WordPress’ default search performance has lengthy been a sticking level for builders, particularly when constructing dynamic, content-rich web sites.
The points are multifaceted, however the antiquated nature of WordPress’s search algorithm, which prioritizes date over relevance, means customers typically obtain inaccurate or irrelevant search outcomes and, in the end, a less-than-ideal person expertise.
Enter WP Engine Good Search
To boost WordPress search with a concentrate on web site pace and efficiency, WP Engine created Good Search, a sophisticated search optimization instrument constructed particularly for WordPress websites. Good Search is an easy-to-use, extremely customizable reply to the search conundrum many WordPress customers face, and it’s already producing spectacular outcomes, most notably on advancedcustomfields.com.
Superior Customized Fields (ACF) is essentially the most extensively used customized fields plugin within the WordPress ecosystem. With greater than 5 million lively installations, a whole lot of hundreds of month-to-month web site guests, and a content material archive spanning hundreds of useful sources, advancedcustomfields.com introduced an ideal use case for making use of Good Search’s capabilities.
Given ACF’s broad performance and big selection of use circumstances, discovering related tutorials, documentation, and help articles is commonly essential for its many customers.
Now, with Good Search up and working, discovering these sources has turn out to be sooner, extra exact, and extra complete than ever earlier than.
Since Good Search was launched on the location final month, mixture searches have elevated each day. With greater than 100,000 searches on the location over the past 30 days, advancedcustomfields.com is at present probably the most searched web sites on WP Engine’s platform.
“We all know customers depend on our web site as a trusted supply of data, whether or not they’re experimenting with ACF and testing out a brand new idea, or it’s the eleventh hour for a important undertaking and so they’re attempting to reply a selected query,” mentioned ACF Senior Product Supervisor Iain
Poulson.
“In both case, Good Search considerably improves their expertise, serving to them navigate our expansive assortment of sources and empowering them to make use of ACF extra successfully.”
Harnessing the Energy of AI
ACF’s new search capabilities additionally leverage the brand new AI-powered Hybrid Search for Good Search, which is at present in beta testing. This pure language search characteristic offers a GPT-like expertise combining conventional keyword-based and semantic search to provide extra related search outcomes.
“What we’re doing on the backend is working your knowledge by a Machine Studying mannequin that’s specifically tuned for Pure Language retrieval,” mentioned WP Engine’s Product Supervisor for Search and AI, Luke Patterson.
“What this implies for you, is which you can now kind full sentences or questions into the search bar, and have that return actually distinctive search outcomes. And since Good Search is without doubt one of the solely merchandise on the market that indexes your whole ACF fields and Customized Put up Varieties with only a click on of a button, you get all these included in these outcomes as nicely.”
Along with enhancing the search expertise in your web site, Good Search additionally enhances the pace of web site searches by transferring the indexing and search processes away out of your WordPress MySQL database to a specialised search server. This strategy considerably reduces the load in your WordPress web site, making searches faster and extra environment friendly.
“Good Search has given our customers the flexibility to shortly discover wanted content material on our web site, even when they don’t know the precise ACF operate they’re in search of, somewhat than counting on third-party searches,” mentioned ACF Senior Workers Software program Engineer Liam Gladdy,
“And activating Good Search was so simple as hitting just a few buttons within the management panel—a no-code answer that’s considerably enhancing the expertise for ACF’s customers.”
Discover a Smarter Method to Search
The WordPress ecosystem presents a wide range of instruments for enhancing search, every with its execs and cons.
Whereas there are a number of common plugins used for enhancing WordPress search, many of those options wrestle to scale as they rely on WordPress’s server to course of queries. Different, extra superior options typically require a big funding of money and time.
Traditionally, these alternate options have left a noticeable hole for an answer that mixes scalability, cost-effectiveness, and a complete characteristic set. WP Engine has stepped in with Good Search to handle this want.
Good Search is each scalable and environment friendly, supporting web sites as they develop. It presents customizable content material prioritization, guaranteeing that search outcomes favor essentially the most related content material, and it robotically indexes all content material varieties, together with customized publish varieties from ACF.
It’s additionally straightforward to arrange and begin utilizing, enhancing search throughout your web site whereas offering important insights into how your customers search.
Be taught extra about Good Search right here, and obtain this e-book to seek out out why WordPress search is likely to be hurting your conversions—and easy methods to repair it!
