10 Best Search Plugins for WordPress 2018
Hii,
Do you want to improve your WordPress website searches?
We all know that the default WordPress search feature is fairly limiting. However, there are several WordPress search plugins that can help you improve the default search experience. Today in this post, we will highlight the best WordPress search plugins to customize and improve your site search.
We all love searching through the contents of the websites, and if the search is refined & categorized, then half of our work is done by the search engine on the website. The point of having a great search function is to help the visitors to feed them with the relevant answers on the first click.
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Here are the 10+ Best Search Plugins for WordPress 2016. This list includes a few free Plugins , some premium Plugins , and a few others that offer free & paid versions.
Freemium Search Plugins for WordPress
Swiftype Search
Swiftype is a WordPress VIP approved advanced search plugin, with a host of amazing features such as search query autocomplete drop-down menu, drag-and-drop interface for reordering the search results in the SERP and powerful search analytics. It is built for large scale WordPress sites with 10,000+ posts.
The free version of the plugin supports a max of 50 search result customizations, a single website installation and contains the Swiftype branding. Paid plans start at $19/month.
Relevanssi
Relevanssi is one of the most popular search plugins in the WordPress repository. By that we mean it has over 90,000+ active installations.
Now since Relevanssi is a freemium plugin, you would expect the good features to be locked behind a subscription. On the contrary, the free version of the plugin provides this amazing features:
- Exact phrase match: If you surround your query with a quote, Relevanssi will only return those results that match the exact phrase.
- Fuzzy search: Similar to SearchWP, Relevanssi offers fuzzy logic search in the free version of the plugin.
Relevanssi sorts the search results based on relevancy rather than the published date. It also offers other features like excerpt displays in SERP, highlighted search words, typo suggestions similar to Google’s “Did you mean?” feature and a whole lot more.
The premium version of Relevanssi includes some technically advanced features which we’re not going to discuss here.
Dave’s WordPress Live Search
Dave’s WordPress live search plugin, as the name suggests, uses AJAX to query the WordPress database in real time and return results as the query is typed.
It also integrates with Relevanssi to give it that “live search” feature.
Better Search
Better Search is a completely free WordPress search plugin which indexes posts, pages and custom post types. You can assign weights to individual elements, such as post title, excerpt, body, etc. which enables you to customize the search results.
It also has a search heatmap, which displays the most popular searches in your site. You could also use it your theme’s footer or sidebar.
Ultimate WP Query Search Filter
This WordPress search plugin enables you to filter the search results through post types, taxonomies and meta fields. The search result can be displayed either through the theme search template or an AJAX call.
For developers, the plugin’s functionality is extendable with hooks. You can create multiple search forms and select AJAX or default theme search template for returning the search results.
Search Everything
This free plugin with over 80,000 active installations can search posts, pages and custom post types and taxonomies. It also highlights search results with the query keywords.
You also have the ability to exclude selected posts and categories from the search results.
Premium Search Plugins for WordPress
SearchWP
SearchWP is currently one of the best premium search plugins in the market with a ton of features. The plugin scans all your existing posts, pages and other custom post types – basically every bit of (index-able) content in your WordPress site and builds a giant index which is updated periodically.
You can manually select the custom post types and categories you want to include in your search results. This feature is very useful for people looking for granular search parameters.
It starts at $49 a year including updates and supports bbPress and WPML integration.
AJAX Search Pro for WordPress – Live Search Plugin
The plugin runs on AJAX which is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Essentially this means that the plugin starts working (i.e. returning search results) as soon as the keywords are typed, without refreshing the page. This is a huge boost in user experience.
This plugin is compatible with Visual Composer, and multilingual plugins such as qTranslate and WPML and costs $26 USD.
Lift Search for WordPress
You search is powered by an external service called Amazon Cloud Search. It is essentially a cloud based search solution capable of processing enormous amounts of data, multiple datatypes (not just text, but images and other advanced types as well) with highly advanced search algorithms.
Cloud Search is a product of Amazon Web Services which requires a subscription to use. Since it is a cloud based service – it follows a pay-as-you-go model, which is essentially what it sounds like – you pay for how much you use. AWS offers a 12 month free trial which you can use to test the service.
The plugin itself is free. It is a simple interface which connects your WordPress site to Amazon CloudSearch.
Google Custom Search
Replace the default WordPress search engine with search powered by Google. Custom Google Search leverages the awesome power of the world’s number one search engine to enhance your sites search results.
Key Features:
- Results on a page, a pop-up, or sidebar
- Improves built-in WordPress search
- Integrate Google’s search results
- Custom styles for search results
- Search your own sites or Multisite
- Adds search box to your sidebar
Profi search form
Profi Search Form enables you to do a Fulltext Search with the options to highlight the matches you can decide, which texts are searched and much more…
Key Features:
- Full text Search
- Range Search (for numeric values like prices, square-meters, etc…)
- Select-, Radio-, and Check boxes!
- An Order-By-Box
- decide yourself, how the results will be ordered
- Conditional Fields
- Hidden Fields
- Search button optional
- Reset button
Remaining Plugins will be coming soon…
Deciding which search plugin is the best choice for you will depend on the size of your site, the functionality that’s most important to you, and how much you’re willing to spend to get it.
Search should be an intuitive process. You need to study your visitor’s behavior first – do they use the search function? If so, how often? Once you resolve that your search is being utilized a significant amount, then you can go for a free or freemium search plugin like Relevanssi.
Thank you reading this post!! Feel free to suggest your own Plugins for this collection.
