This plugin from Algolia makes Wordpress searches a breeze

Algolia's plugin brings the power of their search engine into your Wordpress site

The default search engine for Wordpress websites works, but could definitely be better. Search results can be vague and get you to the general section you're looking for, but many times that's it. Also, it can be rather slow, especially if your website is chock full of content. As CTO of Algolia, Julien Lemoine, puts it, “Wordpress powers over 20% of the Internet today, yet the default search user experience for Wordpress remains an SQL search, which pretty much every plugin overrides. As a result, the more content you have on your site, the slower it operates. Even the leading search plugins for Wordpress are mostly UI overhauls of the same SQL search."

Algolia for Wordpress sets out to alleviate many of the woes found with Wordpress search by replacing it with their own search engine. The plugin is free and uses the power of Algolia's cloud based search to make Wordpress searches quicker and more productive. If this all sounds confusing, don't worry, it's not, and requires little to no coding to implement.

With the plugin, website owners will be giving their users a robust search engine that has many features not found in the stock search engine. They'll be getting a real time search experience that adapts and changes with each additional keystroke. Thanks to custom rankings and typo tolerance they'll be able to get relevant search results more often. There is also automatic synchronization which will make additions and taxonomies searchable in real time.

For the website owner, you'll get an easy to use dashboard as well as analytics to see what your visitors are searching for to get an idea of what you can do to improve the experience for them. Maybe something on your site is getting searched way more than something else, use the analytic info to see that and put it more prominently on your website.

As users get more accustomed to quick, accurate, easy to use websites, search will need to continue to adapt and improve to offer those same experiences. With this new Algolia plugin for Wordpress, Wordpress site owners (20% of the internet!) will now have that option.