What is Fuzzy Search in WordPress and why is it important in the first place? To begin with, any search function on a website has one clear goal- that is to provide the information of the search query as it is. This is a point when the visitor on the website is engaged with the WordPress website and is looking for search results that can take them toward the next action. It could be a query about a specific product or even a purchase/sale.
Now, with Fuzzy search, a user looking for information on a website can easily find that information even if they have misspelt the word. For instance, if the user is looking for ‘red linen shirt’ and it is misspelt as ‘red linin shrt’ the search results will be the same. That means, the user will get search results for red linen shirts only and nothing else. In short it will make simpler for your visitors to find the content they are looking for without disturbing their experience on your website.
With this article, we seek to give you a quick but concrete understanding of Fuzzy Search in WordPress and how users and visitors can get more accurate results on the website by searching for the information they want. So, if you want to know more, please read further.
Adding Fuzzy Search to your WordPress
The easiest wat to add Fuzzy search is by first installing SearchWP plugin. Upon activation, you need to go to SearchWP » Settings page in the admin sidebar and switch to the “License” tab. Then you need to copy and paste your license key and click on the “Activate” button. You can find the license key under your account on the SearchWP website.
In SearchWP, fuzzy search is not enabled by default, but you may do so quickly. The Advanced tab on the plugin settings page must be visited first.
All that’s left to do is turn on the “Partial match (blurred if necessary)” option under “Actions and Settings.” This will make your site’s fuzzy search option available.
After that, you must review further SearchWP options for your website. You can use the robust options provided by this plugin to modify the search capability of your website. Simply selecting the Engine tab in the plugin settings will show it to you.
From this point, you can give various search results varied weights. You can also click the Sources and Settings button to select more areas to search. For example, you can enable searches for comments, products, and more, not just posts and pages.
Testing your new search after adding Fuzzy
You must access your site from the WordPress dashboard in order to do it. Clicking the Visit Site button under your site’s name in the upper left corner is the quickest way to do that.
When you arrive at your website, use the search box to try a term with a misspelling to see if a fuzzy search works.
For instance, try ‘email marketing’ but misspell it as emal matkeing.
You will be surprised to know that it will throw results related to email marketing only (of course if you have any articles or content written about it.)
Similarly, try searching for content you have written about, but misspell it. We are sure that every time you find something misspelt, you will find the accurate result of what you were looking for.
Conclusion
Once you get Fuzzy search, you can be rest assured that your searches within the website will be really accurate. Since it is a WordPress website, that is empowered by WordPress hosting, you will have access to most plugins for free unless they are paid ones. But Fuzzy search is possible with SearchWP plugin which is free.
Here is hoping that you have understood how to install Fuzzy Search and get accurate search results within your website. In case of any doubts, please share them in the comments section below.
