WordPress is the best blogging platform out there and with each
new version, it gets better and better, but one thing that hasn’t been fixed
for ages is – the default search system.
If you have spent some time playing with WordPress, then you
know the default search is far from perfect. The default search system of
WordPress doesn’t perform well, because it ranks results based on the date and
keywords presented in the post.
Of course I can hear you saying why should I care, I know it’s a
small thing but it plays a huge role in the blog engagement. It literally takes
less than 5 minutes to replace the default functionality with a plugin like
Relevanssi.
Let’s look at the some of the best search plugins for WordPress.
1. Relevanssi
Relevanssi is a powerful solution to replace the standard
WordPress search with a much better search system. Relevanssi is a free plugin
and comes with a lot of configurable settings that allows users to highlight
the search term & keep the logs of search results.
The plugins comes with a lot of fantastic features:
- Keep logs of all the search results in WordPress
- Highlight the search terms, it also allows you to choose style, color, background color, etc.
This is the search plugin that I have been using on my own
WordPress blog and its hands down the best search plugin available for
WordPress. Though, it also has a premium version which includes features like
Multisite support, Export & import settings, Assign extra weight to new
posts and many extra features.
The free version works well for small sites, but if you are
running a high traffic site like Instant Shift then premium version is what you
should try out.
Better Search is another relevant search plugin that replaces
the default search functionality with a more powerful engine. The plugin is
very similar to the one that i shared above, but this one has some extra
features.
The plugin does a very goo job on tracking the most popular
searches. This feature makes the “Better Search” better than other similar
plugins.
Better Search Features:
- It displays a list of all the popular search terms in the form of a Heatmap.
- Automatically change the weighting of the post title and content on the basis of search results.
As the name suggests, the plugin search everything including
comments, tags, custom fields, etc by adding more elements to the search form.
Search Everything let’s you add more elements to search form,
but it doesn’t improve the relevancy or the search results.
List of options included in the Search Everything plugin:
- Search Highlighting
- Search Every Page, Post, Tag, Category
- Search Custom Taxonomies ( new )
- Search only approved comments
- Search Every Custom Field (metadata)
- Exclude Posts from search
- Exclude Categories from search
4. WP Search
search is very similar to Google search engine and it improves
search relevancy by giving more controls. The plugin has advanced settings that
allow you to rebuild the index, Categories and comments.
- Allow users to search in categories
- Gives blog author an option to more weight to titles or blog content.
The highlight plugin doesn’t improve or reorder the search
results, it just highlight the search terms with jQuery. It not only highlights
on search results page but also one click deeper inside any of the found pages.
This won’t work in the Internet Explorer 8 or older as it
requires HTML5.
Like the Post? Share with your Friends:-
0 comments:
POST A COMMENT