Are you looking for a WordPress search plugin to improve your site search?
The default WordPress search feature is quite limited and often fails to find relevant content for your on-site search queries.
In this article, we’ve listed the best WordPress search plugins so you can improve content discoverability and provide more relevant answers to your site visitors.
| Search Plugin 🔍 | Best For 👍 | Pricing 💰 |
|---|---|---|
| SearchWP | All-around search solution for WordPress | $99/yr |
| Ivory Search | Enhancing built-in WordPress search | $19.99/yr |
| Relevanssi | Relevance-based search and PDF indexing | $99/yr |
| Ajax Search Lite | Search box color customization templates | $39 |
| FiboSearch | WooCommerce site search with image display | $49/yr |
| WP Extended Search | Extending default WordPress search capabilities | Free |
| Better Search | Heatmap analytics for popular searches | Free |
Best WordPress Search Plugins
Our list of best search plugins for WordPress includes both premium and free plugin options. You can choose the plugin that best suits your budget and website niche.
Now let’s get started!
1. SearchWP
SearchWP is the best custom search plugin for WordPress. It’s easy to use, gives you complete customization flexibility, and powers more than 30,000 sites.
The plugin scans every piece of your website content that is indexable. From existing pages, and posts to custom post types, taxonomies, excerpts, shortcodes, and even comments.
The SearchWP plugin gives you complete control over your WordPress search algorithm. It lets you create your own customizable website search engines and allows you to manually select which content should be indexed and displayed on your search results.
We like that you can control the search algorithm and set up the priority of search results by assigning weight to each content type from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest).
We were also pleased to see that this plugin can let visitors search and scan content from PDFs and text documents stored in your WordPress Media Library. That’s an incredibly helpful search option to have if you have a lot of content in PDF format on your site.
And once you activate the SearchWP plugin, you don’t have to make any code changes. The plugin automatically indexes all your website content and replaces the default WordPress search feature.
So if you want the most accurate search results to appear on your site for relevant search terms, SearchWP is the best WordPress plugin to have.
Features:
- Direct integration with native WordPress search box.
- Search everything, including eCommerce product details, custom field content, and shortcode output.
- Integrates with popular WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, bbPress, Advanced Custom Fields, WP Job Manager, and more.
- Keyword stemming feature to provide more advanced search results.
- AJAX live search to show results without a page reload instantly.
- Make a complete log of search analytics so that you can learn what your visitors are searching for.
- Index content of PDF, Office, and text documents stored in your WordPress Media Library.
- Create multiple search engines and configure their settings individually to meet your site needs.
Cost: Pricing for SearchWP starts at $99/year.
Want to see the SearchWP plugin in action? Check out the detailed article on how to improve WordPress search with SearchWP.
2. Ivory Search
Ivory Search is an advanced WordPress search plugin that lets you create custom search forms to enhance the functionality of the built-in WordPress search function.
You can create unlimited custom search forms and customize each form’s settings to perform multiple types of searches on your site content.
In addition, Ivory Search also integrates with WooCommerce and supports fuzzy matching (partial word matching).
Furthermore, the plugin allows you to display these search forms in multiple locations on your website using shortcodes. It’s a super handy plugin to have for online stores.
Features:
- Compatible with the default WordPress search feature.
- Search content, images, files, attachments, and WooCommerce store products.
- Create unlimited search forms, each with unique preferred settings.
- Display search forms anywhere on your site.
- Search using AJAX search.
- Track search analytics.
- Supports multilingual site search.
- Integrates with WooCommerce, Weglot, Polylang, bbPress, WPML.
Cost: Ivory Search is a freemium plugin. The base plan is Free, and the Premium version starts at $19.99/year.
3. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is also a popular search plugin to improve the WordPress default search functionality. It comes with an advanced feature that sorts the search results based on relevancy, not by date.
It searches through almost all types of website content, including PDFs, custom fields, shortcode outputs, WooCommerce products, and more.
Relevanssi is not an ideal choice for small-scale sites. It requires additional storage (3 times of your wp_posts database) to run the plugin smoothly on your WordPress website.
Features:
- Sorted search based on relevance, not by date.
- Search post categories, tags, and custom taxonomies.
- Index PDF content.
- Highlight the search query in the search results.
- Results based on partial word matching (if complete words don’t match).
- Multisite compatibility.
- Integrates with bbPress.
- Compatible with the modern page editor.
Cost: Relevanssi includes both free and pro versions. The paid plan starts at $99/year.
4. Ajax Search Lite
Ajax Search Lite is a free search plugin available for WordPress sites. It replaces the default search function with the AJAX-powered search form – a live search bar that enhances your site visitors’ content navigation experience.
The best feature of Ajax Search Lite is that it displays results as a user is typing a query in the search field. It also comes with Google’s autocomplete and keyword suggestion functionality.
The search features of the plugin are not just limited to posts and pages, but it also supports custom fields, custom post types, excerpts, descriptions, categories, and much more.
Ajax Search Lite also includes smooth animations and is completely optimized for mobiles.
Features:
- Works with native WordPress search functionality.
- Search posts, pages, custom post types, titles, descriptions, excerpts, categories, and tags.
- Fully AJAX powered.
- Custom Filter boxes for categories and post types.
- 8 built-in templates with color customization options.
- Compatible with WPML and QtranslateX.
- Mobile friendly.
Cost: Free with the option to upgrade at $39 for a lifetime license.
5. FiboSearch
FiboSearch provides enhanced search features for WooCommerce sites. It improves the search experience of users by providing live search suggestions, which is missing in the default WooCommerce search feature.
The advanced AJAX live search feature of FiboSearch improves the WooCommerce default search system as it supports product search and also SKU search.
Moreover, it also performs searches based on product titles, descriptions, and categories.
The plugin can also be easily integrated into your WordPress theme and is optimized for mobile devices as well. You can use a shortcode or search widget to embed the plugin on WordPress.
Features:
- Built specifically for WooCommerce websites.
- Search by product title, SKU, and description.
- Display product images and prices in live search results.
- Mobile-first search mode for better user experience.
- Support for WooCommerce search results page and Google Analytics.
- Multilingual support, including WPML, Polylang, and qTranslate-XT.
Cost: It’s a freemium plugin with pro plans starting at $49/year.
6. WP Extended Search
As the name says, WP Extended Search helps you extend the functionality of the default WordPress search feature.
WP Extended Search is a lightweight and free WordPress search plugin. You can simply activate the plugin and configure settings with just a click.
It allows you to create unlimited search forms and gives you the flexibility to choose which options to include in the search form. You can include post types, author names, taxonomies, metadata, and more.
And if you want, you can even exclude certain types of posts from the results page.
Features:
- Search in category, tags, or custom taxonomies.
- Include or exclude any public post type.
- Compatible with WooCommerce.
- Create unlimited search settings to use with custom search forms.
- Add search forms using a widget, shortcode, or PHP function.
- Compatible with WPML.
Cost: Free
7. Better Search
Better Search is another free search plugin that integrates smoothly with your WordPress site, provides excellent customization options, and displays accurate results based on title and post content.
The plugin not only searches through your website posts but also other custom post types. You can also set the display priority of the search results by assigning a greater weight to either the title or the content.
In addition, Better Search tracks the search behavior of users and uses this data to generate a visual search heatmap. This is a great analytic feature that helps you see popular searches on your site.
Better Search is completely compatible with WordPress popular themes, and you can also customize the plugin’s appearance with custom CSS to match it with your website brand and look.
Features:
- Compatible with the default WordPress search feature.
- Heatmap analytics to track popular searches
- Relevancy-based searching.
- Search within titles, content, excerpt, meta fields, authors, tags, and other taxonomies and comments.
- Supports cache plugins such as WP-Super-Cache and W3 Total Cache.
- Translation ready.
Cost: Free
And that’s it! These are our picks of the best WordPress search plugins.
Which WordPress Search Plugin is The Best?
Considering search features, usability, and versatility, SearchWP is undoubtedly the best WordPress search plugin.
The plugin works flawlessly with any type of website. Be it a simple blog website, membership site, or any WooCommerce site.
And you don’t need any technical knowledge to use the plugin. Just install SearchWP on your site, and it’ll automatically integrate seamlessly with it.
FAQs on Best Search Plugins for WordPress
Do you have more questions about search plugins for WordPress? Here are some commonly asked questions other readers have when looking for search plugins
How Do I Improve My WordPress Search?
The easiest way to improve search function is to use a native WordPress search plugin on your site. WordPress search plugins come with powerful search features such as live AJAX search, filtering, WooCommerce product search, and many more.
Many of these features are lacking in the WordPress default search function, and that limits its usefulness.
If your website is new with only a few pages, then the default WordPress search function will work well enough. But as your site grows in the number of pages and overall content, you’ll need a search feature that responds better to your visitors’ searches.
Does WordPress Have a Search Feature?
Yes, most WordPress themes have a built-in search feature. But you’ll need a plugin like SearchWP if you want to add Ajax live search to display real-time results as users type in the search box. This is a very user-friendly feature that improves WordPress’ default search feature considerably.
Why Isn’t the Default WordPress Search Sufficient?
The default search in WordPress is designed to return very basic searches. The search depth is often limited to just your main pages and that leads to unrelated search results. Besides, it lacks impactful features like product images appearing in the search box for eCommerce stores.
With a plugin, you can expand your default WordPress search functionality dramatically with features like AJAX search, partial keyword matching, filters, custom searches, and a bunch more.
How Do I Add Live Search to My WordPress?
You can add live search to your WordPress site using an Ajax enabled plugin like SearchWP. It’s a good practice to use live search on your site as it can improve user experience by allowing them to find the information they need more quickly on your site.
Next, Create a WordPress AJAX Contact Form
We hope this article helps you choose the best search plugin for your WordPress websites.
You might also want to create an AJAX-enabled contact form in WordPress. Check out our step-by-step article on how to create a WordPress AJAX contact form to set up yours today.
If you’d like to read other roundups containing our favorite WordPress plugins, we recommend the following:
- Best Video Plugins for WordPress
- Best Banner Plugins for WordPress
- Best File Upload Plugins for WordPress
- Best Automation Plugins for WordPress
- Best ChatGPT Plugins for WordPress
Create Your WordPress Form Now
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