As a developer with over 15 years of experience building WordPress sites, I‘ve seen firsthand how a poor search experience can frustrate users.
In fact, recent surveys show that 61% of site visitors will leave a website after failing to find relevant content from search. And we know that the average search session takes less than a minute, so users have little patience for inefficient search.
To help keep visitors engaged, I put together this comprehensive guide on understanding default WordPress search, its limitations, and expert tips to optimize search relevancy, speed, and usability.
Contents
How WordPress Search Works
The built-in WordPress search relies on the WP_Query class to fetch results. It searches the following content types:
- Page titles
- Page content
- Image titles and captions
- Image alt text
- File names
However, default WordPress search does NOT include:
- Widgets
- Comments
- Categories
- Tags
- WooCommerce products
- PDF documents
- Image gallery captions
When a user searches for a term, WordPress first displays any posts with that term in the title, sorted by date with newest first.
Pages follow the same logic – those with the search term in the title appear first.
While this works fine on smaller sites, as your content grows this ordering often shows irrelevant pages first while highly relevant content gets buried.
In my experience building complex sites like online courses and ecommerce stores, default search also lacks key features users expect:
- Autocomplete suggestions
- Live results
- Advanced filtering
- Synonym matching
- Spellcheck
Without these capabilities, users struggle to find content quickly. Let‘s look at why improving WordPress search is so important.
Why You Should Improve WordPress Search
There are 4 key reasons why optimizing your site‘s built-in search should be a priority:
1. Improve User Experience
Recent data shows the average bounce rate is 40%, meaning 4 in 10 visitors leave a site after viewing just one page.
An advanced search helps visitors quickly find engaging content tailored to their query, keeping them on your site longer. This results in less frustration and more positive experiences.
2. Boost SEO Rankings
When visitors spend more time actively consuming content on your site, search engines see positive engagement signals.
Studies show this can directly improve your SERP rankings, driving more organic traffic.
3. Increase Conversions
Recent data reveals 48% of users searching onsite convert. Visitors using your search are actively looking for something specific – an effective search makes it easier to find and purchase products, sign up for services, etc.
4. Improve Performance
The default WordPress search relies on scanning all titles and content on every query. As your site grows, this gets slower and less efficient.
A dedicated search indexes content in advance for faster results. For large sites, this can reduce search time from minutes to milliseconds!
Now that we‘ve covered the importance of improving WordPress search, let‘s look at expert tips to optimize relevance, speed, and usability.
Actionable Tips to Make WordPress Search Better
Drawing from real-world experience, here are my top tips to enhance your site‘s built-in search functionality:
1. Add Live AJAX Search
Live search shows instant results as the user types without requiring a page reload. This saves time and improves ease of use.
I recommend the free SearchWP Live AJAX Search plugin which enables live results automatically.
2. Use Descriptive Search URLs
The default ?s=search-term URL structure is confusing for users. Swap this out for readable URLs like example.com/search/term.
This WordPress code snippet changes the URL slug to "/search/":
function wpb_change_search_url() {
if ( is_search() && ! empty( $_GET[‘s‘] ) ) {
wp_redirect( home_url( "/search/" ) . urlencode( get_query_var( ‘s‘ ) ) );
exit();
}
}
add_action( ‘template_redirect‘, ‘wpb_change_search_url‘ );3. Index PDF Content
Enable searching within PDF contents and metadata to surface relevant documents.
I use SearchWP which seamlessly integrates PDF search. See our PDF search guide.
4. Add Faceted Search Filtering
Let visitors filter results by categories, tags, custom taxonomies, author, date, etc. This nails down searches faster.
The SearchWP and Relevanssi plugins have excellent faceted filtering capabilities.
5. Optimize WooCommerce Search
Enhance default product search to query SKUs, descriptions, attributes, etc. Sort by relevancy not date.
For detailed tips, see my guide on optimizing WooCommerce search.
6. Create Advanced Custom Search Forms
Build forms to search only certain post types, taxonomies, fields, etc. Help visitors zero in on exactly the content they want.
The Search & Filter Pro plugin makes creating advanced custom search forms easy.
7. Selectively Exclude Content
Prevent irrelevant pages, drafts, or private content from diluting search results.
The Exclude Pages from Search plugin lets you selectively exclude content.
WordPress Search FAQs
Here are answers to some common questions around optimizing WordPress search:
What‘s the best WordPress search plugin?
For advanced custom search, I recommend SearchWP. It indexes all content types, offers live search, filters, boosts, and custom weightings.
Not by default. A plugin like SearchWP indexes these taxonomies and makes them searchable.
How do you add a search bar in WordPress?
An easy option is to add a search form block to your primary menu. Block-based themes can also add search through the Full Site Editor.
How do you search only certain page types?
Using a plugin like Search & Filter Pro, you can build advanced search forms that filter by post type, taxonomy, date, author, etc.
How can I remove pages from search results?
The Exclude Pages from Search plugin lets you selectively prevent pages from appearing in results.
Conclusion
Optimizing default WordPress search is crucial to keep visitors engaged and convert more searches.
This guide covers key reasons to improve search, how it works, limitations, and expert tips to enhance relevance, speed, and usability.
Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m happy to help troubleshoot any search issues.
