WordPress is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to establish dynamic and feature-rich websites. Even though WordPress comes with a default search functionality, it does not always live up to the expectations of the webmasters as well as visitors.
However, WordPress comes with various useful plugins that replace the standard WordPress search functionality with an improved and advanced search engine.
In today’s post, we are going to share top WordPress search plugins to help you improve your WordPress website’s search functionality.
1. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is a popular and advanced WordPress search plugin that replaces the inbuilt functionality of WordPress search. It is a free plugin and equipped with a range of powerful features. The plugin also comes with many customization options to enable you to customize it as per your requisites.
Additional benefits of Relevanssi
- Lets you search for sentences with quotes, as an instance “phrase search”.
- Automatically highlight keywords in the content when readers click through search results.
- Sort results by relevance
- Automatically index shortcode content and comments
- Offers Google-style “Did you mean?” suggestions
- Search result throttling to improve performance
2. Better Search
Better Search is yet another popular search plugin that automatically replaces the inbuilt search functionality of WordPress with a more advanced and invincible search feature. The plugin is quite similar to Relevanssi and boasts of pretty similar features. The plugin is developed especially to track the most popular searches and highlight them for better accessibility.
Additional Benefits of Better Search
- Lets your visitors search results based on date or relevancy
- Automatically highlights keywords in the results list.
- Has inbuilt cache plugins like W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache.
- Equipped with a profanity filter
- Offers support for natural language search or boolean
3. Search Everything
Search Everything is a powerful and invincible WordPress search plugin that is developed keeping in mind the functionality of Google search. The plugin, as the name suggests, searches almost everything from custom fields and tags to keywords and comments. The plugin also allows you to add more custom elements to the search form.
Additional features of Search Everything
- Searches highlighting, every category, every tag, and every page.
- Lets you exclude specific pages and posts
- Lets users search Custom Taxonomies and every comment
- Also, searches every attachment
- Exclude Categories from search
4. WP Search
WP Search is yet another Google search engine inspired WordPress plugin that enhances search relevancy by providing more controls. The plugin is equipped with powerful settings that enable you to rebuild the comments, categories, and index.
Additional features of Search WP:
- Offers super-fast search speed
- Has unmatched and customizable search relevancy
- Gives complete control over improving the importance of content fields and title
- Immediately update searching after a post has been published
- Supports Boolean and Wildcard operator
- Also, supports category searching
5. WP Extended Search
WP Extended Search WordPress plugin allows users to search through custom taxonomies, tags, categories, post meta via WordPress dashboard admin settings. The plugin lets you enable different search combination while offering complete control over the type of content you want the plugin to search through.
Additional features of WP Extended Search
- Lets you Search in selected meta keys and custom taxonomies
- Lets you Search in post author name
- Control whether to search in title or content or both
- Include or exclude any public post type
- Allows customization of the number of posts to show on search results page
- Exclude old content from search results
- Is Translation ready
6. Ajax Lite Search
Ajax Lite Search is basically a live search WordPress plugin that has a responsive live search engine. The plugin improves your user experience by offering an intuitive and user-friendly Ajax powered search form. The plugin also lets you search categories, custom fields, and custom post types.
Additional features of Ajax Search Lite
- Retina ready vectorized SVG and CSS3 icons
- Caches images for faster response time
- Is highly compatible with Qtranslate and WPML
- Integrated with 8 default templates
- Supports Category and post exclusions
- Has Frontend search settings boxes
- Offers 40+ options on the backend
7. Custom Google Search
Custom Google Search, as the name suggests, uses Google’s search engine to search your website’s content. You can also configure it on multiple websites. The plugin is extremely easy to use and integrate.
Additional features of Custom Google Search
- Comes with inbuilt widget that integrates a search box to your sidebar
- Has the capability to restrict the search to one or multiple websites
- Comes with Custom styles, which make the search look more attractive.
- Offers various ways to show search results – in your sidebar, in a pop-up or on a search page
8. Enhanced Search Box
Enhanced Search Box is a modest and simple WordPress search plugin that works using the placeholder attribute. The plugin adds an additional functionality to improve the default search box using jQuery.
Additional features of Enhanced Search Box:
- Makes use of modern HTML5 placeholder attribute
- Automatically adds placeholder support for IE!
- Enables control over the default search box text from the WordPress Admin
9. WP Ultimate Search
WP Ultimate Search is a powerful Ajax-based WordPress plugin that supports faceting queries by post metadata, location, terms, and taxonomies. It allows users to dynamically and quickly browse through the website’s post metadata and taxonomies to search exactly what they are seeking.
Additional features of WP Ultimate Search
- Search through post titles and content
- Search by keyword(s) or phrase(s)
- Highlight search terms on the page
- Search through shortcodes
- Search in multiple categories
- Send search queries as events to Google Analytics
10. Swiftype Search
Swiftype Search is a fully customizable, intelligent and fast WordPress search plugin that automatically improves the standard WordPress search functionality and adds a more relevant and better search engine instead. The plugin also provides webmasters with detailed insight into what your visitors are looking for.
Additional features of Swiftype Search
- Comes incorporated with a drag and drop feature to handle search results and check the modifications in real-time.
- Comes with a user-friendly and intuitive dashboard
- Added with full-featured developer API
- Comes with a powerful analytics
Author Bio:
Kerin Miller is a WordPress Developer by profession and writer by hobby. Currently, she is working with Stellen Infotech- WordPress Plugin Development Company and offers best Web Development Solutions to global clients. She have a strong foundation in writing innovative and technical stuff about WordPress tips & trick.
The post 10 WordPress Search Plugins to Enhance Your Site’s Search Performance appeared first on Smashing Buzz.