Only limited WordPress themes come with a built-in search feature. Even if it does, it may not be good enough to show the relevant content. So it’s a good idea to integrate a search feature right away.
Wondering why?
Well, when a user requests a search, the default WordPress search may fail to provide relevant content. It’s harder to search specific categories, custom posts, or others.
This is where the Search Plugins comes into play. You can either replace or boost your Search feature. This helps your visitors find more relevant search results. Not only that, it also ensures a better user experience.
Let’s see an example here: suppose you have a WooCommerce store and you sell clothing items for men, women and kids. Likewise, you may have a different variety for each category such as Shirts for men, Skirts for women, T-shirts for kids and the list continues.
In such cases, your user can use the search feature to find the product they are looking for right away rather than keep looking for the products to appear in the website feed.
Here in this article, we will discuss the 7 best WordPress search plugins for improving your site search for free.
Why Should You Add Search Plugins to Your Website?
The default search engine, if your website has one, could be sufficient for a small website. However, on a bigger website, it might be extremely hard for you and your users to find the content they were looking for. In such cases, you can use Search Plugins to expand your search results. In short, Search Plugins help to filter down the searches to help users find what they were looking for. It also:
- Reduce your website bounce rates
- Create an engaging website/ Improve search on your website
- Help your visitors find what they were looking for.
- Attract more traffic to your website
What Features to Look For in a Search WordPress Plugin?
1. Speed
If it takes too long to showcase the search result without saying it will drive your visitors away. A good search plugin is fast and capable of offering accurate results without anybody getting bored.
2. Search logs
Search logs can be a lot useful to help you know what your visitors are looking for. This will help you understand your user’s needs and be able to serve them more effectively.
3. Phrase Searching
Visitors need to receive the results of their search. Likewise, if your search system can search for phrases, visitors can easily find what they were looking for. This feature will help retrieve search results containing a combination of the word defined by the users.
4. Visible Search Bar
Your search box should be extremely clear for your visitors to find it else, it is of no use. It might lead them to think your website does not have a search bar, and they might decide not to spend any more time on your site. Ensure your search bar is visible and easily distinguishable.
5. Effective Sorting Features
It is of great help when it comes to sorting and filtering the search result. So make sure to look for them in a search plugin. Sorting features can help to specify the search results and look more well implemented. It will also benefit you since it will keep your visitors engaged in your site.
List of WordPress Search Plugin For Your Website
Well, there are a number of plugins available on the market. But how would you know which one is right for you?
To help you with this we have listed 7 best WordPress Search Plugins that you can get for free in this article.
1. Advanced Woo Search
Advanced Woo Search is an advanced Search plugin, especially for WooCommerce Shops. You can choose from various pre-defined search results layouts to find the one that matches your taste.
The plugin is packed with various useful features. You can also display an add to cart button for each product in the search results. Likewise, you can easily customize the look of your search results. For instance, you can choose to display or hide product details such as images, title, description, price, categories, tags, ratings, sale badges etc. It has smart sorting features that will display the products in search lists based on the priority of the title.
Similarly, the search results can be displayed in any desired language with the help of inbuilt Multilingual support. You can also display your search results even outside the ajax box and in a separate search results page. Also, its support for shortcodes and widgets lets you place a search box anywhere on the page you like.
Moreover, it comes with the ‘Add to cart’ button for woo-commerce shops to help users add products to the cart if they like.
Key Features:
- Multilingual support
- Customize the search results
- Exclude/ Include products by ids, and attribute
- Add to cart button
- AND search logic
- Google Analytics Support
- Auto-sync products data
Other Details:
Active Installation:60,000+
WP.org ratings: 5 out of 5 stars
Support: Gutenberg, Elementor, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, Divi Builder, Search exclude plugin, WPML, PolyLang, qTranslate, WooCommerce, ACF
2. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is a popular WordPress search plugin with lots of features and configuration options. Even the name suggests the plugins tend to offer only relevant search results.
It is packed with features such as highlight search terms, search phrases, quotes and fuzzy matching for partial words. Besides, it allows users to search based on comments, tags, custom post types and taxonomies.
It also makes sure to remove words that are unnecessary for retrieval purposes. It will make the index smaller and searching is faster. A ‘Did you mean?’ suggestion will be displayed based on user searches for better user performance.
In addition to this, it comes with multi-site support and many popular WordPress Plugins such as bbPress, WPML, Members, etc. However, the plugin takes a lot of additional storage, so make sure to test it before going live.
Key Features:
- Google-style suggestions after each search.
- Result sorting in the order of relevance, not by date
- AND search logic
- Search comment, tags, custom fields and categories.
- Gutenberg friendly
- Multilingual support
- Easy to implement
Other details:
Active Installation:100,000+
WP.org ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Support: WPML, a2Member, WooCommerce,bbPress, Gutenberg
3. Ivory Search
Ivory Search is a simple yet powerful best custom WordPress search plugin. It consists of a user-friendly interface, and you can easily enable/disable any option with a few clicks.
Your users can search for content within posts, pages, categories, custom post types, taxonomies and many more. It also offers the ability to search for password-protected content. Otherwise, it is a fine search plugin for your website.
It will display an error page for empty search queries. You can choose to display or hide sticky posts at the top of the search results page. On top of it, it comes with adding synonyms words to give more relevant search results. You can also highlight the search term on the search result page and configure the number of posts to display in search results.
Likewise, you can search in multiple languages since the plugin is compatible with multilingual plugins such as WPML and PolyLang.
Key Features:
- Supports multilingual search
- Create an unlimited number of search forms
- Search images, files and attachments
- Search using AJAX search
- Search WooCommerce Products
- Search posts with or without a password
- Exclude specific content from search
Other details:
Active Installation:70,000+
WP.org ratings: 5 out of 5 stars
Support: bbPress, WooCommerce, Weglot, PolyLang, WPML
4. Ajax Search Lite
Ajax Search Lite is a responsive, live Search Plugin for WordPress. It is a user-friendly ajax powered search bar. The plugin also comes with Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions to boost user experience.
It comes with a responsive flex-based layout that is supported across different mobile browsers and devices. You can search in posts, pages, titles, descriptions and excerpts.
Ajax Search Lite comes with supports for custom post types, custom fields and more.
You can filter the results using the category and post type filter boxes. It is integrated with Google analytics so you can understand your customers better.
Likewise, it is WPML and Qtranlsate compatible so that you can search in any preferred language.
Key Features:
- Responsive and highly compatible
- Google analytics integration
- Caches images for faster response time
- Fully ajax powered
- Retina ready vectorized SVG and CSS3 icons
- 5 built-in templates
- Checkbox filters for categories and post types
Active Installation:60,000+
WP.org ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Support:WPML, QtranslateX
5. Search & Filter
Search & Filter is a simple WordPress Search PluginYou can use this plugin for your blogs, reviews sites, news sites and more. Likewise, you can use it for your online shop as it is compatible with WP eCommerce and WooCommerce.
You can offer your visitors to perform a search based on a custom field, post meta, authors, post types, post dates, taxonomies, tags and categories. Similarly, you can search custom fields using checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdowns, multi-selects or combo boxes.
It also works with WPML so that you can perform searches in any preferred language. Besides, it is extremely easy to use and works well with advanced custom fields.
Moreover, the plugin is built by keeping beginners and experts in mind.
Key Features:
- Use Ajax to display results
- Drag & Drop editor
- Shortcodes and widgets included
- WPML compatible
- Easy to use
- Tested and compatible with Easy digital downloads
- JQuery range sliders, date pickers and auto-complete combo boxes included
Other details:
Active Installation:40,000+
WP.org ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Support: WooCommerce, WP eCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi, WPB Page Builder, ACF
6. Better Search
Better Search is another powerful Search Plugin that gives relevant search results. It is translation-ready, so you can use and search in your language.
You can search through posts, pages, custom post types. Likewise, you can easily integrate this plugin into your theme even without the need for custom search templates. You can choose to sort results as per the relevancy of searching or based on date.
Similarly, it works well with caching plugins like WP-super-cache, such as WP-Super-Cache and W3 Total Cache. It ensures not to slow your site down. It comes with shortcodes and widgets to help your display search terms anywhere on your website. Besides, you can customize the list of stop words which will filter out search queries automatically.
On top of it, you can know what your visitors are searching for on your website. Moreover, you can display a list of popular search terms in the form of a heatmap.
Key Features:
- Supports cache plugin
- Use Plugin API for custom layouts
- Translation ready
- Profanity filter
- Seamless integration
- Fine-tune the results
- Widgets and shortcodes included
Other details:
Active Installation:8,000+
WP.org ratings: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Support: WP-Super-Cache, W3 Total Cache.
7. Ajax Search for WooCommerce
Ajax Search for WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress search plugin for WooCommerce products. It is designed to ensure the best shopping experience for the users and to skyrocket your sales.
The default search solution provided by WooCommerce is very simple and doesn’t offer live product search or SKU search. So, Ajax Search for WooCommerce is a great addition to your WooCommerce plugin which provides advanced search features such as autocomplete search, live suggestions, search in SKU, and so on. These search features are available in most of the eCommerce sites so having these on your site prevents you from losing potential customers.
It comes with details Panel that shows extended product information on hovering over the live suggestion for faster purchasing decisions and increased “Add to Cart” actions.
Ajax Search for WooCommerce is a mobile-friendly plugin that shows search suggestions in an overlay mode for wider accessibility.
Ajax Search for WooCommerce is extremely fast with the ability to search 100+ products at once and even 100,000+ products in its pro version.
This search plugin is integrated with popular WordPress themes and plugins, supports multiple languages with WPML and Polylang plugins, and has Google Analytics support. It basically has everything that an advanced search needs.
Key Features:
- Autocomplete search
- Search upto 100+ products
- Search by product name, description and SKU
- Display product image, price, short description, and SKU
- Shows matching product categories and product tags in autocomplete
- Easy customization of the search bar and autocomplete suggestions
- Synchronization on the WooCommerce search results page
Other details:
Active Installation: 100,000+
WP.org ratings: 5 out of 5 stars
Support: WooCommerce, WPML, Polylang,
Which Search Plugin Works Best For Your Website?
At last, it’s up to you and your needs that decide which is the best Search Plugin.
Overall, Advanced Woo Search is an excellent Search Plugin for woo commerce powered websites. It is extremely fast, easy to use and has tons of amazing features. The plugin also uses smart ordering to display the result based on priority. Moreover, it is also compatible with plugins such as qTranslate, WPML, PolyLang, etc.
We also suggest Ivory Search, which is another excellent WordPress Search Plugin. It works seamlessly with WordPress multilingual plugins and WooCommerce. It even allows search for password-protected content, which is quite intuitive. Besides, it comes with ajax to offer live search results without reloading a page.
Relevanssi is another popular WordPress Search Plugin. You can search for PDF content, custom fields, user profiles, categories and tags, products and many more effortlessly. It is multi-site friendly, bbPress compatible, translation ready, along with multilingual support. Lastly, it comes with an option of Search Throttling to improve the search performance.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Search WordPress Plugins
Q. Should I Install a Free Plugin or a Premium Search plugin for my website?
You can use any search plugin, either free or premium, since most plugins will work well when integrated into your website. So make sure to figure out what functionality you are looking for and then purchase. However, you might find more features integrated into premium versions so that you can buy a premium one in such cases.
Q. Can I use the search plugin for my blogging website?
You can use the search plugin on any kind of website either it is a blogging site, a forum, news or an online retail store. Likewise, they can scan for products, pages and details quickly and find what they were looking for. In short, the plugin will drastically improve your user experiences and help you create an engaging website.
Q. Do we need a search plugin if we already have one integrated into our themes?
In general, a search plugin makes it easier for your visitors to find the content they were looking for. A few WordPress themes consist of the default search system, and integrating a search plugin replaces the default search system with a better one. So it might be a good idea to integrate a new search plugin into your theme.
Wrapping up!
We hope you found this article pretty helpful. If you picked any of these free Search plugins for your site, do let us know by commenting below. All of these free search plugins are hand-picked to help you create an engaging and user-friendly website.
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