12 WordPress Search Plugins to Improve Your Site Search (2023)

Are you looking for the best WordPress search plugin to improve your site search?

We all know that the default WordPress search feature is quite limited. However, there are several WordPress plugins that can help you improve the default search experience.

In this article, we will highlight the best WordPress search plugins to improve your site search.

Why Use a WordPress Search Plugin?

WordPress comes with a built-in search feature, but it is quite basic and not very good at providing accurate results.

If you’re creating a new WordPress website or blog, then you may not need a better search feature right away.

However, as you add more content, you’ll want to make sure users can easily find posts, pages, and products.

For example, visitors may be searching for an older article that they forgot to bookmark or a particular product on your online marketplace.

By helping visitors find this content, you can keep them on your website for longer, boost engagement, and even get more conversions and sales.

The good news is that there are several search plugins that can help you improve the built-in WordPress search feature. Some of these plugins are built for specific purposes like WooCommerce product search, while others improve the search experience across your entire WordPress blog or website.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress search plugins.

1. SearchWP

SearchWP is one of the best search plugin for WordPress. It is very easy to use and provides much more accurate search results.

It allows people to search for a keyword in the post or page title, content, URL slug, categories, tags, taxonomies, WordPress excerpts, and even comments. You can control the algorithm by assigning weight to each content type, so you have complete control over the search experience.

It also integrates with WooCommerce, so you can make a smart WooCommerce product search and even customize the product search results page.

For step-by-step instructions on how to set up this plugin, please see our guide on how to improve WordPress search with SearchWP.

Pricing: Starting from $99 per year.

2. ElasticPress

ElasticPress is a hosted WordPress search service built on ElasticSearch.

Instead of running on your WordPress site, it runs the search queries in the cloud and shows results at lightening speed. It is extremely easy to integrate on any WordPress site and works with all the best WordPress hosting providers.

It has built-in live Ajax search so you can show instant results as the user is typing. It also works well with WooCommerce so shoppers can quickly find the products they’re looking for.

However, ElasticPress is a hosted service and is a lot more expensive than any other search solution on this list. This means it may not be the best choice for beginners, personal blogs, or anyone who is working with a smaller budget.

Pricing: $79 per month.

3. Ivory Search

Ivory Search is another excellent WordPress search plugin that you can use to replace the default WordPress search.

With Ivory Search, it’s easy to create a custom WordPress search form. You can even create multiple forms and then use different settings for different areas of your site.

Ivory Search comes with shortcodes and a search widget so you can add these forms anywhere on your WordPress website.

Ivory works with the best WordPress translation plugins so its a good choice if you want to add multilingual search in WordPress.

To improve search results, Ivory Search looks into post types, images metadata, custom fields, and more. You can also use Ajax to show live search results without reloading the page.

Pricing: The base plugin is free. Premium version starts at $19.99 per year.

4. WP Google Search

WP Google Search allows you to easily replace the default WordPress search with Google Custom Search.

It is really easy to use, and you simply need to create a Google Custom Search for your site. After that, you can copy the search engine ID and paste it into the plugin’s settings.

The plugin also comes with a widget that allows you to display Google Custom Search in the sidebar or similar section. You can also add the search form to your site using a shortcode.

For more details, see our guide on how to add Google custom search in WordPress.

Pricing: Free

5. SearchWP Ajax Live

SearchWP Ajax Live is an addon plugin for SearchWP but it works with any WordPress search form that uses the built-in WordPress template tags.

This addon enhances your existing WordPress search with live Ajax search results that show up as soon as the user starts typing. This provides a better user experience and can return accurate results without needing to reload the page.

Live Ajax search can improve the search experience for all visitors, but it’s particularly useful if you’re selling online courses, membership subscriptions, and other digital products. By helping visitors find relevant content faster, you can often get more sales.

For advanced users, this plugin allows you to customize the results template and integrate powerful Ajax functionality into any search form.

Pricing: Free

6. YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search

YITH WooCommerce Ajax Search is a great WooCommerce product search plugin that helps customers quickly find products on your store. It allows customers to search products by SKU, search within specific categories, and filter the results without reloading the page.

YITH WooCommerce Ajax search is highly customizable. You can include thumbnails, badges, prices, and promotions in the live search results. You can also add a search bar to different product categories or shop pages.

The plugin works with WooCommerce stores in any language and is fully compatible with multilingual WordPress sites and stores.

Pricing: Starting from $69.99 per year.

7. FiboSearch

FiboSearch is another excellent WooCommerce search plugin. It allows you to instantly fetch search results using Ajax without reloading the page.

FiboSearch comes with a powerful product SKU search, category and tags filters, and allows you to easily add a search bar to the WordPress navigation menu.

You can add product search to any product category or shop page. The plugin also works on multilingual stores out of the box.

Pricing: The base plugin is free. The premium version starts at $49 per year.

8. WOOF Products Filter for WooCommerce

WOOF Products Filter for WooCommerce is a very useful search plugin for WooCommerce stores. It allows your customers to filter products using a number of options including search by category, colors, size, and more.

You can display the search and filtering options in your site’s sidebar using shortcode. You can also choose Ajax so customers can sort through your products without leaving the page.

WOOF is easy to for beginners to set up, but also offers tons of customization options for developers who want to use the plugin in custom product templates.

Pricing: Free

9. Relevanssi

Relevanssi is another popular WordPress search plugin that improves WordPress search by fetching more relevant results.

It adds PDF indexing and searching in WordPress so visitors can search the contents of your site’s PDF files. Relevanssi can also search shortcode outputs, custom fields, user profiles, categories and tags, WooCommerce products, and more.

Just be aware that Relevanssi has compatibility issues with popular page builder plugins, BuddyPress, NextGen Gallery, and a few more.

If you do run into problems, then you can see our step-by-guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.

Pricing: The base plugin is free. You can upgrade to the premium version for $109 per year.

10. WP Extended Search

WP Extended Search is a light weight and simple WordPress search plugin that allows you to easily extend the default WordPress search.

You can simply go to the plugin settings and select the options you want to include in the search. You can search in author name, taxonomies, post types, meta data, and more.

The plugin extends the default WordPress search so you don’t need to add any shortcodes or widgets. As long as you’re using the built-in WordPress search, you simply need to install and activate the plugin and you’re good to go.

Pricing: Free

11. Better Search

Better Search is another way to replace the default WordPress search.

This plugin allows you to search across all post types and find more relevant results. You can also assign a weight to items, so you can customize the search to better fit your website.

Better Search automatically replaces the default WordPress search. If your WordPress theme doesn’t have a built-in search form, then you can add one by using widgets in WordPress.

Pricing: Free

12. Search Exclude

Sometimes, you don’t want to include all your content in the search results. For example, if you’re running an online store, then you may want to hide pages like your account page, custom checkout page, thank you page, and more.

Search Exclude allows you to simply exclude items that you don’t want to show in the WordPress search. You can simply check a box to exclude pages, posts, WooCommerce products, and more.

You can also go to the plugin’s settings page to see all the items that you have excluded from the search.

Pricing: Free

Which is the Best WordPress Search Plugin?

In our expert research, we believe that SearchWP is the best WordPress search plugin for most websites.

It offers a nice range of features, the quality of the search results is great and it’s affordable for small businesses. It also has a WooCommerce addon and a free live search addon, which can help you make a smarter WooCommerce product search.

However, if you are looking for a free search plugin then WP Google Search allows you to add Google Search to your WordPress site.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress search plugin for your website. You may also want to see our list of the must have WordPress plugins for small businesses, and the best WooCommerce plugins for all online stores.

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