too:</h2>';       
                   $list = array();       
                   $count = 0;              
                   foreach($results as $item) 
                   {        
                            if ($item['title'] == $node->title) 
                            {           continue;         }         
                   $list[] = l($item['title'], ltrim($item['link'], '/')) .": " .strip_tags($item["snippet"]);
                   if (++$count > 4) {           break;         }       
            }       print theme("item_list", $list);       
            print "</div>";     
     }   
} 
} ?>

i am trying to use it for a content type how2 by putting it in node-how2.tpl.php file but its not working. so I put it in node.tpl.php and still the code is not working, for any content type. Any idea what is going wrong here ?