Better Search Pro extends WordPress search with controls for matching and ranking content, plus indexing and integration options. Existing theme search forms work without code edits or a custom search template.

Control what matches and ranks

Sort results by relevance or date, set a relevance threshold, and adjust how titles, content, and other fields contribute to ranking. Search can cover public post types and fields such as excerpts, metadata, authors, tags, taxonomies, and comments. Pro adds fuzzy matching for searches beyond exact wording, post slug searches, and a LIKE-based fallback.

FULLTEXT indexes are required for relevance search

Better Search adds MySQL FULLTEXT indexes to the wp_posts table for post_content, post_title, and combined title and content searches. These indexes power relevance-based search and are required for full functionality. On multisite installations, activation adds the indexes to each blog.

Present results in the site

REST API integration makes search available through WordPress REST search responses. AJAX Live Search can display suggestions as visitors type. A popular-search heatmap can be displayed with a widget or shortcode. Custom templates and CSS let you adapt the results layout to the theme.

The plugin also includes a profanity filter for selected search terms and is translation-ready. It works with WPML and Polylang, and detects the active TranslatePress language when caching results. TranslatePress translates displayed results rather than creating a separate index of translated text.

Use caching and optional AI answers

Better Search has an internal caching system and works with WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Optional AI answers can be grounded in Better Search results, include source links, and use cached answers and usage limits. A Content gaps report is also available.

Install and configure

Install and activate Better Search Pro on the WordPress site. On multisite, activation adds the required FULLTEXT indexes to each blog. Then review the search options, relevance controls, searchable fields, templates, styles, and optional functions such as AJAX Live Search or the profanity filter.