11/When your WordPress search widget is not working and you are looking for how to fix it, We are suggesting some of the steps that we follow to fix the WordPress search-related problems. Hope that helps in solving yours. Since the default WordPress search is not a great search that matches the quality of Google Search, it is recommended to add WP fastest site search plugin for your site search needs. Especially if your website has lots of pages or it has lots of products.
Fix your wordpress search widget
Step 1- Take a backup
When you make changes to your WordPress site, there is a slight probability that you can break your site. It is recommended to take backup using a Backup guard before you begin making changes.
Step 2- Check your site health
In your WordPress admin panel, go to tools -> site health and check the status of your site health. Make sure that you perform the recommendations provided by the default WordPress site health tool.
Step 3- Check for plugin incompatibilities
You can uninstall plugins one by one and check if the search issue goes off. This could be the solution for 50% of all WordPress search widgets, not working issues. You can use the plugin detective WordPress plugin to do this as well.
Step 4- Check for cache issue
If you are using any caching plugin for improving WordPress speed, make sure you clear the site cache. If you are not sure to do this, you can use the “clear cache for me” WordPress plugin that works with most of the well-known WordPress speed plugins mentioned below.
- Autoptimize
- Breeze Cache
- Cache Enabler
- GoDaddy Cache
- Kinsta Cache
- LiteSpeed Cache
- SiteGround SuperCacher
- WP Fastest Cache
- WP Super Cache
- WP Optimize Cache
- W3 Total Cache
- WPEngine Cache
Step 6- Check your Theme / Layout, Make sure your Widget Area is Enabled
Disable all plugins, and use one of the defaults (Twenty*) themes. If the problem goes away, enable them one by one to identify the source of your troubles.
The widget would work automatically once it’s added to a widget area, it’s nice to set a title for the widget with some text. This can be set in Dashboard -> Appearance -> Widgets. Make sure that the widgets area is enabled on the desired page, from the theme options (Dashboard -> Appearance -> Customize -> Layout).
It’s quite possible you might be using a Full-Width template on the website, and the sidebar would be disabled. Try picking a default template it should work.
Step 5- Replace your WordPress search widget
If all the other methods didn’t work, you can replace your search widget with the WP fastest site search plugin that replaces your WordPress search widget with a brand new search widget that looks similar to the image below.
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Steps to install replace your WordPress search widget
- Install WP fastest site search plugin from WordPress plugin store.
- Go to https://cse.expertrec.com/newuser?platform=wordpress.
- Enter your WordPress website URL and click on next->
- The crawl will start in the background.
Add expertrec custom search and start the crawling
- Login to your WordPress admin panel.
- In your left panel you must be able to see expertrec’s WordPress plugin, click on that.
- Get your site ID (or) API key from your expertrec control panel ( here ).
How to add the site ID obtained from ExpertRec dashboard to WP Fastest Site Search Plugin
- Copy paste your site id in your WordPress control panel and click on save changes.
- Make sure you have upgraded to a paid plan before 15 days of free trial. (Price begins at 9 USD per month)
- That’s it! Your brand new WordPress search is up and running! Here are snapshots of the search form and the search results pages.
- If the plugin method didn’t work, you can add the code from https://cse.expertrec.com/csedashboard/home/code and add it to your WordPress PHP code. Please note that you have to add separately the code <ci-search></ci-search> to a place where you want the search box to appear ( Tip!- Contact our support team to get this done). There might be a one-time fee for integration.
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