Are you looking for the best WordPress search plugin to improve your website’s search functionality?

The default WordPress search tool has limitations and may not cover all your website’s content effectively. Luckily, there are several WordPress plugins that can enhance and elevate your site’s search capabilities.

In this article, we will highlight the top WordPress plugins specifically designed to boost your website’s search functionality.

Enhancing Your WordPress Site Search with Plugins

WordPress provides an integrated search feature to help visitors easily find content. However, its functionality is basic and doesn’t search through all your site’s elements, including comments, files, and products.

Thankfully, there are many plugins available to improve the default WordPress search. Some cater to specific requirements like locating WooCommerce products, while others enhance the overall search experience for your WordPress site.

1. SearchWP

SearchWP is a top-tier WordPress search plugin, offering user-friendly features and vastly improved search results compared to standard WordPress.

It lets you search through content often missed by WordPress, including custom post types, WooCommerce products, comments, PDFs, and more. What makes it exceptional is the ability to create a personalized algorithm, similar to Google. This allows you to assign importance to various attributes.

Consequently, content matching highly relevant attributes appears prominently in search results, while less relevant content ranks lower. For instance, on a restaurant website with a menu as a PDF, you can prioritize its visibility in search results.

It seamlessly integrates with WooCommerce, enabling intelligent product searches and customized product search results. You can incorporate product attributes, tags, reviews, custom fields, and taxonomies into your WooCommerce searches.

With a personalized algorithm, you can create numerous tailored search forms. For example, if you sell eBooks, you can craft a form that specifically seeks out ‘ebook’-tagged content, aiding customers in finding new books to buy.

However, it lacks a built-in live Ajax search feature, but you can add this with the free SearchWP Live Ajax Search plugin. Also, there’s no free version; you need to purchase a license for the full SearchWP experience.

It’s a comprehensive search toolkit that effortlessly integrates with WordPress. Once you set up your custom search algorithm, all search fields and forms on your site will harness the power of SearchWP.

Pricing: Start at $199 per year.

2. ElasticPress

ElasticPress, a cloud-based WordPress search service powered by ElasticSearch, ensures rapid search results by executing queries in the cloud, rather than on your WordPress site. It effortlessly integrates with any WordPress website and works seamlessly with leading hosting providers.

ElasticPress excels at searching through often overlooked WordPress content, including custom fields, tags, PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and metadata. Notably, it features a built-in live Ajax search, providing instant results as users type their queries. Additionally, it seamlessly supports WooCommerce, facilitating quick product discovery for online shoppers.

With ElasticPress, you have the freedom to craft your own search algorithm using the Weighting dashboard, allowing you to prioritize popular WooCommerce products or high-performing content.

Pros:

• Includes built-in autosuggest;
• Employs an advanced connector capable of handling diverse search queries;
• Presents related posts and document content in search results;
• Being a hosted service, ElasticPress doesn’t impact your WordPress website’s speed.

Cons:

• ElasticPress is a hosted service and tends to be pricier compared to other search solutions on this list. Hence, it may not be the ideal choice for beginners, personal blogs, or those with limited budgets.

ElasticPress offers a significant boost to your WordPress search performance by offloading search operations to an external server, all without compromising your website’s speed. While it may not be the most budget-friendly option, it’s an excellent fit for business websites or enterprise-level sites that require lightning-fast search capabilities.

Pricing: ElasticPress licenses start at $79 per month.

3. Ivory Search

Ivory Search stands out as a versatile and robust WordPress search plugin that goes beyond the capabilities of the default WordPress search. It goes the extra mile to enhance search results by considering a wide range of factors, including post types, image metadata, custom fields, shortcodes, and attachments, among others. It offers the convenience of implementing Ajax to display live search results seamlessly, without the need for page reloads.

What sets Ivory Search apart is its seamless integration with the WordPress theme customizer. This feature empowers you to effortlessly alter the appearance of the search form using familiar tools within the customizer interface.

You have the flexibility to craft an unlimited number of search forms, each with its unique settings. These forms can be easily incorporated into various sections of your website using automatically generated shortcodes. Furthermore, you can introduce an advanced search form to any widget-ready area, such as the sidebar, utilizing the Ivory Search block. This simplifies the process of showcasing the same search form consistently across your entire WordPress site.

Additionally, it offers the option to seamlessly integrate the bar into your navigation menus. In settings, you can enable this feature by toggling the menu where you wish to display the field, enhancing user navigation and accessibility. It provides a comprehensive solution that allows for extensive customization, integration, and placement flexibility across your WordPress website.

Analyzing user behavior when using your website’s search function can offer valuable insights into your audience. This includes identifying content gaps where visitors search for information not currently available on your site.

To provide this insightful data, Ivory Search seamlessly integrates with Google Analytics. However, to utilize this feature, you must first install Google Analytics on your WordPress site.

It also seamlessly collaborates with leading WordPress translation plugins, making it an excellent choice if you intend to implement multilingual search functionality within your WordPress website.

Pros:

• Real-time Ajax-powered search;
• Effortless customization of search form appearance and messaging through the WordPress Customizer;
• Simplified addition of an advanced search field to any WordPress menu with a single click;
• Support for multilingual search;
• Seamless integration with popular plugins, including WooCommerce, Weglot, Polylang, and WPML.

Cons:

• The interface of Ivory Search may appear daunting and confusing, particularly for users navigating it for the first time.

The free version provides robust search enhancement features that cater to a wide range of needs. If you are seeking a free WordPress search plugin that covers everything required to elevate your default search functionality, the free version is an excellent choice.

Pricing:

The base plugin is available for free, while Ivory Search premium starts at $19.99 per year, offering additional advanced functionalities.

4. Advanced Woo Search

The Advanced Woo Search plugin, available for free, offers an array of features to enhance your WooCommerce product search experience. It goes beyond the standard WordPress search by searching for matches not only in the product title but also in the product content, excerpt, categories, tags, ID, and SKU.

This comprehensive functionality is designed to empower shoppers in finding precisely what they seek, even products that might have remained undiscovered when relying solely on the built-in WordPress.

Setting up Advanced Woo Search is a breeze, thanks to its straightforward settings page. Here, you can easily toggle various settings on and off with a simple click, streamlining the setup process and user experience.

Additionally, it enriches search results by including valuable supplementary information, such as product images and prices. It seamlessly integrates these results into your existing website layout, ensuring a harmonious appearance with any WordPress theme.

Once you’ve configured the plugin, it automatically synchronizes product data, eliminating the need for manual re-indexing whenever you update your product catalog. Moreover, you can conveniently add the search form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using either a shortcode or widget.

Pros:

• Supports stop words, synonyms, and plurals for enhanced search accuracy;
• Accommodates multiple currencies and variable products;
• Orders search results based on their source, optimizing relevance;
• User-friendly settings for easy customization.

Cons:

• The free version of the plugin lacks some advanced search capabilities, such as the ability to search product attributes and custom taxonomies.

Advanced Woo Search serves as an excellent choice for those looking to elevate the default WooCommerce search without incurring the costs associated with premium plugins. It also offers out-of-the-box support for live Ajax search, ensuring that shoppers can access relevant results without the inconvenience of page reloads.

Pricing: You can download the Advanced Woo Search plugin for free from the official WordPress repository, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

5. SearchWP Ajax Live

SearchWP Ajax Live is an add-on plugin designed to augment your WordPress search functionality. While originally designed to complement SearchWP, it seamlessly integrates with any WordPress search form that utilizes the built-in WordPress template tags.

This add-on empowers your existing WordPress search by introducing live Ajax search results that appear in real-time as users start typing their queries. This dynamic feature significantly enhances the user experience, providing instant and accurate results without the need for page reloading. It offers a universal improvement to the search experience for all visitors, but its benefits are particularly pronounced for websites selling online courses, membership subscriptions, and digital products. By facilitating faster discovery of relevant content, you can often boost sales and conversions.

Upon activation, SearchWP Ajax Live automatically imbues every search bar on your website with live Ajax search functionality. Furthermore, you can effortlessly introduce a live Ajax search bar to any page, post, or widget-ready area using a block provided by the plugin. If your theme is block-based, such as ThemeIsle Hestia Pro, you can seamlessly integrate live Ajax search into various elements of your WordPress theme, including areas that may not be accessible through the standard WordPress content editor, such as your site’s 404 error page template.

Pros:

• Quick and hassle-free setup with minimal configuration required;
• Brings live Ajax search to your WordPress blog, website, or online store, offering a user experience similar to search engines like Google;
• Compatible with both the default WordPress search and the SearchWP plugin.

Cons:

• The plugin offers limited settings and customization options. While this simplicity aids in ease of setup, it may feel restrictive for users seeking more advanced customization.

Live search significantly accelerates content discovery for website visitors. This free plugin simplifies the process by seamlessly integrating live Ajax search into all your search fields without the need for intricate configuration, making it a compelling choice for those seeking an easy-to-implement solution.

Pricing: It is available for free download from the official WordPress repository, making it accessible to a wide range of users.

6. YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search

YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search stands as an impressive WooCommerce product search plugin that significantly enhances the shopping experience for your customers within your online store.

This plugin empowers customers to swiftly locate products in your store by offering a range of powerful features. It enables customers to search products by SKU, explore specific categories, and apply filters to the results, all without the need to reload the page.

What sets YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search apart is its ability to search through content that WordPress typically disregards, including the product excerpt, product categories, tags, and variable products. This broad search capability ensures that customers can find what they are looking for, even if they don’t have precise product details in mind.

Furthermore, YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search is highly adaptable and customizable. You have the freedom to incorporate thumbnails, badges, prices, and promotions directly into the live search results. This enriches the shopping experience by providing shoppers with valuable information, aiding them in deciding which product pages to explore further.

Both the free and premium versions of the plugin offer options to customize the appearance of the search bar, ensuring it aligns perfectly with the branding and style of your online store.

YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search is designed to seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce stores in any language. It is fully compatible with multilingual WordPress sites and stores, catering to a diverse and international audience.

Pros:

• Real-time search results presentation;
• Advanced filtering options based on categories and tags;
• SKU-based search, ideal for stores with extensive product catalogs;
• Highlighting of sales and promotions directly within the search results.

Cons:

• The free version of the plugin, while useful, offers fewer features compared to other live Ajax plugins. For instance, it does not include searching within product tags and categories.

For WooCommerce store owners, implementing live search functionality is essential to enhance the customer shopping experience. YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search seamlessly integrates with WooCommerce, making it a vital tool for your e-commerce site. Its compatibility with multilingual websites is particularly beneficial for those targeting a global audience.

Pricing: YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search starts at $79.99 per year, providing access to advanced features and support.

7. FiboSearch

FiboSearch stands as a top-tier WooCommerce search plugin, offering instant search result retrieval via Ajax technology, all without the need for page reloading. Beyond its efficiency, it provides a wealth of features to enhance the shopping experience for customers within your online store.

This plugin excels in its capabilities, allowing for inquiries within the product description, short description, SKU, attributes, custom fields, product categories, tags, and more. Moreover, it offers the option to exclude out-of-stock products from results, ensuring that shoppers are not distracted by unavailable items and potentially increasing sales.

It takes live Ajax search to the next level by providing comprehensive product information directly in the search results. Shoppers can view product images, descriptions, and pricing details without needing to navigate away from the search results page. Additionally, hovering over an item in the live Ajax search triggers the display of an “Add to Cart” button, a quantity field, and an extended product description. This functionality allows visitors to initiate the purchase process without visiting the individual product pages.

The live Ajax search bar is fully customizable, giving you the flexibility to add your own messaging, alter the submit button, and select different search bar layouts. As you make these adjustments, the plugin offers a real-time preview, allowing you to fine-tune the search bar’s appearance to best suit your online marketplace or store.

Once you’ve configured the search bar to your satisfaction, you can easily add it to various parts of your website, including pages, posts, and widget-ready areas, using either a shortcode or block. Alternatively, you can seamlessly integrate the search bar into your WordPress theme’s menu by adding the “FiboSearch bar” item via the Appearance » Menus section.

Pros:

• Integration with the default WooCommerce search results page ensures consistency in search results across the site;
• Support for popular multilingual plugins, such as WPML, Polylang, and qTranslate-XT;
• Compatibility with Google Analytics for insightful data tracking;
• Advanced search settings, including synonyms and fuzzy search.

Cons:

• Even with the premium version, FiboSearch does not offer live chat or telephone support.

FiboSearch sets itself apart by delivering detailed product information in live Ajax search results, along with the convenience of an “Add to Cart” button. This approach offers shoppers helpful and informative results without requiring them to reload the page, enhancing their overall shopping experience.

Pricing: The base plugin is available for free, while the premium version of FiboSearch starts at $49 per year, providing access to advanced features and capabilities.

8. Husky Products Filter for WooCommerce

Husky Products Filter for WooCommerce is an invaluable search plugin crafted exclusively for WooCommerce-driven online stores. It empowers your customers with an array of versatile product filtering options, enhancing their shopping experience and helping you optimize your WooCommerce SEO.

With Husky’s comprehensive set of filters, customers can efficiently narrow down their product searches by category, attributes, tags, taxonomies, meta fields, and price. This granular search capability ensures that customers can easily locate the products that match their specific preferences and needs.

Husky goes beyond traditional filtering plugins by generating SEO-friendly links for your filters, which can be seamlessly integrated into your sitemap file. This SEO optimization feature can significantly boost your WooCommerce store’s visibility and search engine rankings.

The flexibility of Husky extends to its fully customizable search form, offering a range of display options, including radio buttons, checkboxes, multi-dropdown menus, and more. You can effortlessly incorporate search and filtering functionalities into any page, post, or widget-ready area using the shortcode automatically generated by the plugin. Furthermore, Husky supports live Ajax search, enabling you to display real-time search results anywhere within your online store.

This plugin strikes a balance between ease of use for beginners and extensive customization options for developers. For instance, developers have the flexibility to create custom WooCommerce product templates, including custom woo-products loop templates and html-items for the search form.

Pros:

• Advanced WooCommerce search capabilities;
• In-built support for live Ajax search;
• Access to search statistics to gain insights into the products your customers are seeking;
• Support for infinite scrolling, enhancing user navigation;
• The option for advanced users to create custom layout templates.

Cons:

• While Husky offers live Ajax search, it’s worth noting that this feature may not be compatible with all WordPress themes, as indicated on the WordPress.org listing.

Husky Products Filter for WooCommerce provides an excellent solution to replace the limited built-in WooCommerce search functionality, regardless of your budget. While live Ajax search compatibility with all WooCommerce themes is not guaranteed, it remains a valuable feature to have in a free plugin.

Pricing: Husky Products Filter for WooCommerce is available for free, making it accessible to a wide range of WooCommerce store owners.

9. Relevanssi

Relevanssi stands as a widely acclaimed WordPress search plugin, renowned for its ability to enhance the WordPress search functionality by delivering more pertinent and accurate results.

Relevanssi introduces a range of powerful features to elevate your website’s search experience. Notably, it adds PDF indexing and search capabilities, enabling visitors to search the contents of PDF files hosted on your site. Moreover, Relevanssi extends its search scope to encompass shortcode outputs, custom fields, user profiles, categories, tags, WooCommerce products, and more. This expansive search coverage ensures that users can swiftly locate the information they seek.

One of Relevanssi’s standout features is its support for fuzzy matching and exact matches, along with the ability to highlight search terms in the search results. These functionalities contribute to a more user-friendly and efficient search experience, aiding visitors in finding what they need quickly.

Pros:

• Search across various content types, including blog post comments, tags, categories, and custom fields;
• Compatibility with WordPress multisite installations, catering to a diverse range of WordPress setups;
• Valuable search analytics, offering insights into popular queries and recent queries with no results;
• Google-style “Did you mean?” suggestions, enhancing search accuracy;
• Seamless integration with several popular membership plugins, making it suitable for membership websites.

Cons:

• Relevanssi may encounter compatibility issues with certain page builder plugins, BuddyPress, NextGen Gallery, and a few others. However, there are resources available for seeking support to address these issues;
• Note that Relevanssi may consume a significant amount of database space. Therefore, it is not recommended for WordPress hosting with limited database table storage capacity.

While many free search plugins on this list are tailored for WooCommerce stores, Relevanssi stands out as a versatile and free plugin suitable for a wide array of WordPress blogs and websites. It also seamlessly integrates with popular membership plugins, making it an excellent choice for membership websites.

Pricing: Relevanssi offers a free base plugin with extensive functionality. For advanced features and premium support, you can upgrade to the premium version, available for $109 per year.

10. WP Extended Search

WP Extended Search is a lightweight and straightforward WordPress search plugin designed to effortlessly extend the capabilities of the default WordPress search.

With WP Extended Search, enhancing your search experience is as simple as navigating to the plugin settings and selecting the options you wish to include in your search results. You have the flexibility to broaden your search across various parameters, such as author names, taxonomies, post types, metadata, and more.

What sets this plugin apart is its seamless integration with the default WordPress search. There’s no need to add complicated shortcodes or widgets. Once you’ve installed and activated WP Extended Search, it immediately enhances the existing WordPress search functionality.

For those seeking a more advanced search experience, WP Extended Search offers the ability to create multiple custom search forms, each with its unique settings. These customized search forms can be effortlessly added to any part of your website, whether through a widget, shortcode, PHP function, or HTML insertion.

Pros:

• Automatic enhancement of the default WordPress search, eliminating the need for complex configurations;
• Creation of an unlimited number of custom search forms to cater to specific needs;
• The option to exclude older content from search results, ensuring relevance;
• Flexibility to display partial matches or exact matches only, aligning with user preferences;
• Compatibility with WooCommerce, making it suitable for e-commerce sites.

Cons:

• WP Extended Search lacks certain advanced features, particularly live Ajax search functionality.

WP Extended Search is an excellent choice for users seeking a quick and hassle-free way to enhance the standard WordPress search functionality. While it offers some advanced settings to explore, it remains a lightweight and user-friendly plugin that delivers immediate improvements to the search experience.

Pricing: WP Extended Search is available as a free plugin, making it a cost-effective solution for those looking to enhance their WordPress search capabilities.

11. Better Search

Better Search is another valuable WordPress plugin that seamlessly replaces the default WordPress search with enhanced capabilities, and it’s available as a free option.

This plugin empowers you to conduct searches across all post types, including custom post types, broadening the scope of your search. It scans for matches in various elements, including titles, post content, excerpts, meta fields, authors, tags, and comments, ensuring comprehensive search coverage.

Better Search offers a unique feature known as the “search heatmap.” This innovative functionality showcases the most popular search queries made by users on your site. You have the flexibility to add this heatmap widget to strategic locations, such as the sidebar or footer, encouraging visitors to explore your site’s trending search terms and content.

Pros:

• Seamless integration with the default WordPress search, making it a convenient choice for sites without built-in search forms;
• Option to use custom template files or apply custom CSS for a personalized look and feel;
• Compatibility with caching plugins like WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache, ensuring optimized performance;
• Ability to create a list of stop words for Better Search to filter out from search queries.

Cons:

• Better Search lacks the ability to search based on categories or product attributes, limiting its suitability for certain types of websites;
• It does not support live Ajax search functionality.

Better Search offers a commendable range of features for a free plugin, including unique functionality like the search heatmap. This innovative feature encourages visitor engagement by showcasing popular search terms and content, making it a standout choice for website owners seeking to enhance their search experience.

Pricing: It is available as a free plugin, making it an accessible and cost-effective solution for improving WordPress search capabilities.

 

12. Search Exclude

At times, it’s necessary to exclude specific content from appearing in your WordPress search results. For instance, if you operate an online store, you might prefer not to display certain pages like the account page, custom checkout page, and thank you page in search results.

Enter Search Exclude, a user-friendly plugin designed to facilitate the exclusion of unwanted content from WordPress search results. With this plugin, you can easily mark items for exclusion, including pages, posts, WooCommerce products, and more, by simply checking a box.

What sets Search Exclude apart is its ability to exclude content from search results while still allowing search engine crawlers, such as Google, to index and display the concealed content. This ensures that your hidden content remains accessible via search engines, even though it won’t appear in your site’s internal search results.

Additionally, if you need to hide multiple pages, posts, or other types of content, Search Exclude seamlessly integrates with the bulk edit feature, streamlining the process.

Pros:

• A straightforward plugin that efficiently excludes selected content from search results;
• No adverse impact on your WordPress SEO efforts, as the plugin does not interfere with search engine indexing;
• A user-friendly interface that simplifies the content exclusion process.

Cons:

• While Search Exclude effectively hides items from search results, it primarily serves a singular function, and additional search plugins may still be necessary for comprehensive search enhancements.

Search Exclude excels at its designated task, offering a hassle-free solution for those who are satisfied with the default WordPress search but require the ability to hide specific pages or content items. Its simplicity and compatibility with search engine indexing make it a perfect choice for this specific need.

Pricing: It is available as a free plugin, making it an economical solution for managing content exclusion in WordPress search results.

Determining the Top WordPress Search Plugin

SearchWP emerges as a strong contender for the title of the best WordPress search plugin across various websites. It excels in expanding the search capabilities by encompassing content types typically overlooked by the default WordPress search. Moreover, it simplifies the process of crafting a personalized search algorithm.

Following this, the ability to generate an unrestricted array of distinctive search forms is at your disposal, allowing seamless integration into any page, post, or widget-ready section.

While the primary SearchWP plugin may not include live Ajax search functionality, you can swiftly incorporate this feature by leveraging the SearchWP Live Ajax Search extension.

FAQ

Conclusion

In summary, these 12 WordPress search plugins provide diverse features and customization options to enhance your website’s search functionality. Choosing the right plugin can improve user experience, engagement, and overall site performance. Don’t underestimate the power of an efficient search feature for a successful online presence.