Title: Better Search – Relevant search results for WordPress
Author: Ajay
Published: 20 มีนาคม 2009
Last modified: 3 พฤษภาคม 2026
---
Search plugins
# Better Search – Relevant search results for WordPress
By [Ajay](https://profiles.wordpress.org/ajay/)
[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/better-search.4.3.0.zip)
* [Details](https://th.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search/#description)
* [Reviews](https://th.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search/#reviews)
* [Installation](https://th.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search/#installation)
* [Development](https://th.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search/#developers)
[Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-search/)
## Description
Supercharge your WordPress site search with **[Better Search](https://webberzone.com/plugins/better-search/)**–
a powerful replacement for the default WordPress search engine that delivers more
relevant results and a richer search experience.
Better Search gives you complete control over your site’s search results. Fine-tune
relevance, search across different fields and post types, track popular queries,
and customise the output — all without writing a single line of code.
Make your search more intuitive and engaging with a search heatmap of popular queries,
display results as users type with AJAX Live Search, and tailor the look to your
theme with custom templates and styles.
Built with performance in mind, Better Search includes its own caching system and
works smoothly with popular caching plugins like WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache.
It also features a profanity filter and is translation-ready for global use.
### Awesome features in Better Search:
* **Automatic**: Just activate the plugin and enjoy better search results right
away
* **Seamless integration**: No need to edit any code or create custom search templates
* **Relevance**: Sort the results by relevance or date, and assign different weights
to title and content
* **Control the results**: Search within title, content, excerpt, meta fields,
authors, tags and other taxonomies and comments
* **Popular searches**: Show a heatmap of the most popular searches on your site,
either as a widget or a shortcode
* **AJAX Live Search**: Show search results as you type in any search form on your
site
* **Customisation**: Use your own template file and CSS styles for the ultimate
look and feel
* **Supports cache plugins**: Works seamlessly with caching plugins like WP-Super-
Cache and W3 Total Cache
* **Profanity filter**: Filter out any words that you don’t want to appear in search
queries
* **Translation ready**: Use the plugin in any language
If you want to improve your site search, download Better Search today and experience
the difference for yourself.
### Features in Better Search Pro
[**Better Search Pro**](https://webberzone.com/plugins/better-search/pro/) gives
you even more control and performance:
* 🗄️ [Efficient Content Storage and Indexing](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/efficient-content-storage-and-indexing/)
* 🔍 [Multisite Search](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/multisite-search/)
* ✨ [Fuzzy Matches](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/fuzzy-matches/)
* 🎯 [Relevance Threshold](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-settings-search/#minimum-relevance-percentage-pro-only)
* 🔗 [Search Post Slugs](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-settings-search/#search-post-slug-pro-only)
* ⚙️ [REST API Integration](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-rest-api/)
* 🔄 [LIKE Fallback Search](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-settings-search/#enable-like-fallback-pro-only)
* ⚖️ [Advanced Relevance Weighting](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-settings-search/#post-excerpt-pro-only)
### MySQL FULLTEXT indices
Better Search adds the following MySQL FULLTEXT indices to the `wp_posts` table:
* `post_content`
* `post_title`
* `(post_title, post_content)`
On multisite, these are added to each blog upon activation. These indices power
the relevance-based search and are required for full functionality.
### Contribute
Better Search is also available on [Github](https://github.com/WebberZone/better-search).
If you’ve got some cool feature you’d like to implement into the plugin or a bug
you’ve been able to fix, consider forking the project and sending me a pull request.
### Plugins by WebberZone
Better Search is one of the many plugins developed by WebberZone. Check out our
other plugins:
* [Contextual Related Posts](https://wordpress.org/plugins/contextual-related-posts/)–
Display related posts on your WordPress blog and feed
* [WebberZone Link Warnings](https://wordpress.org/plugins/webberzone-link-warnings/)–
Add accessible warnings for external links and target=”_blank” links
* [Top 10](https://wordpress.org/plugins/top-10/) – Track daily and total visits
to your blog posts and display the popular and trending posts
* [Knowledge Base](https://wordpress.org/plugins/knowledgebase/) – Create a knowledge
base or FAQ section on your WordPress site
* [WebberZone Snippetz](https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-to-all/) – The ultimate
snippet manager for WordPress to create and manage custom HTML, CSS or JS code
snippets
* [Auto-Close](https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoclose/) – Automatically close
comments, pingbacks and trackbacks and manage revisions on your WordPress site
## Screenshots
* [[
* Better Search Dashboard
* [[
* Better Search Popular Searches table in Admin
* [[
* Better Search widget
## Installation
#### WordPress install
1. Navigate to Plugins within your WordPress Admin Area.
2. Click “Add new” and enter “Better Search” in the search box.
3. Find the plugin in the list (usually the first result) and click “Install Now”.
#### Manual install
1. Download the plugin
2. Extract the contents of better-search.zip to wp-content/plugins/ folder. You should
get a folder called better-search.
3. Activate the Plugin in WP-Admin.
4. Goto **Settings > Better Search** to configure
## FAQ
If your question has not been covered here, please create a new post in the [WordPress.org support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-search).
I monitor the forums regularly. If you want more advanced _paid_ support, please
see [details here](https://webberzone.com/support/).
### Will this work with any WordPress theme?
Yes! It replaces the default WordPress search and integrates with most themes out
of the box.
### Does it support WooCommerce or custom post types?
Yes, you can enable searching in any public post type from the settings.
### How does it affect performance?
Better Search uses MySQL FULLTEXT indexes and includes internal caching. It also
works well with external caching plugins.
### Can I customise the search results template?
Yes, you can override the results template by copying the file to your theme directory.
More info in the [documentation](https://webberzone.com/support/knowledgebase/better-search-templates/).
### What is the Profanity Filter?
It filters out selected keywords from being searched. Handy for family-safe sites.
Better Search includes a very cool profanity filter using the script from [Banbuilder](https://github.com/snipe/banbuilder).
You can customize which list of words you want to filter out from the Better Search
settings page. Find the setting called “Filter these words:”. The plugin will automatically
strip out partial and complete references to these words. You can turn the filter
off by emptying the list.
### How can I report security bugs?
You can report security bugs through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program.
The Patchstack team help validate, triage and handle any security vulnerabilities.
[Report a security vulnerability.](https://patchstack.com/database/vdp/better-search)
## Reviews
### [Plugin doesn’t work](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-doesnt-work-395/)
[Jim S.](https://profiles.wordpress.org/stitzelj/) 29 พฤษภาคม 2026 1 reply
I’ve had this plugin installed for ages and only just now realized it’s completely
broken on my site and yields no results, no matter what you search for. I have no
idea how long this plugin has broken my search functionality. I ended up just uninstalling
it.
### [Excellent plugin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/excellent-plugin-9813/)
[Blake – Infinite Uploads](https://profiles.wordpress.org/blakeinfiniteuploads/)
28 กุมภาพันธ์ 2026 1 reply
Better Search not only made our WordPress search better very easily, but looking
under the hood, the developer writes very clean, structured, and optimized code!
Very rare to see these days. Better Search is a must have for WordPress!
### [Creator Got Greedy, No Longer Recommend This Plugin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/creator-got-greedy-no-longer-recommend-this-plugin/)
[Jupiterus](https://profiles.wordpress.org/jupiterus/) 7 กุมภาพันธ์ 2026 1 reply
Used to be great, but then the creator got greedy and made it into a subscription
service. There’s a free version but it’s so heavily limited and will break search
functionality – specifically try searching for words like “to” or “from” in it and
it won’t pick up those search queries (you can’t disable this either without paying
for that subscription service).Was a good plugin, but owner got greedy. There’s
other free plugins out there to improve WP’s search functionality, shame.
### [Excellent plugin and fantastic support](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/excellent-plugin-and-fantastic-support-24/)
[James Woodcock](https://profiles.wordpress.org/glidem/) 31 กรกฎาคม 2025 1 reply
I was desperate to experiment with this Better Search plugin when I read the features.
After installation I realised some incompatibilities with my existing mega menu
plug-in I already had installed that had an unusual way of featuring a search box
within it. I pretty much felt it was game over at that point however I persevered
and contacted the support for the better search plugin and to my amazement had a
response very quickly. After a few emails back and forth the developer sent me test
files to try and after a few attempts they managed not only to get the Search working
correctly along with the existing mega menu solution I had installed, but also made
an additional improvement based on some of my own testing. It’s a really satisfying
feeling knowing that there is support out there of this high standard that matches
the quality of this search plugin that not only gives good search results, but also
adds live search so as the visitor types their search query, results instantly start
to appear to aid discovery of your content. Really pleased how everything worked
out! Thank you!
### [Totally Improved Search Results](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/totally-improved-search-results/)
[anneellis11](https://profiles.wordpress.org/anneellis11/) 10 กรกฎาคม 2025 1 reply
This plugin definitely improved the search results on my site. It’s easy to use
and support has been great!
### [Better Search does the job](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/better-search-does-the-job/)
[electricbob](https://profiles.wordpress.org/electricbob/) 28 มิถุนายน 2025
I’ve been using this plugin for a while… and it just works. Easy to install, very
little setup, and now I’ve tested support (I had an issue with an update, in less
than a day my site was back up and in a couple days had a new release with the fix
inside) successfully.
[ Read all 61 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/better-search/reviews/)
## Contributors & Developers
“Better Search – Relevant search results for WordPress” is open source software.
The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
* [ Ajay ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/ajay/)
* [ WebberZone ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/webberzone/)
“Better Search – Relevant search results for WordPress” has been translated into
3 locales. Thank you to [the translators](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/better-search/contributors)
for their contributions.
[Translate “Better Search – Relevant search results for WordPress” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/better-search)
### Interested in development?
[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/better-search/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/better-search/), or subscribe
to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/better-search/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/better-search/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).
## Changelog
#### 4.3.0
_Release Date – 3 May 2026_
Read more in the [Better Search Pro 4.3.0 release post](https://webberzone.com/announcements/better-search-pro-v4-3-0/).
* คุณลักษณะ:
- [Pro] New: WP-CLI support with comprehensive command-line interface (search,
cache, db, stats, settings, tables, status, stopwords commands).
- [Pro] Dashboard chart drill-down: click any bar in the daily searches chart
to view the popular searches for that day.
- [Pro] New InnoDB conversion tool: convert the custom table engine with automatic
FULLTEXT index recreation.
- [Pro] Scheduled reconciliation cron: a twicedaily job automatically syncs
any published posts missing from the custom search index table.
- [Pro] New exclusion options: Exclude Front page and Exclude Posts page settings
to optionally remove these pages from search results.
- [Pro] Network dashboard with popular searches chart and statistics table for
multisite networks, accessible from the network admin menu.
* Enhancements:
- [Pro] Multisite admin select-all checkboxes and post-copy URL cleanup are
now handled by an external JavaScript file (via `wp_enqueue_script`) instead
of inline `