If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, you’re probably all too familiar with its basic built-in search function. Let’s be honest – it’s pretty bare-bones, right? It works, sure, but it’s not exactly winning any awards for user experience or functionality.
As website owners, we’ve all felt that frustration. We want more control over how search looks, how results are displayed, and just… well, more oomph overall.
This is where WordPress search plugins come in, filling in all those gaps left by the default search.
At WP101, we’ve used a number of search plugins and we’ve also helped our users set up the search feature on their sites.
Plus, the team is always knee-deep in research mode scouring the WordPress world for new tools and plugins, how to improve websites, and how to make running a site much easier.
After all this collaborative research and real-world testing, I’ve distilled our findings into this guide. We’ve covered everything from simple, light-as-a-feather plugins to the heavyweight champs that pack every feature under the sun.
In this guide, I’ll give you the lowdown on the best WordPress search plugins out there. For each one, you’ll get:
- Our honest, no-holds-barred opinion based on our hands-on experience
- The standout features that made us go “Wow!”
- Who it’s perfect for (whether you’re running a cozy blog or a massive e-commerce empire)
Starting prices, including some wallet-friendly free options - We’ve done all the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. We’ve considered everything from how easy they are to set up, to how fast they are, to whether they play nice with different themes and content types.
So, whether you’re looking to give your search a little facelift or a complete overhaul, stick around. I’m about to detail how these search plugins can give your WordPress site the search functionality you’ve been dreaming of – way beyond what WordPress offers out of the box.
Let’s dive in!
Best Search Plugins In This Guide
Here’s a table of contents of the plugins we’ll review in this guide. Feel free to use the quick links to check out the plugin you’re most interested in:
- SearchWP
- ElasticPress
- Full Text Search
- YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search
- Ivory Search
- SearchWP Ajax Live
- Advanced Woo Search
What to Look For in a WordPress Search Plugin
Not all search plugins work the same way or have the same features. Each one in this list offers something unique. However, there are essential features you want to make sure the plugin you choose has.
Here’s what you should look out for when settling on a good search plugin:
- Make your entire website content searchable
- Compatible with your theme
- Integrates seamlessly with the built-in WordPress search function
- Insights and statistics into user behavior
- Keyword stemming that autodetects typos and spelling errors
With this in mind, let’s take a look at the best and most popular search plugins for WordPress.
Reviewing the Best Search Plugins for Your Site
1. SearchWP: The Best WordPress Plugin for Searching All Your Content
SearchWP is our #1 pick of WordPress search plugins. It instantly makes your site searchable, no coding involved.
Once installed, you can search everything on your site. This includes posts, pages, products, campaigns, media, comments, and users. You can also index and search through your site’s content such as:
- advanced custom fields
- taxonomy terms
- eCommerce product details and descriptions
- custom database table content
- content generated by shortcodes
- shortcode output
- even PDF, Office, and document content
What we love about this plugin is that when you activate SearchWP on your site, it seamlessly integrates with your theme. It also syncs with page builders like Divi, BeaverBuilder, Avada, and Elementor.
Next, you can also create multiple search engines using the ‘supplemental engine’ feature. This lets you configure individual search engines with their own settings.
So for instance, you could create one search engine to search through eCommerce products and a different one to help users locate a physical store close to them.
The best part about this plugin is that it comes with keyword stemming and advanced search options. This means that even if a user types in a wrong spelling or keyword, SearchWP has the ability to understand different word forms of a specific search query.
You can also enable “Did you mean?” options or show partial matches.
So instead of exact term matches, the plugin will give the user the most relevant results to what they’re actually searching for.
SearchWP Key Features
- Accurate search results
- Automatic theme integration
- eCommerce integration with BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and more.
- WPML and Polylang compatible
- Reliable customer support and documentation
- SearchWP’s Metrics Extension for powerful search analytics
SearchWP is designed to be beginner-friendly and easy for anyone to use. But if you need help or face any issues, there’s a friendly support team available.
Who is SearchWP For?
SearchWP is best suited for WordPress website owners who require a highly customizable and efficient search solution. It offers advanced features like keyword stemming, synonym support, and customizable search engines. This works well, especially for websites that have a lot of content as this will enhance user experience and increase engagement.
SearchWP Pricing
The pro plugin pricing for SearchWP starts from $99 per year for a single site license.
Why I Recommend SearchWP: This is the ideal plugin for anyone who needs to seriously upgrade their WordPress site’s search. SearchWP provides comprehensive content indexing, so you can display search results from anything including posts, pages, and even custom fields.
2. ElasticPress: The Best WordPress Search Plugin for Scalability
ElasticPress is a unique search solution for WordPress sites. It’s a hosted WordPress search that’s built on ElasticSearch. What this means for you is that this tool runs search queries in the cloud. So there’s no load on your server.
Your search results are displayed at lightning speeds and your site remains blazing fast as well.
Users can search content that the default WordPress search ignores. This includes tags, custom fields, Microsoft Office documents, PDF files, metadata, and more.
It works with all popular hosting providers and it’s easy to integrate this service with your WordPress site.
Aside from all this, ElasticPress also has a live Ajax search built into it. As users type in their query, the closest results will appear even before they finish typing!
A feature that really stands out is that it indexes your comments and provides a search widget with type-ahead search functionality. It works with WooCommerce product reviews out-of-the-box.
This platform is fully customizable allowing you to create your own algorithm for the search engine. You can add top search terms and top-performing products to appear in search results first.
ElasticPress Key Features
- Works with almost all WordPress hosting
- Perform fast site searches
- Customize search results
- Create a custom search algorithm
- Use instant autosuggest
- Display related posts
- Integrate with WooCommrece
Who is ElasticPress For?
ElasticPress is designed for WordPress developers and administrators who need scalable and powerful search capabilities. It integrates Elasticsearch with WordPress, offering features like real-time indexing, fuzzy matching, and support for complex search queries.
ElasticPress Pricing
ElasticPress offers a free version with basic features. The pro plugin pricing starts from $79 per year for a single site license. There’s a 14-day free trial included.
Why I Recommend ElasticPress: This plugin is designed to handle large-scale WordPress sites effortlessly. By running search queries in the cloud, ElasticPress ensures your site remains fast and responsive, no matter how much content you have.
3. Full Text Search: The Best WordPress Search Plugin for Fast and Accurate Results
Full Text Search is a WordPress search plugin that seamlessly integrates with your website. It indexes your site data and extracts all the relevant data it needs. This includes posts, meta fields, categories, tags, and even the content of attachments.
Then this data is optimized and stored in a structure called Word-based Search Index. This is kept separate from your actual website data so that your live site is never affected.
Now when a user searches for something, the plugin is able to search through all the indexed data and display the most relevant results.
It comes with advanced search features. This lets you run a search by post titles, article text, tags, categories, and meta fields.
You can even allow search for file content, including PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, and more.
There’s a free and paid version. So you can get started without making an investment and then upgrade as you grow.
Full Text Search Key Features
- Fast site search
- Flexible and customizable data
- Accurate results
- Regular updates and support with pro plan
Who is Full Text Search?
Full Text Search is ideal for website owners who prioritize speed and accuracy in search results. It enables full-text searching across various content types, including posts, pages, and custom fields, ensuring users can find relevant information quickly and efficiently.
Full Text Search Pricing
Full Text Search offers a free version with limited features. The pro plugin pricing for Full Text Search starts from $59 per year. You can request for a 7-day evaluation trial.
Why I Recommend Full Text Search: This is a fantastic choice for any user who prioritizes speed and accuracy in their site search. Full Text Search integrates seamlessly with your WordPress installation, indexing all your data for optimal performance without affecting your live site.
Get started with Full Text Search
4. YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search: The Best Plugin for Product-Specific Search
YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search is a premium extension for WooCommerce. It lets your users quickly search for products in your online store. It displays results in real time as the user is typing. Also, there’s no extra page loading with results so it saves them time and makes the process much faster.
With this plugin, you can enable search within specific categories or tags and filter the results. Users can even search by SKU to find products faster in the catalog.
What stands out about this plugin is that you can add badges and prices to your search results. So for instance, if you’re running a promotion or sale, you can alert users which products have discounts or slashed prices.
YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search Key Features
- Focussed on product search
- Display the title, image, description, and price in results
- Highlight promotional products
- Integrates with Elementor and Gutenberg
- Translation-ready and supports multilingual plugins
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Who is YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search For?
YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search is tailored for WooCommerce store owners aiming to enhance the shopping experience for their customers. Its Ajax-powered search functionality provides instant results, improving user engagement and increasing conversion rates.
YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search Pricing
There’s a free version with basic features. The pro plugin pricing for YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search starts from $79.99 per year for a single site license. There’s a 30-day money back guarantee.
Why I Recommend YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search: This plugin instantly transforms the product search experience on WooCommerce sites. YITH’s real-time search results help customers find products quickly and easily, making it perfect for any online store that wants to boost sales.
5. Ivory Search: The Best WordPress Search Plugin for Customization
If you’re looking for a simple search solution, then Ivory Search is for you. It’s free to use and it basically enhances the default WordPress search function. With this plugin, you can create new custom search forms.
Ivory Search doesn’t add any limits on the number of search forms you can create. Plus, you can customize each search form separately. This means you can create one search form for your blog, one for the product catalog, and maybe another to search for store locations close by.
You can let users search by post, page, product, attachment, forum, custom taxonomies, product SKUs, date, and author. You can also allow users to search only posts with/without passwords.
Simply expand the dropdown section you want to customize and make the changes you want. Everything is done with just clicks of your mouse button for toggle switches and checkboxes.
Need to allow a search for specific files? This plugin lets you search through MIME type or media attachments such as images, audio, videos, PDFs, documents, and more. This feature is in the premium plugin only.
You can display the custom search forms anywhere on your site including the header, footer, sidebar or widget area, navigation, or menu. You can also add it to pages, posts, and custom post types. Still want to add it to a different place? Then you can quickly grab the form shortcode and embed it anywhere you want!
Ivory Search Key Features
- Index and search site content
- Unlimited search forms
- Faster search with inverted index-based search engine
- Exclude specific content from search results
- Support Live Ajax Search
- Multilingual search supported by Weglot
- Integrates with popular plugins such as WooCommerce, Weglot, Polylang, bbPress, WPML
Who is Ivory Search For?
Ivory Search is best for those looking for comprehensive search customization options. It comes with an intuitive interface to tailor search functionality to your specific needs.
Ivory Search Pricing
Ivory Search offers a free plugin. The premium plugin starts from $19.99 per year for a single site license. There’s a 30-day 100% money-back guarantee.
Why I Recommend Ivory Search: This powerful plugin lets you customize your search forms to perfectly fit your site. Whether you need to create multiple unique search forms or refine the precise search fields, Ivory Search is flexible enough to match your exact needs.
6. SearchWP Ajax Live: The Best WordPress Search Plugin for Instant Results
SearchWP Ajax Live is an addon from SearchWP. It lets you enable your search forms to have the live AJAX search feature. This is where results are displayed as users are typing in their query.
This plugin doesn’t need the main SearchWP plugin to work. However, if you do have SearchWP already installed, then this plugin will utilize the search engines you’ve already created.
When you activate this plugin, every search bar on your site will automatically use live Ajax search. Added to this, there’s a readymade block available in the widgets editor in WordPress. This lets you add a live Ajax search bar to any page, post, or widget-ready area.
You can customize everything about this plugin to display the most relevant results to your users. It works with any WordPress theme.
What’s great about this plugin is that it uses a template-based approach to load the results. This keeps your search process clutter-free and doesn’t mess with anything else on your site.
SearchWP Ajax Live Key Features
- Easy to setup and configure
- Developer-friendly
- Customizable search
- Live real-time results
- Works best with online stores, membership sites, and online course sites
Who is SearchWP Ajax Live For?
If you desire real-time search functionality with instant results, this is the right plugin for you. You can show dynamic search suggestions and results as users type. This drastically improves search efficiency and engagement.
SearchWP Ajax Live Pricing
SearchWP Ajax Live is a free WordPress plugin. It can be used along with SearchWP or as a standalone plugin in WordPress.
Why I Recommend SearchWP Ajax Live: If real-time feedback is a priority, SearchWP Ajax Live delivers by providing instant search results as users type. This makes SearchWP the perfect solution for websites that need to deliver content quickly and efficiently.
Get started with SearchWP Ajax Live
7. Advanced Woo Search: The Best WordPress Search Plugin for Product Attribute Search
Advanced Woo Search is a search plugin for WooCommrece. It supports both Ajax results and a separate search results page. So you can choose which one works best for your site.
Added to that, it lets you make all your WooCommerce products searchable. The plugin automatically synchronizes all product data. This means any new products added are indexed without the need for you to re-index all content manually after every change.
It also has a neat “search in” feature. With this, users can search for results in specific product categories, tags, IDs, SKUs, and content. You can even exclude stop words to display better results.
In your WooCommerce search results, you can choose to display the title, image, and price.
The backend dashboard is user-friendly so you won’t face any learning curve with setting this up.
Coming to translations, if you want to offer your site locally in different languages, you can integrate with plugins like WPML, Polylang, WooCommerce Multilingual, qTranslate, GTranslate, and more.
What we felt really stood out is that this plugin works with all popular page builders like Gutenberg, Elementor, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, and Divi Builder. So you won’t face issues integrating this plugin into your existing WordPress ecosystem.
It also supports multivendor plugins like Dokan, WCFM, and MultiVendorX.
Advanced Woo Search Key Features
- Search filters and terms
- Unlimited search forms
- Google Analytics support
- Supports synonyms and plurals
- Results and forms layouts with pro plan
Who is Advanced Woo Search For?
Advanced Woo Search is tailored specifically for WooCommerce store owners who want to optimize their search functionality for products. It offers advanced filtering options, instant search results, and compatibility with WooCommerce extensions. Overall, it creates a seamless shopping experience for customers.
Advanced Woo Search Pricing
This is a free WooCommerce search plugin. The pro plugin pricing for Advanced Woo Search starts from $69 per year for a single site license.
Why I Recommend Advanced Woo Search: This is a solid choice for any WooCommerce store owner who wants to improve the customer experience. Advanced Woo Search goes one step further than other search plugins by letting customers search through specific product attributes like SKUs, categories, and tags.
Get started with Advanced Woo Search
Which is the Best WordPress Search Plugin?
The best WordPress search plugin for you depends entirely on your specific site’s needs, your content, and what you want to achieve.
However, for most users I typically recommend SearchWP. It offers comprehensive content indexing, so you can search practically any content on your site including custom fields. This means that users can find exactly what they need quickly and easily.
That said, there are a few other options I recommend for specific use cases:
- If you need a scalable solution for large or enterprise-level sites, ElasticPress can handle a large volume of content without compromising your site speed or performance.
- If you want to provide instant feedback, SearchWP Ajax Live provides real-time search results as the user types.
- If you run an online store, then both YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search and Advanced Woo Search are excellent options. They are designed specifically to help customers find products they want to buy.
What I Look For in a WordPress Search Plugin: My Checklist
The thought of sifting through all the available search plugins can feel overwhelming. To avoid that, I always follow a simple strategy: I identify my must-have features and characteristics first. This helps me stay focused and quickly find the best plugin for my site.
With that strategy in mind, here’s the checklist I use when I’m looking for a new search plugin.
1. Ease of Integration
A top-notch search plugin must integrate seamlessly with WordPress, including your existing themes and plugins. This smooth integration minimizes setup time and helps you avoid conflicts and clashes.
2. Customization Options
For me, extensive customization features are a must. I look for plugins that allow me to tailor my search forms to match any area of my site – from WooCommerce products right to custom fields.
3. Performance and Speed
Since speed is essential for a good user experience, I favor plugins that are designed to enhance my site’s performance.
A quality search plugin must provide fast and accurate results without creating a heavy load on your server.
4. Advanced Search Features
Advanced features like live search, real-time suggestions, and intuitive indexing are a must. They improve the user experience by providing more relevant results, faster.
5. A Focus on Future-Proofing
It’s essential that your chosen plugin can grow with your business. That’s why I look for plugins that can handle an increased load efficiently. Solutions like ElasticPress are particularly valuable since they ensure your site performs well regardless of the volume of content.
6. Documentation and Reliable Customer Support
High-quality support and comprehensive documentation aren’t optional. They ensure you can resolve urgent issues quickly and get the assistance you need during setup.
I strongly prioritize plugins that offer responsive customer service and genuinely detailed guides. After all, there’s nothing worse than being stuck with a broken plugin and nowhere to turn.
FAQs on WordPress Search Plugins
What is the best free search plugin for WordPress?
ElasticPress, Relevanssi, and Ivory Search offer free search plugins for WordPress. SearchWP is a pro plugin but it’s so powerful and comes with all the features you need to make your entire site searchable. It starts at $99 per year with a 14-day money back guarantee.
Does WordPress have a search engine?
Yes, WordPress has a built-in search engine that allows users to search for content within a WordPress website. However, it doesn’t offer the best search experience. Its functionality can be enhanced by using plugins or optimizing search settings and content.
How do I make my native WordPress search better?
To improve the default search functionality in WordPress, install and configure a search plugin like SearchWP that offers advanced features such as keyword stemming, synonym support, and live search. You also want to ensure that all content on your site is properly indexed by search engines, including custom post types, taxonomies, and custom fields.
How much does SearchWP cost?
SearchWP pricing starts from $99 per year for a single site license.
How do I add live search to my WordPress website?
You can add live search to your WordPress website by using a plugin like SearchWP Ajax Live or by implementing custom JavaScript to fetch search results in real-time as users type in the search box.
Which WordPress search plugin supports fuzzy matching and keyword stemming?
SearchWP is a WordPress search plugin that supports fuzzy matching and keyword stemming, enhancing search accuracy and relevance. Relevanssi, Fibosearch, WP Extended Search, and ElasticSearch offer these features too.
Do WordPress search plugins impact website performance?
Yes, a WordPress search plugin can impact website performance. This is why it’s important to choose a reliable, lightweight, and well-coded WordPress search plugin like SearchWP. These are designed to be lightweight and optimized for speed.
Interested in learning how to speed up your WordPress site with easy video tutorials? Dive into step-by-step guides that simplify the process for beginners and experts alike.
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