Last updated on October 4th, 2023 at 04:45 pm
Are you looking for the best WordPress search plugin for your website? This article will stop you from searching for the best search plugin for WordPress.
WordPress also comes with its search bar by default, but the style for the default search features could be more transparent. For this reason, a Search plugin is coming to this market to give you the best solution.
In this article, we’ll talk about the 11 best WordPress search plugins in 2023. We’ll also add lots of free & premium search plugins. For this reason, this article will be perfect for free or paid users.
What is the Best WordPress Search Plugin?
If you need to learn what a WordPress search plugin is, first, let’s understand what the search plugin is.
A WordPress search plugin helps you to get the most accurate and relevant results for your content from the site. It also allows users to find their favorite topics quickly and easily.
The best WordPress search plugin should give you high performance, even when millions of items are in your database. Furthermore, it should be user-friendly and customizable so you can adjust the settings to how you want them.
What are the Best WordPress Search Plugin?
In this list, we include the 11 best WordPress Search plugins. It would help if you guys were like those Free and premium plugins.
Here is a Quick overview of the 11 Best WordPress search plugins:
- SearchWP
- Relevanssi
- Ivory Search
- Ajax Search
- WP Google Search
- WP Extended Search
- FiboSearch
- Ajax Search Lite
- WOOF Products Filter for WooCommerce
- ACF: Better Search
1. SearchWP
SearchWP is the most powerful and customizable WordPress search plugin in this industry. It provides the best and 100% accurate data to website visitors.
SearchWP is the most used search plugin in the WordPress industry. This plugin has over 30,000+ activation installs, which is a lot for a specific search plugin.
SearchWP includes a customizable search form, allowing you to design your search bar. So it will be user-friendly and more attractive than the default WordPress search bar.
For this reason, you can customize this plugin according to your needs. It also has advanced features like custom weighting, fuzzy matching & advanced keyword stopwords that give you accurate results and save users time from searching anything manually.
Key Features
- Fully compatible with other plugins & themes.
- PDF and Office Document Indexing.
- Automatic Integration with Native WP Search, No Coding!
- Multiple Search Engines.
- WooCommerce Integration.
- Advanced Custom Fields Support.
- Search Statistics and Insights.
- Easy Digital Downloads Integration
User Experience
SearchWP plugin provides the most user-friendly experience to the users. It has lots of features for customization. So you can customize this plugin according to your needs.
This plugin is fully compatible with all other plugins & themes, allowing you to index PDFs and Office Documents, making it more valuable.
The search results are accurate, fast, and precise. With SearchWP’s advanced features, like keyword stopwords and fuzzy matching, users can quickly find what they want.
Pros
- SearchWP lets you index PDF, Office, and text documents in your WordPress media library.
- Configure individual search engines as you need.
- SearchWP allows you to search product details, Shortcode output, Custom field content, cross-site multisite search, custom database table content, and more.
- This plugin allows you to integrate with WooCommerce easily.
- You can easily exclude content from your visitor’s search.
- Easy digital download integration.
Cons
- It doesn’t come with a free version, so if you want to use SearchWP, you need to go with their pro version.
Pricing
This plugin doesn’t come with a free version, so you must be a premium user to use this plugin.
If you want to use the plugin on a single website, you need $99/year. Their standard plan is $199/year, allowing you to use the plugin on up to 3 websites.
The most expensive Agency plan comes with $399/year, allowing you to use this plugin on unlimited websites for one year.
2. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is another popular WordPress search plugin. It provides 100% accurate and precise results to your website visitors.
Many popular website owners use this, and Revevanssi has over 100,000 active installations.
This plugin includes features like Search logs, User tracking, Multi-language support, Shortcodes & PHP functions, and more. Relevanssi also supports custom fields, which can help you to get the most accurate results from your data.
Relevanssi also allows you to customize the search form according to your needs. You can adjust the settings of this plugin and make it user-friendly for your visitors.
Key Features
- PDF contents
- Multisite searches
- Custom fields
- Find through the user profile.
- Taxonomy terms
- Shortcode output
User Experience
This plugin provides an excellent user experience to the website visitors. All Search results are sorted in order of relevance, and this helps users to get accurate data quickly.
Relevanssi also allows you to search comments, categories, tags, and custom fields, making it easier for your visitors to find what they are looking for quickly.
The search results are accurate and precise, and this plugin supports multiple languages, which helps you to target more audiences.
Pros
- Search results are shorted in the order of relevance.
- Support for Google Analytics tracking.
- Fuzzy matching: Find results even when the search terms are spelled incorrectly
- Multi-language support.
- Search by custom fields and taxonomies.
- Allows you to search comments, categories, tags, and custom fields.
- BBPress & Gutenberg are friendly.
Cons
- storage has little compatibility with some of the WordPress Page builders, like BuddyPress.
- This plugin required lots of database storage.
Pricing
Relevanssi comes with two different plans: an Annual and a Lifetime plan. Both of those plans allow you to use the plugin on unlimited websites.
Its annual plan comes with $109/year, but if you want to go with its lifetime plan, you need to go with its Permanent plan. And the permanent plan will cost you almost $379/one-time fees.
If you want to go with a free plugin, then don’t worry; Relevanssi also comes with a free plan. And it’s free forever.
3. Ivory Search
IvorySearch is another popular search plugin in the WordPress industry. The best side of this plugin is that it is effortless and has many advanced features.
IvorySearch is another install search plugin with over 100,000+ active installs with 4.9/5 customer reviews. So, this plugin serves you very well.
This plugin adds more enhanced features to your WordPress website default search and helps you make a custom search form within a few clicks. Ivory Search allows you to make unlimited search forms for your website and comes with many customization options.
You can customize this plugin according to your needs like design, style, color schemes, font family & more. This plugin also provides shortcodes that help you add your search form on your website header, footer, sidebar or widget area, navigation or menu, on pages, posts, custom post types, or anywhere.
Key Features
- AJAX Searching.
- Multi-language support.
- Customizable search forms.
- Supports WooCommerce product searching
- TablePress shortcode contents indexing & searching.
- Shortcodes for easy integration of search form into content and templates.
- Search Analytics.
- Image, attachment & file searching.
- Auto-completion search results feature.
- Offers customizable Customizer settings to customize the form’s appearance & style.
User Experience
IvorySearch provides an excellent user experience to the website visitors. All Search results are sorted in order of relevance, and this helps users to get accurate data quickly.
The responsive search form looks great on all devices, including mobile and tablets. This plugin also allows you to customize your search forms according to your needs, making it easier for website visitors to find what they are looking for.
Pros
- Offers AJAX search in real-time.
- Shortcodes for easy integration.
- Supports WooCommerce product searching.
- Image, attachment & file searching.
- TablePress shortcode contents indexing and searching.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
Cons
- A little bit difficult for first-time users.
Pricing
Suppose you want to try a search plugin for testing purposes or don’t want to spend a single penny for a search plugin. Then don’t worry. Ivory Search has a free version of their plugin; you can use it for a lifetime.
They have two different pricing plans; if you want to go annually with a single site, you must spend $19.99 / year for the Pro version and $49.99 / year for the Pro Plus version.
But if you want to go with their one-time deal, you must spend $99.99 and $189 for the Pro and Pro Plus plans.
4. Ajax Search Lite
Ajax Search Lite is one of the most potent live plugins with the Ajax search engine, which can be a suitable replacement for your default live search.
Ajax Search Lite is one of the most popular active installations. This plugin has over 70,000+ active installs with a rating of 4.7/5 out of 134 users.
Ajax Search Lite is a powerful search engine plugin for WordPress. This responsive live search engine will boost your user experience by providing an excellent and easy-to-use Ajax-powered search form and a live search bar. You can also filter the results with the category and post-type filter boxes. Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions are included in this plugin.
Key Features
- Customizable search form.
- Shortcodes for easy integration of search forms into content and templates.
- Ajax-powered live search results.
- Search analytics with tracking, logging & exporting options.
- Search by custom fields and taxonomies.
- Image searching and custom post types searching.
- Search by tags, categories & comments.
- AutoComplete search feature.
- Fully Ajax powered.
- Google analytics integration
User Experience
Ajax Search Lite provides an excellent user experience while using this plugin on your website. This plugin has a live search bar, which helps users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
The responsive search form looks great on all devices, including mobile and tablets. This plugin also allows you to customize your search forms according to your needs, making it easier for website visitors to find what they are looking for.
Pros
- Search Analytics with tracking, logging, and exporting options.
- Search by custom fields and taxonomies.
- Image searching and custom post types searching.
- Shortcodes for easy integration of search forms into content and templates.
- Fully Ajax powered – no page refreshes required to get new results.
- Google analytics integration
Cons
- It does not support Multilingual search.
Pricing
Ajax Search Lite is free for everyone, and you don’t need to pay a single penny for this plugin.
They also have lots of paid plans for the WordPress search plugin. But Ajax Search Plugin is completely free to use.
5. WP Google Search
WP Google Search is an excellent search plugin, and this plugin allows you to add a Google-powered search box to your WordPress website easily. This plugin has over 10,000+ active installations with 4.3/5 customer reviews out of 29.
This plugin helps you to quickly and easily add the best of the world’s most significant search engines to your WordPress site without writing any single line of code. You can easily control the content in the search box, such as pages, posts, and images.
You can include only specific categories or taxonomies on the search engine results page.
Key Features
- Easy to install and integrates with WordPress in no time.
- Control what content is included in the search results.
- Customizable design settings – change background, color, size & more!
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Multilingual support – compatible with
User Experience
WP Google Search offers a great user experience to website visitors. Users can easily search for content on your site and get relevant results quickly. The design settings are very customizable, and this helps you to personalize your search page according to your needs.
It is also fully responsive and looks great on all devices, including mobile and tablets. This plugin allows users to switch between different languages and search multiple languages easily.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions are included.
- Customizable design settings – change background, color, size & more!
- Supports WooCommerce products.
- Image, attachment & file searching.
Cons
- Limited features.
Pricing
WP Google Search is free to use, and you don’t need to worry about spending a single penny for this search plugin.
6. WP Extended Search
WP Extended Search plugin is another popular free search plugin for a WordPress website. This is popular for its lightweight size and lots of powerful features.
This plugin has 4.9/5 stars out of 63 honest user reviews. But this plugin has more than 20000+ active installations.
WP Extended Search is a lightweight and powerful search plugin that allows you to customize WordPress search to search in Post Meta, Author names, Categories, Tags, or Custom Taxonomies via admin settings. You can control the default behavior of WordPress to search in the post title, post content, and post excerpt.
Key Features
- Search in selected meta keys.
- Search in category, tags, or custom taxonomies.
- Search in the post author name.
- Include or exclude any public post type.
- Control whether to search in the title content excerpt or all.
- Compatible with WooCommerce. Search in product SKU, Attributes, variations, custom fields, etc.
- Create unlimited search settings to use with custom search forms.
- Add search forms using a widget, shortcode, or PHP function. Also works with custom searchform.php
- Exclude old content from search results (Older than admin-specified date).
- Compatible with WPML.
User Experience
WP Extended Search offers an excellent user experience to your website visitors. This plugin has a live search bar, which helps users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. The responsive search form looks great on all devices, including mobile and tablets.
The plugin allows you to customize your search forms according to your needs, making it easier for your website visitors to find what they want. This plugin also supports multiple languages and allows users to search various languages.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up without writing a single line of code.
- Search in selected meta keys, categories, tags, or custom taxonomies.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Exclude old content from search results.
- Compatible with WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads plugins.
- Create unlimited custom search forms and use them on any page or post.
- Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions are included.
Cons
- No Image searching options are available.
Pricing
WP Extended Search is another entirely free plugin to use as a search plugin. This plugin doesn’t require credit card submission and more. You can install this plugin from your WordPress dashboard, or you can download this plugin from WordPress.org.
7. FiboSearch - Ajax Search for WooCommerce
FiboSearch is another Ajax-based search plugin that instantly fetches search results without reading the current page.
FiboSearch is another popular Ajax-based WordPress search plugin with more than 100,000+ active installations with a 4.9/5 star rating from 1400 users.
Key Features
- Instant search results.
- Easy to install and set up.
- Fully customizable design settings – change background, color, size & more!
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Compatible with WooCommerce products. Search in product SKU, Attributes, variations, custom fields, etc.
- Image, attachment & file searching.
- Sort search results by relevance or date.
- Preserves the WooCommerce shop page styling and product filtering.
- Show related posts and pages on the search result page for better UX.
- Compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins for multilingual support.
- Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions are included.
User Experience
FiboSearch offers a great user experience to website visitors. This plugin has an intuitive user interface with a live search bar, which helps users find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
It is also fully responsive and looks great on all devices, including mobile and tablets. This plugin allows users to switch between different languages and search multiple languages easily.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Google autocomplete and keyword suggestions are included.
- Customizable design settings – change background, color, size & more!
- Supports WooCommerce products.
- Image, attachment & file searching.
- Sort search results by relevance or date
- Show related posts and pages on the search result page for better UX.
Cons
- Limited features compared to some other search plugins.
Pricing
FiboSearch comes with a different pricing plan. But the owner of FiboSearch also thinks about the free user. They plan to come with an entirely free version, which will be free forever.
The annual price of this plugin for Personal, Entrepreneur, and Agency owners are $49, $89, and $199. You can use the plugin for one site, three sites, and 25 websites.
The Lifetime prices of this plugin for Personal, Entrepreneur, and Agency owners are $249, $389, and $999. You can also use this plugin on one site, three sites, and 25 websites.
8. Ajax Search Pro
Ajax Search Pro is the best live search engine plugin for WordPress.
This powerful plugin has been downloaded and sold over 100,000 times and boasts an impressive 4.9/5 star rating from 1700 users.
This plugin is highly customizable, with many features and options, giving the best results possible! Replace the WordPress search bar with a better-looking, more efficient search engine.
Key Features
- Users can able to search for custom post types, custom fields, PDFs, taxonomy terms, attachments, ACF, WPML, Events Calendar, users, WooCommerce, text and Office file contents, and many many more.
- able to add different search bars with this plugin
- Multilanguage support
- Showing search results with super fast speed.
- Compatible with the most popular page builders like Elementor, Gutenberg, and much more.
- Easily integrate with Google Analytics.
User Experience
Ajax Search Pro offers a fantastic user experience to your website visitors. This plugin has a live search bar, which helps users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
It also supports multi-language support, making your site more accessible to international visitors. The plugin is very fast and can show search results almost instantly. It also allows users to easily switch between languages and search for words in multiple languages.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Search in selected meta keys, categories, tags or custom taxonomies.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Compatible with WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads plugins.
- The search bar is customizable – change the background, color, size & more!
- Image, attachment & file searching.
- Show related posts and pages on the search result page for better UX.
- Compatible with the most popular page builders like Elementor, Gutenberg, and much more.
- Easily integrate with Google Analytics.
Cons
- Limited features compared to some other search plugins.
- No autocomplete or keyword suggestions are included.
Pricing
Ajax Search Pro has two different plans: one is Ajax Search Lite, which is entirely free to use, and the premium version is Ajax Search Pro.
Ajax Search Pro has only one pricing plan, which is a lifetime plan. You can buy their lifetime plan for $27 from their official website.
Or, if you want to buy the plugin from Codcanyon, you need to spend $39. And you don’t need to worry about the update of this plugin. You’ll get a lifetime update from the plugin.
9. HUSKY - WOOF Products Filter for WooCommerce
HUSKY – WOOF Products Filter Professional (formerly known as WOOF) is an advanced professional product filter plugin that enhances the functionality of the WooCommerce plugin.
HUSKY has more than 100K active installations on different WordPress websites with a 4.7-star rating out of 5.
It empowers website visitors to easily search and filter woo-commerce products based on product categories, product attributes, product tags, taxonomies, meta fields, product prices, product titles, product descriptions, etc.
Key Features
- Filter products by categories, attributes, tags, taxonomies & meta fields.
- Ability to add custom CSS and HTML elements.
- Easy to set up and configure.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Search by product title, description & keywords.
- Supports WooCommerce products & variations.
- Filter by multiple taxonomies at once.
- Show related posts and pages in the search results.
- Responsive for all devices and compatible with different browsers.
- Filter form builder for creating filter forms directly on the site front.
User Experience
HUSKY provides an easy-to-use product filter experience that helps customers find the perfect product quickly and easily.
It is compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins, enabling website visitors to search multiple languages. The plugin also has a feature that allows customers to search by product title, description & keywords.
The filter form builder feature makes creating filter forms directly on the site front easy. HUSKY also offers a responsive design for all devices and browsers so customers can access the product search feature from any device.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Search in selected meta keys, categories, tags, or custom taxonomies.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Compatible with WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads plugins.
- The search bar is customizable – change the background, color, size & more!
- Filter products by categories, attributes, tags, taxonomies & meta fields.
- Ability to add custom CSS and HTML elements.
- Easy to set up and configure.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Search by product title
Cons
- No autocomplete or keyword suggestions are included.
- Not compatible with some WordPress themes.
Pricing
HUSKY – WooCommerce Products Filter Professional has only two different plans.
This plan has a free version; you can easily download the plugin from WordPress.org’s official website.
And if you want some advanced features for your woo-commerce, you need to go with their pro lifetime plan. The lifetime plan comes with $42/lifetime. After a one-time purchase, you’ll be able to get a lifetime update for this plugin.
10. ACF: Better Search
ACF Better Search is another completely free WordPress search plugin that can be the best replacement for your default search features.
Better Search also has a good amount of active installation. This plugin has been downloaded over 50000+ times and has 4.9/5 star reviews out of 140 genuine user reviews.
This search plugin works with the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin, allowing you to add and use custom fields in searches. It also offers an autocomplete feature so that users can find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
Key Features
- Autocomplete feature for faster results.
- Search by custom fields & taxonomies.
- Search multiple post types, pages, or posts.
- Easy to set up and configure.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Focus on performance – results are cached for faster search.
- Ability to add custom CSS and HTML elements.
- Show related posts and pages on the search result page for better UX.
User Experience
ACF Better Search provides an easy-to-use product filter experience that helps customers find the perfect product quickly and easily.
It is compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins, enabling website visitors to search multiple languages. The plugin also has an autocomplete feature so users can find what they want faster.
The plugin focuses on performance, caching results for faster search. It also offers a responsive design for all devices and browsers so customers can access the product search feature from any device.
Pros
- Easy to install and set up.
- Multilingual support – compatible with WPML & Polylang plugins.
- Search in selected meta keys, categories, tags or custom taxonomies.
- Supports all default WordPress themes.
- Compatible with WooCommerce & Easy Digital Downloads plugins.
- The search bar is customizable – change the background, color, size & more!
- Autocomplete feature for faster results.
- Search by custom fields & taxonomies.
- Search multiple post types, pages, or posts.
- Ability to add custom CSS and HTML elements.
- Focus on performance – results are cached for faster search.
- Show related posts and pages on the search result page for better UX.
Cons
- Not compatible with some WordPress themes.
- No keyword suggestions are included.
Pricing
ACF Better Search is free and can be downloaded directly from the WordPress.org website. You can also automatically install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard.
In the end, Which Is the Best WordPress Search Plugin?
When it comes to choosing the best WordPress search plugin, there are many factors that you need to consider, such as ease of use, features, performance, and pricing.
Some popular options include SearchWP, HUSKY – WooCommerce Products Filter Professional, and ACF Better Search. Each plugin has unique features and benefits, so your choice depends on your specific needs.
For example, if you are looking for a plugin with an autocomplete feature, then ACF Better Search might be your best option. If you want a search plugin with a product filter, then HUSKY – WooCommerce Products Filter Professional could be ideal.
And if you need advanced analytics and custom field searches, SearchWP is an excellent choice.
No matter which plugin you choose, remember to make sure it’s compatible with your WordPress theme and other plugins that you are using. That said, all the plugins listed here are reliable and will provide you with excellent search features for your website.
Good luck!
