Are you in search of the best WordPress Search Plugins to enhance your Site Search? Are you looking for ways to improve WordPress website search? If that is the case then you have landed in the right place.
We all know very well that the default WordPress search feature is quite restricted. You will, however, come across several Search Plugins in WordPress that will help you amplify the default search experience.
Moreover, if you have a large website with innumerable posts then it might be difficult and time-consuming for visitors to find exactly what they want, and that’s where actually a WordPress Search Plugin can help out. The beauty of WordPress is its customization and the plugins make it effortlessly easy to organize. There are enough free WordPress search plugins that you can choose from.
Best and Free WordPress Search Plugins
In this article, we will see different search plugins that can be used to enhance your WordPress site search.
Let’s get started!
SearchWP Modal Search Form
SearchWP Modal Search Form is one of the best custom WordPress search plugins which is very easy to use and the accuracy of the results we obtain from this search plugin is reliable. You can make use of this plugin to easily integrate an accessible, lightweight modal search form into your WordPress website. SearchWP Modal Search Form does not necessarily require SearchWP but it will utilize SearchWP in case it is installed and activated.
SearchWP Modal Search Form directly incorporates WordPress in the way you use it while the default modal form theme builds upon the styles that are put in place by your active theme, making the overhead as small as possible. In addition to this, you will get a built-in full template loader which allows you to fully customize your SearchWP Modal Search Form with minimal hassle. It allows searches for your keyword in post/page title, content, slug, categories, tags, taxonomies, excerpts, and even comments.
Advanced Woo Search
Advanced Woo Search is one of the most powerful WordPress search plugins that is mainly used along with WooCommerce. The Advanced Woo Search is a must-have for any website that is powered by WooCommerce. It is really a great search plugin for any eCommerce sites that are created using WordPress. It supports AJAX search and search results page display. It is very easy to use. Moreover, this plugin offers customization options and it is absolutely awesome.
Advanced Woo Search is undoubtedly the best WordPress search plugins available for any website that uses WooCommerce. It is not just limited to that. This plugin offers abundant features. It supports multiple languages and also has a smart ordering system. It enables you to search across all your WooCommerce products. It offers a user-friendly settings page with a lot of options. It lets you use shortcodes and widgets to place a search box anywhere you want. Each search result contains a product image and its price as well. The best feature of Advanced Woo Search above all is it is fast and free of cost.
ElasticPress
ElasticPress is one of the WordPress search plugins that is a WordPress search service built on ElasticSearch. It is a very fast and flexible search and query engine for WordPress. ElasticPress enables WordPress to find or “query” admissible content remarkably fast through a diversity of greatly customizable functionalities. It is extremely easy to use and integrate on any WordPress site and works with all top WordPress hosting providers. ElasticPress supercharges your WordPress website making it worth installing for users and administrators. The plugin even contains features for popular plugins.
Its searching capacity is very high and due to this reason, you can find the content you are looking for instantly. It supports WooCommerce as well. ElasticPress understands data in real-time, so it can instantly deliver engaging and precise related content with no impact on site performance. ElasticPress improves user search relevancy and query performance. Besides that, it also suggests relevant content as the text is entered into the search field.
Ajax Search Lite
Ajax Search Lite is one of the most awesome WordPress search plugins because it is a live search plugin. And it is a great choice for every website. This plugin offers a fast search that is not just limited to posts and pages but searches custom ones as well. Furthermore, it is a mobile-friendly plugin which is a much-needed feature in modern times like now. This live search plugin boosts the user experience by providing a user friendly ajax powered search form. It lets you filter the results with the category and post type filter boxes. Not only that, but it also includes Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions.
Ajax Search Lite comes with plenty of amazing features. It allows automatic search replacement, as well as widgets and shortcodes, are also available. It has very smooth animations with mobile device support and regular updates. You can use Ajax Search Lite as a replacement for the default WordPress search as it is better looking and more search engine efficient. It supports custom post types and custom fields, and much more. Fine-tune the user experience by providing a powerful ajax search plugin to your visitors. You can use this amazing plugin for free.
ACF: Better Search
Talking about ACF: Better Search, it is the fastest WordPress search plugins on this list. It is well-known that speed matters a lot in searches so you need to use plugins that give out search results very quickly. If it takes too long, visitors are gonna leave the page. This plugin is one of the simplest, yet very effective on the list. And, it works best for websites of any size. This plugin modifies the SQL database query instead of creating a search results page which contributes to making your search engine work better.
One of the major features of the ACF: Better Search plugin is the light mode. This mode assists in speeding up searches even faster. This plugin adds the ability to search by content from selected fields of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin to the default WordPress search engine. You need not add any additional code because everything works automatically. Besides that, you can search for whole phrases instead of every single word of phrase. This results in more accurate searches than before.
Ivory Search
If you are a developer then Ivory Search is the ultimate option for you as it allows you to customize every aspect of the website. It is one of the best custom WordPress search plugins. Ivory Search permits developers to create their own custom search forms. It allows them to create unlimited such forms. Also, this plugin allows configuring each search form individually to customize WordPress search and carry out different types of searches on the site content. It is a simple to use yet advanced WordPress search plugin.
The unique and neat feature of Ivory Search is its ability to search for password-protected content. It is indeed a great choice for developers who likes to create everything according to their requirements. Besides that, this plugin improves the default WordPress search and allows you to create new custom search forms as well. Furthermore, you can display custom search forms on the site header, footer, sidebar, widget area, pages, posts, custom post types, navigation, or menu, or anywhere on the website using shortcodes.
Relevanssi
Relevanssi is another popular search plugin in WordPress that can substitute native WordPress search with a much more robust system having a lot of features and configurable options. Using Relevanssi, you will get better outputs, better presentation of results which is the thing that matters to enhance user experience. It is one of the fastest WordPress search plugins as it implements a partial-relevance algorithm to find and sort results. What it means by this is, if the complete search term doesn’t turn up an exact result, it will display output with the nearest match. Moreover, the results are listed by relevance rather than by posting date.
While everything has both pros and cons, let’s talk about the drawback of the Relevanssi search plugin. Its major drawback is its storage use as it requires a large amount of database space(for a reasonable estimate, multiply the size of your wp_posts database table by three). If your hosting setup has a limited amount of space for database tables, using Relevanssi may cause problems. In those cases, the use of Relevanssi cannot be recommended.
Relevanssi comes in two versions, free and premium. The free version is quite capable, with result highlighting, bbPress integration, and so on. Relevanssi free replaces WordPress’s search algorithm, but not the interface. It also supports fuzzy matching, which means, it matches partial words if complete words don’t match.
Better Search
Better Search plugin substitutes the default WordPress search engine with a more robust search engine that gives out the relevant search results to the title and content of the post. The Better Search plugin has better functionality than the default WordPress search feature. Better Search amplifies every aspect of the default engine including its speed, results and offers actual design options. The visitors to your blog will find what they are looking for quicker than if you didn’t have Better Search installed.
Better Search is one of the most useful WordPress Search Plugins which offers plenty of advanced features that can be used by experienced web developers for their advantage. It can search through not just posts, but also pages and other custom post types. This makes your visitors easy to find what they are looking for. This plugin is enriched with amazing features. It comes with options to allow you to easily customize the output. Also, you can fine-tune the outputs by allocating a greater weight to either the title or the content.
For advanced users, Better Search is packed with filters and actions that allow you to easily extend the plugin’s feature set. Search results are perfectly integrated into your theme without the need for custom search templates. Search results are automatically sorted by relevance. Also, you can turn off relevancy based searching, in which case, results are sorted by date. This translation ready plugin is one of the best WordPress search plugins that you can use to improve your site search. It is the best WordPress search plugins.
Site Search 360
Site Search 360 is another best WordPress search plugins that substitute the standard WordPress search with a fast and precise on-site search on all the posts and pages. It is an optimized version of the default WordPress search. It is a beginner-friendly plugin as the setup process of Site Search 360 is effortlessly easy. It boasts faster search times, automatic updating, and high levels of customization. This plugin offers customization options and gives you detailed insights into search behavior. It is the most reliable WordPress search plugins.
Site Search 360 provides fast indexing and swift search and suggestions. It is search designer compatible. In this search plugin, search results automatically update when you save, delete, or modify the search content. Fast typeahead autocomplete search suggestions based on titles, tags, and author names. Also, it groups search results of the same type together. Site Search 360 is responsive and mobile-ready so your search will work no matter what screen your visitors are on.
WP Fastest Site Search
WP Fastest Site Search is one of the fastest WordPress search plugins that has multiple features that separate it from other search plugins in the list. This plugin replaces the default WordPress search widget. Along with that, it adds autocomplete, spellings correct, PDF search, and image search to your WordPress site. Moreover, it also adds a completely free voice search capability to your site. This custom search plugin is highly customizable and lightning fast. It also adds filters and search results pages for a better search experience for your visitors.
WP Fastest Site Search is a mobile-friendly plugin so it looks great on devices of any size. It’s a great option to choose if these features sound useful on your website. With this plugin, you can build and configure your own WordPress search user interface with no coding. It is a super-fast plugin that supports searches such as free voice, images, PDFs, and all the searches are relevant. It comes with search filters and facets as well. The configuration process is quick and easy. It also has the feature of advanced word matching and typo correction. Overall this is a good plugin to have on your website.
WP Extended Search
WP Extended Search is one of the worthiest free WordPress search plugins which enables default WordPress to comb through post meta, categories, tags, and custom taxonomies. Admin can select meta keys to search in, also can control the default behavior of search in the post title or post content. It is up to you to whether include or exclude post types to appear in search results. This plugin allows you to create multiple search forms with different settings. In addition to this, Wp Extended Search also provides WooCommerce product search support.
You can enable different search combinations and take full control of the kind of content you want the system to search, and even exclude certain post types from the results page. It has a wide range of features such as is translation ready, controls whether to match the search query exactly or partially, lets you customize the number of posts to display on the search results page, allows you to customize orders of search results, and is compatible with WPML. It is the most wonderful WordPress search plugins to have on your website.
SearchIQ
SearchIQ is another search plugin in WordPress that amplifies the awful default WordPress search option. This is one of the most wonderful WordPress search plugins that offer analytical capabilities. SearchIQ is dedicated to providing an enhanced search experience to your WordPress site by delivering fast and accurate search results as you type. Moreover, your SearchIQ account consists of a real-time analytics dashboard that assists you in understanding your users’ search intent. And knowing this, you can optimize your content strategy to help your site grow.
SearchIQ also provides thumbnails in the search results if you choose to enable the feature. The most important feature is SearchIQ powers sites ranging from small blogs to large enterprises. It is easy to setup. This plugin offers a customizable user interface. It comes with AI to handle typos, synonyms, fuzzy matches, etc. Furthermore, results are optimized to prioritize relevant content.
Swiftype Site Search
If you are in search of a simple yet powerful search plugin for your WordPress website, then Swiftype Site Search could be the halting point for you. Like other search plugins, this plugin also replaces the default WordPress search engine. It is one of the best WordPress search plugins which boasts faster load times, more relevant search results, and more customization options. Impactful search analytics help you understand your users and guide you to productive actions.
This plugin is fully managed as they secure, store, and search all of your documents in the cloud. With this, the speed of your website increases. You don’t require programming knowledge as this plugin works with your theme’s existing search.php template. All you need to do is just install this plugin and it starts working. Search results automatically synchronize when you save, delete, or change WordPress content due to its auto-updating capability. You can use this plugin in your own language as it supports 13 languages including English, French, German, Chinese, and more.
You will need to have a powerful search tool to assist your users to find the right content on your website as your site grows. For this, many WordPress search plugins are available that you can use to improve your site search. All of the search plugins mentioned above are very efficient.
If you have not already started with a search plugin then you can make your choice from the above-mentioned plugins. All of them are equipped to handle the search functionality of your WordPress website. Not only this, but it also satisfies your users and brings them back to your website more often.