Having a good search on your site is important if you want to ensure a positive user experience for your visitors. It’s also a great way to increase sales and grow your business, as it’s easier to find products with a powerful search.
However, the default WordPress search has limitations and doesn’t include a lot of essential content on your site. For instance, it won’t include custom fields, tags, categories, product details, and documents when looking for content.
Fortunately, there are many WordPress search plugins, and SearchWP is one of the best options in the market. Our focus is on creating a better and more personalized search experience.
While SearchWP is powerful and full of features, we also tested several other options to help you find the right solution.
In this article, we’ll show you the best WordPress search plugins that you can use to deliver more relevant search results to your visitors.
Why Use a WordPress Search Plugin?
WordPress is a great and most popular blogging platform. But, its search functionality leaves much to be desired.
Namely, the native WordPress search engine doesn’t search:
- Custom fields and taxonomies. Are you an online store owner? Most WordPress eCommerce plugins store product attributes in custom fields and taxonomies. As WordPress doesn’t index data inside them, customers won’t be able to find a product by its attributes.
- Text within office documents and PDFs. Do you upload any useful documents or PDF files to your site? By default, your visitors can’t search for content within them, making it much harder to find a document they’re looking for.
- Custom database tables. Do you use any popular WordPress plugins? Most of them store tons of valuable data within custom database tables. All of this data isn’t searchable by default, making it challenging to find the right content in some cases.
- Shortcodes. Are you an active shortcodes user? They actually contain a lot of search-worthy information. For example, by making them searchable, you can let your visitors find specific galleries and tables.
In addition, the default WordPress search has some unpleasant features that limit your capabilities.
For instance, it doesn’t allow you to impact search results in any way. You cannot exclude or prioritize specific pages, as well as customize the order of search results in general.
Similarly, it doesn’t collect any search statistics. Your site visitors’ search activity data is a great source of new content ideas. Plus, it displays search results by opening a new separate page, which is not convenient as most users expect to see live results on a site when they search.
Thankfully, there are lots of WordPress search plugins that can help you tackle these problems.
How We Test and Review WordPress Search Plugins
Our goal is to give you a clear understanding of each plugin’s strengths and weaknesses so you can make an informed decision for your own site. That’s why we personally test each WordPress search plugin on real websites to see how they perform under different conditions.
Here’s a peek into our testing and review process:
- Feature Exploration: We dive deep into each plugin’s features and examine its search capabilities, customization options, and any extra functionalities. For exmaple, we test features like live search, keyword stemming, and the ability to include/exclude specific content types.
- Indexing Capabilities: When testing search plugins, we check how effectively and efficiently each plugin indexes content. We look at how it handles different types of content including posts, pages, custom post types, comments, and even media files.
- Search Accuracy and Relevance: This is the core of our testing as we perform various searches on our test site using different keywords and phrases. We then analyze the relevance of the results, how well the plugin prioritizes content, and whether it delivers a satisfying search experience for the user.
- Customization Options: We also explore the plugin’s customization options and look for the ability to fine-tune search results, adjust styling to match our theme, and configure advanced settings to optimize search performance.
- Pricing: Finally, we consider the plugin’s pricing in relation to its features and performance. We determine whether the plugin offers good value for its price and compare it with other search plugins.
That said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress search plugins you choose for your website.
1. SearchWP
SearchWP is a truly comprehensive solution that deservedly takes first place among WordPress search plugins.
We recommend SearchWP because it is the most powerful and comprehensive plugin that’s capable of covering all your needs. You can add a lightening fast search to your site that improves the overall search experience.
One of the best things about using the plugin is that you can create custom search engines for your website. You get complete control over which sources to include, like pages, posts, categories, tags, comments, and more.
Besides that, another feature we really think is useful for users is custom search forms.
You get pre-built templates for search forms, which includes a basic layout or more complex designs. The best part, these layouts can be embedded easily on your site.
SearchWP also has tons of useful extensions. You can install them to display search results in live mode, add a search bar with a shortcode, prioritize or exclude search results, and many more.
If you’re ready to provide your site visitors with the best possible search experience, you can grab your copy of SearchWP here.
Features:
- Make literally anything on your site searchable – WordPress doesn’t display your content in search results? With SearchWP, you can make searchable custom post types, taxonomies, documents, PDF files, and many more.
- Add a custom search bar – SearchWP supports the simultaneous use of multiple search engines with a different set of rules. It allows you to create custom search fields linked to certain types of content.
- On-site search activity tracking – SearchWP gathers the on-site search activity of your visitors and provides you with it right in the WordPress dashboard. It’s an excellent opportunity to better understand your audience and give them the content or products they want.
- Seamless integration with WooCommerce – WordPress doesn’t show WooCommerce products in search results by default. With SearchWP, you can make WordPress search by product name, description, attributes, reviews, and more.
- Everything works out of the box – SearchWP automatically integrates into any existing search bar on your site after installation. It’s easy to use and configure for your needs, even if you’ve just launched your first WordPress site.
Why We Recommend SearchWP: When it comes to improving your site’s search experience, nothing comes close to SearchWP. It offers powerful features and extensions that help you create custom search engines for your site. Plus, you can easily integrate with it other plugins like WooCommerce and WPForms to extend your site’s functionality.
Pricing: Starting at $99 per year.
2. FiboSearch
FiboSearch is a must-have plugin for every WooCommerce store owner. We really appreacate that using it, you can add to your site an advanced AJAX search bar with live search suggestions to your eCommerce store.
Each suggestion contains a product image, price, and description, allowing customers to instantly determine if the product suits them or not.
That said, the main disadvantage we experienced while using the plugin is that it’s only useful if you’re the WooCommerce store owner.
So if it’s not the case, we recommend using a more versatile WordPress search plugin, like SearchWP, for all your WordPress search needs.
Features:
- Ultra-fast search engine – FiboSearch instantly shows search matches even if you have a whole bunch of products in your shop.
- Advanced search results – Just like SearchWP, this plugin also considers product attributes, tags, brands, and SKUs. It helps to provide more accurate search results, thereby increasing sales.
- The fuzzy search feature – Fuzzy search ensures that customers can find a product even if they make a typo in its name. This feature is similar to the one SearchWP has.
- Google Analytics integration – With Google Analytics, you can find out what keywords your site is ranking for and what search terms users have entered on it. It’s a great opportunity to discover the needs of your audience and provide them with new arrivals.
Why We Recommend FiboSearch: After testing the plugin, we recommend this plugin to all WooCommerce users. It works seamlessly with the eCommerce platform and helps improve the overall search experience for your customers.
Pricing: The base plugin with limited features is free. The Pro version starts from $49 per year.
3. Ivory Search
Ivory Search is the next search plugin for WordPress on our list. We tested the plugin and were pleased to see that it allows you to create an unlimited number of search forms and individually customize each of them.
This in turn opens up a lot of possibilities. For example, you can create a form limited to a specific category to provide your visitors with more accurate search results.
Or, if you have an online store, you might want to add separate search forms for regular pages and products to avoid cluttering search results.
That said, Ivory Search is a great plugin that has some useful features but that’s barely half of what SearchWP has to offer.
If you want to have full control over your WordPress site search, need advanced features, and integrate with other tools, then it’s better to use SearchWP. You may want to see our comparison between SearchWP vs Ivory Search for more details.
Features:
- Better search results – While not as powerful as SearchWP, Ivory Search also allows you to make images, files, attachments, and shortcodes content searchable.
- Exclude specific pages from search results – As with SearchWP, you can use this plugin to exclude any pages from search results. It really comes in handy when you have a lot of technical pages that don’t make sense to display in search.
- Track searches of your visitors – Just like SearchWP, the Ivory Search plugin allows you to track on-site search activity. It’s a great opportunity to get to know your audience better and provide them with the content they want.
- Multilingual search support – Does your audience speak languages other than English? Due to multilingual search support, they can find content in any language.
Why We Recommend Ivory Search: If you’re looking for a simple search plugin that helps improve the overall user experience of your site, then we recommend using Ivory Search. It packs enough features to help you customize the search engine for WordPress.
Pricing: Ivory Search’s base plugin with limited features is free to use. However, the Pro version starts at $19.99 per year.
4. SearchWP Ajax Live Search
Would you like to display search results on your site in live mode? SearchWP Ajax Live Search allows you to enable such a feature in a few clicks.
Although this plugin is an extension of SearchWP, it can be installed separately. The best thing we found while testing the plugin is that it’s completely free.
You can add live search to your site without editing code. It helps users quickly find what they’re looking for.
If you want to learn more about this plugin, feel free to check out the how to add live autocomplete search to your WordPress site guide.
Features:
- Automatic integration: Once you install the plugin, all the search forms on your site will start to show search results in live mode. It allows your visitors to instantly get search results without jumping from one page to another.
- Autocomplete feature: When a user starts typing something into the search form, it lists the results that match the typed search string. It makes search boxes on your site look like a Google search and helps your visitors find what they came for much faster.
- Fast and lightweight: SearchWP Ajax Live Search is a lightweight plugin that’s optimized for fast loading.
Why We Recommend SearchWP Ajax Live Search: If you’re looking to add a live search feature to the default WordPress search feature, then this plugin is for you. It works out of the box and there is no complicated set up process.
Pricing: SearchWP Ajax Live Search is 100% free to use.
5. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is another top WordPress search plugin and we included it becasue it can be considered the most functional plugin in our selection after SearchWP.
This plugin allows you to replace the native WordPress search engine with a fully customizable one.
What impressed us the most was that you can configure it to search only by certain categories, make it consider custom fields, enable fuzzy search, and many more.
However, the biggest disadvantage of Relevanssi we found was that it can require a large amount of database space to work. So if you have limited free space on your hosting server, you may encounter some problems using the plugin.
The Relevanssi interface is also rather difficult to call user-friendly and it can be challenging to figure out how to set it up to meet your needs, especially if you’re a beginner.
Besides, most of the plugin features are only available in the premium version. Considering all of the above, if you put convenience and versatility in the first place, you better stick with SearchWP.
Features:
- Search suggestions – If there are no results for a search, then Relevanssi checks if the search term has misspellings. It then corrects them and searches again to provide search suggestions.
- Assign an extra weight to new posts – As SearchWP, Relevanssi allows you to prioritize new posts in search results so that they get more views from day one.
- Highlight search terms – With this plugin, you can enable search term highlighting so that visitors can find the information they need faster.
- Restrict searches – While not as flexible as SearchWP, Relevanssi allows you to limit specific search fields to particular categories or tags.
Why We Recommend Relevanssi: We chose this plugin because it offers powerful features to improve search on your site. However, Relevanssi is great for large websites that don’t have limited hosting resources because it requires large amounts of database space to run.
Pricing: Relevanssi offers a base plugin which totally free. But there is a premium version which starts from $109 per year.
6. Search Exclude
Search Exclude is a simple and lightweight plugin that can be useful to every WordPress site owner. As the name suggests, it lets you exclude specific posts or pages from search results.
What we liked about this plugin is that it is probably the best option if you’re just looking to have control over which pages appear in search results for standard WordPress search.
That said, a downside of using Search Exclude is that it doesn’t have its own search engines. It relies on the default WordPress search, which has limitations.
But if you strive to provide your visitors with the most relevant search results and the best user experience, consider choosing SearchWP. The ability to exclude pages from search results is just one of many that this plugin has.
Features:
- Easy to use – As with SearchWP, to exclude a page from search results, you just need to check the appropriate box at the page editor.
- Quick and bulk edit – There is no need to individually exclude every page or post you don’t want to appear in search results.
- Fast and lightweight – As this plugin brings just a single feature, it doesn’t have a lot of code and works super fast.
Why We Recommend Search Exclude: If you’re simply looking for a way to remove or stop certain content from appearing in WordPress search, then we recommend using this plugin.
Pricing: Search Exclude is a free WordPress plugin.
7. WP Search Insights
Would you like to find out what visitors were looking for on your site? WP Search Insights will help you do that.
We added this plugin to our list because it records all searches made on your site and gives you valuable insights into your visitors’ search behavior.
That said, the plugin lacks other features that you would find in other plugins on our list. For instance, you can’t set up custom search engines, customize search forms, and choose which content to include or exclude while searching.
So if you’re looking for a comprehensive solution that will take your site’s search a step further, you’d better opt for another alternative.
Features:
- Track what search terms visitors entered on your site: Although this plugin is not as powerful as SearchWP, it also allows you to track searches of your visitors. You can see on what specific page a search occurred and what results they ended up clicking on.
- Spam protection: The built-in search filter prevents spam from getting into the gathered statistics, ensuring the quality of the collected data. It also lets you exclude admin searches if needed.
- Compatibility with Ajax search forms: You don’t have to worry if you use AJAX search forms on your site to display search results in live mode. WP Search Insights is fully compatible with them.
Why We Recommend WP Search Insights: We choose this plugin because it shows you statistics for searches performed on your site in a dashboard inside WordPress. This is useful for users who want insights to find out what users are looking for on their site and use the data to create new content or fix issues.
Pricing: WP Search Insights is free to use.
Which WordPress Search Plugin is The Best?
After going through our list, you can see that each plugins adds some specific feature that enhances the default WordPress capabilities.
But after testing multiple plugins, we believe that SearchWP is the best solution. That’s because if you’re looking for the best and versatileWordPress search plugin, you’d better opt for SearchWP.
Here are the things that allow it to deservedly take first place among other WordPress search plugins:
- The most comprehensive solution. With this plugin, you can completely customize the WordPress search engine, make almost everything on your site searchable, and much more.
- User-friendly interface. You can easily set up SearchWP the way you want, even if you’re not a tech-savvy user, and just launched your first WordPress site ever.
- Plenty of useful extensions. Even though this plugin has tons of features, there are a decent number of extensions you can install to additionally expand its capabilities.
- The support team. Although SearchWP is really easy to use and configure, if you come up with any questions, they’re always ready to help you with any issue.
FAQs About The Best WordPress Search Plugins
Here are some common questions users have about the best WordPress search plugins:
1. What does a WordPress search plugin do?
A WordPress search plugin enhances and improves the default search functionality of your WordPress website. In simpler terms, it helps your visitors find what they’re looking for on your site more easily and accurately.
2. Why do I need a search plugin? Isn’t WordPress’s built-in search good enough?
WordPress’s built-in search is very basic and often insufficient, especially as your website grows. The default search primarily only includes post and page titles and content. It often misses other important content like custom fields, product details, or attached files. That’s why a search plugin helps you improve the overall search experience in WordPress.
3. How do I add live search to my WordPress website?
WordPress doesn’t come with a default feature to add live search. However, you can use a plugin like SearchWP Ajax Live Search to add autocomplete functionality to your site.
We hope this article helped you pick the best WordPress search plugin to boost site search. You may also want to see our guide on how to prioritize specific search results in WordPress and how to fix WordPress search not working.
So, in this article, you learned what are the best WordPress search plugins to boost your site search.
Ready to create a better and more personalized WordPress search experience? Get started with SearchWP today!
