How to Improve WordPress Search Using Amazon CloudSearch

If visitors can’t find what they’re looking for on your WordPress site, they’ll likely leave — even if you have exactly what they need.

Unfortunately, the default WordPress search isn’t great at connecting people with your content. We’ve seen this happen to many site owners, and it’s one of those problems that can quietly hurt your user experience.

That’s where Amazon CloudSearch comes in.

Powered by Amazon AWS, it gives you more control over your site’s search and delivers faster, more accurate results. After testing it ourselves, we found it to be a powerful upgrade for anyone looking to move beyond WordPress’s built-in limitations.

In this guide, we’ll show you exactly how to improve WordPress search using Amazon CloudSearch, step by step. That way, you can turn your search from a weak spot into one of your site’s strongest features. 🙌

Why Improve the Default WordPress Search?

WordPress has a built-in search feature, but it’s pretty limited and doesn’t do the best job of finding relevant content for your visitors. If you want users to find your best content quickly, it’s worth upgrading.

Now you might think if you have a smaller WordPress website, then you might not need more advanced search features right away.

But, as your site grows, you’ll want a way to improve content discoverability so your users can find what they’re looking for quickly.

When it’s easy for users to find what they want, you’ll increase pageviews and reduce the bounce rate. This makes it more likely that they’ll become customers or join your email list. 

With Amazon CloudSearch, you’ll get a ton of benefits such as:

• Improved Search Accuracy: Amazon CloudSearch provides advanced search capabilities, including fuzzy matching, partial word matching, and stemming. This helps users find the most relevant content even if they misspell words or use alternative phrasing.
• Scalability: Amazon CloudSearch is a scalable solution that can handle large amounts of data and traffic. As your WordPress site grows, CloudSearch can easily scale to accommodate increased search queries without impacting performance.
• Speed: CloudSearch is designed for fast and real-time search performance. It uses distributed infrastructure to deliver low-latency search results, ensuring that users get instant responses to their search queries.
• Customization: CloudSearch allows you to customize search relevance ranking and fine-tune search results according to your specific requirements. You can set up custom search fields, adjust weights for different attributes, and configure search parameters to optimize the search experience for your users.

There are many ways to do this, like using Amazon CloudSearch, but we believe the best and most beginner-friendly solution is SearchWP, the best WordPress search plugin on the market.

It gives you complete control over your WordPress search results, lets you use multiple search forms, helps you make your WooCommerce search smarter, and much more.

To learn more, see our quick and easy guide on how to improve WordPress search with SearchWP. You can also explore our detailed SearchWP review for details.

With that said, we’ll show you how you can still use Amazon CloudSearch to improve your WordPress search. Here are all the topics we’ll cover in the following sections:

Let’s get started.

Create Your Amazon Web Services and CloudSearch Account

The first thing you need to do is sign up for an Amazon AWS account. This platform powers Amazon CloudSearch and makes it easy to set up and scale a better search solution on your WordPress blog.

There are several pricing and billing plans, but you can also take advantage of the free trial.

Simply head over to the Amazon AWS website and click the ‘Get Started for Free’ button.

Next, you’ll be asked to enter your login and billing information and complete your account registration.

After that, you can log in to the Amazon CloudSearch console using the same Amazon AWS login information.

This brings you to the CloudSearch dashboard, where you need to click the ‘Create a new Domain’ button.

This creates the initial search index that will power the search on your WordPress site. 

Then, you need to enter your domain name into the ‘Search Domain Name’ box and click the ‘Next’ button. This will be your domain name without the .com, .net, etc, at the end.

After that, you’ll need to answer a few more questions about your search domain. You can keep the default settings unless you have very specific needs.

Once the initial index is completed, you’ll get a confirmation in your dashboard that includes your ‘Search Endpoint’. You need to copy this for the next step.

Set Up the CloudSearch Plugin to Improve WordPress Search

Now that you’ve created an account, you need to connect your Amazon CloudSearch account with WordPress by using the CloudSearch plugin.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After that, you need to go to CloudSearch » Settings in your WordPress admin panel and enter your ‘AWS Access key’ and ‘AWS Secret access key’ into the boxes.

You also need to select the region of your server from the dropdown.

You can find this information by going to your Amazon Web Services account, clicking the username dropdown, and selecting the ‘Security credentials’ option.

Then, click the ‘Access keys’ dropdown and click the ‘Create New Access Key’ button.

This brings up a popup with your ‘Access Key ID’ and ‘Secret Access Key’.

You need to copy these and head back to the plugin settings page and add them. 

After that, you need to enter both the ‘Search endpoint’ and the ‘Domain name’ into the ‘Index settings’ section.

These were what you created earlier after creating your first Amazon CloudSearch domain index.

Below that, you can change the ‘Schema settings‘. The settings here will control what elements you want to appear in the search results.

For example, if you only want posts and pages to appear, then simply check those boxes. There will also be options to display other custom post types you’ve added or that may have been created by WordPress plugins you have installed.

Next, you’ll have options for customizing the WordPress search page in the ‘Frontpage settings’ section.

We’ll leave the default options selected, but you can create a custom search page, enable search filters, and more. 

Once you’ve done that, you can change how the individual search results display in the ‘Results settings’ section.

Here, we’ll keep the default settings again, but you can pick which post or page information you want listed, change the text length, choose the order of results, and more.

There are more sections that let you customize the color of the text and background, enable search suggestions, and add additional support for custom fields. 

Once you’ve finished customizing the plugin settings, make sure to click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

Now, when you use your WordPress search on your site, you’ll see much faster and more relevant results. 

Bonus Tip: Improve WordPress Search Using SearchWP

While Amazon CloudSearch is great for scaling large sites, SearchWP gives you more control over search results directly within WordPress – no external setup needed.

For example, it supports fuzzy search, which helps users find results even if they misspell a word or type a partial match. This leads to better search accuracy and fewer dead ends.

For details, check out our guide on how to add fuzzy search in WordPress.

You can also include custom post types, like portfolios, testimonials, media, or products, so users can find more than just your blog posts or pages.

For step-by-step instructions, you can refer to our guide on how to include custom post types in WordPress search results.

Need to make documents searchable? SearchWP lets you index PDFs and other files, making it easier for visitors to discover the content inside downloadable resources.

For more information, see our guide on how to add PDF indexing to improve WordPress search.

And for more ideas, feel free to hop over our guide on how to improve WordPress search using SearchWP.

FAQ: How to Improve WordPress Search Using Amazon CloudSearch

Still have questions about using Amazon CloudSearch with WordPress? Below, we’ve answered some common ones to help you decide if it’s the right fit for your site.

What is Amazon CloudSearch, and how does it benefit my WordPress site?

Amazon CloudSearch is a fully managed search service from AWS. It boosts your site’s search performance with faster, more accurate results, even if you have a large amount of content. This makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for, improving their overall user experience.

Will using Amazon CloudSearch slow down my website?

In most cases, no. Amazon CloudSearch is designed to deliver fast, accurate results without adding load to your server. It runs on a distributed infrastructure that processes search queries separately from your WordPress hosting.

That said, your site’s overall performance may still depend on factors like theme optimization, plugin conflicts, or how the integration is set up. So, it’s important to test and monitor performance after enabling it.

How much does Amazon CloudSearch cost?

Pricing depends on how much data and traffic your site handles. There’s even a free tier to get started. For the latest cost breakdown, it’s best to check directly on Amazon AWS.

Can I integrate Amazon CloudSearch with other WordPress plugins?

Yes, Amazon CloudSearch can work alongside many WordPress plugins. Just keep in mind that when it comes to search functionality, it typically replaces the default WordPress search.

And if you’re using other search improvement plugins, be sure to test for conflicts and compatibility to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Is Amazon CloudSearch suitable for small WordPress websites?

Absolutely. While it’s powerful enough for large sites, small websites can also benefit, especially if you want faster, more accurate search and plan to scale in the future.

Additional Resources: More Ways to Improve WordPress Search

We hope this article has helped you improve WordPress search using Amazon CloudSearch. Next up, you might also find these guides helpful:

• How to Search by Category in WordPress
• How to Make Blog Comments Searchable in WordPress
• How to Create a Searchable Member Directory in WordPress
• How to Create a Searchable Database in WordPress
• How to Exclude Specific Pages, Authors, and More from WordPress Search
• How to Fix WordPress Search Not Working
• How to See Search Analytics in WordPress

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