Search Live

Oct 2, 2015

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Search Live supplies integrated live search facilities and advanced search features.

Instant Search Results

This tool provides instant live search results where matches are found for one or multiple search keywords in titles, excerpts or content, allows to enhance the standard search form with this functionality, provides a flexible shortcode [search_live] that can be placed anywhere to provide an interactive search form and a widget for use in sidebars.

Instant search results replace the standard WordPress search form. This is enabled by default but you can turn it off.
You can use the shortcode [search_live] to place a search form anywhere.
You can use the Search Live widget in your sidebars.
Search Live automatically supports Custom Post Types, for example products or events. Any plugin that supplies its own public post type will be supported instantly.

Search Live can show instant search results including thumbnails and short descriptions or manual excerpts. Among other useful options, you can determine the number of results shown and whether to search in any combination of titles, excerpts or contents. These can be determined individually for each instance of Search Live’s shortcode or widget.

Search Live supplies results from posts, pages and other public post types. We’re working on an extended version that provides enhanced features and support for taxonomies.

Download

You can install the plugin directly from your WordPress Dashboard or go to the Search Live plugin page on WordPress.org where you can download it.

Screenshots

ajax ajax search display information instant instant search live live search marketing post search product search quick search relevance search search live search relevance weight weights

Comments

73 responses to “Search Live”

Cameron

April 1, 2025

cool

Reply
Dibya Gogoi

May 29, 2023

Hey sir, I am having a problem using your this tool, I want to make searches from only titles but I am not able to see as your given screen shots showing, is there anyway to implement this with your plugin by editing php file, if yes please provide the code here please, I would really love to give it a try.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  May 31, 2023
  
  Hi,
  
  You can use the shortcode with the appropriate parameter for this: [search_live excerpt="no" content="no"]. You can use that also in a block.
  
  See the Shortcodes section of the documentation for more details on it. If you’re using classic widgets, the widget provided by the plugin has appropriate settings.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Marc Lehmann

April 22, 2021

Hi, the search plugin is great. Thanks for it! I will use it in a real estate portal. One question: If I understand the documentation well, it is possible to select the post types for search with a filter in PHP mode. Is this possible with a shortcode too? Unfortunately I am not a developer and my knowledge of PHP is very limited.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  April 23, 2021
  
  Hi Marc, thanks for the nice comment on the plugin!
  
  Currently, the shortcode doesn’t support it directly but you can easily use the filter search_live_post_types (linked to the documentation page).
  
  One easy way to implement it is to add it to your child theme’s functions.php …
  
  add_filter( 'search_live_post_types', 'immolistmallorca_search_live_post_types' );
  function immolistmallorca_search_live_post_types( $post_types ) { return array( 'post', 'page', 'listing' ); }
  
  In the example, search would be limited to the basic post types and an assumed ‘listing’ custom post type.
  
  References:
  
  Search Live API
  add_filter
  Child Themes
  
  Cheers!
  
  Reply
  1. Marc
    
    April 23, 2021
    
    Dear Kento, thank you so much! I do not see a button where I can buy a coffee for you. If I could I ordered at least five. Have a great weekend. Cheers, Marc
    
    Reply
    1. Kento
      
      May 6, 2021
      
      Hi Marc,
      
      Thank you very much 🙂
      
      Please just keep us in mind if you ever need a tool related to our work, maybe you’ll find it in our Shop.
      
      Cheers
      
      Reply
Aleks

February 16, 2021

Hi, I am new to Search Live. I have embedded shortcode in my WordPress template and added attributes and the plugin works. But I want to add inline styles. They don’t seem to be doing anything. This is the code I wrote in the inline styles field in my WordPress dashboard and then saved the changes (after I unchecked the standard stylesheet). Can anybody help? Thank you.

Edited, see https://paste.ec/paste/ApHuxZax#X7E-zVtFHK4XrktG2Zqw0DSUgmG2w7L2WyDWrKj9haK for code

Reply
1. Kento
  
  February 19, 2021
  
  Hi Aleks, if the CSS rule is not picked up it might just be that you need to clear the cache on your site.
  
  Reply
Rasha Yehya

December 1, 2020

Hi,

Thanks for the plugin. Can I add a search loop icon next to the textbox as a submit button?

Regards,

Rasha

Reply
1. Kento
  
  December 5, 2020
  
  Hi Rasha,
  
  You can do that by applying the right CSS rules to the button. You could add the rules in your child theme’s stylesheet, or use the Appearance section to add them. To have the button appear, you should check the box for the Widget or use the submit_button option for the shortcode or API function.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Steve

November 25, 2020

The plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/search-live/ has not been updated for 8 months and it is compatible up to 5.4.4 (instead of 5.5.3). Do you plan to update the plugin? If yes, when?

Reply
1. Kento
  
  November 30, 2020
  
  Hi Steve, we will be issuing an update shortly. In any case, there are no particular issues that I would know of even with the latest version of WordPress.
  
  Reply
  1. Steve
    
    December 2, 2020
    
    Hi Kento,
    
    Thank you for the update.
    
    Can you please be a bit more specific on the “shortly” comment e.g. 3rd of December or 4th of December?
    
    Thanks in advance.
    
    Reply
    1. Kento
      
      December 5, 2020
      
      Hi Steve, thanks for asking but I can’t give you an exact ETA for it at the moment.
      
      Reply
      1. Kento
        
        December 16, 2020
        
        FYI new release is out
        
        Reply
Tom

November 13, 2020

Is the plugin Compatible with Divi Theme?

Reply
1. Kento
  
  November 14, 2020
  
  Hi Tom,
  
  Yes, I would recommend to have a look at the Shortcodes and API sections of the documentation if you need to integrate it more specifically within Divi modules via shortcodes or templates.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Serii

December 17, 2019

Hi.
I love your plugin.
But, he work when i saw the site like as admin.
In incognito or firefox plugin doesn’t work.
Can you help me?

Reply
1. Kento
  
  December 17, 2019
  
  Hi Serii,
  
  Thanks for your kind comment on the plugin! If you get different results when viewing with Firefox in incognito mode, it could be because your posts are protected and you are not logged in? Or if you refer to the live search functionality, it could be that you have Javascript disabled.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Maria Aznar Palenzuela

September 16, 2019

Hello,

My problem is when I test Search Live plugin (search icon menu in my web) and put for example “santo” and click enter there are 2 problems: 1. doesn’t appers the diferents options and 2. always the result page is the home page.

The theme is own theme, I tried take off all other plugins for possible conflics (that doesn’t work).

Any idea where is the problem?

Reply
1. Kento
  
  September 16, 2019
  
  Hi Maria,
  
  I have tried to access your site linhazul.info to have a look but it seems that your server is timing out. This could be related to issues with your setup – the error I got when trying to access your site is: “Error 403: no se encuentra una página index en el directorio” – I assume that what you have experienced with the plugin might be related to it. Please have a look and when you’ve got the server back working let us know so we can have another look.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Fabio

August 19, 2019

Hi Hans,

I notice that the plugin doesn’t find any results if there are some words before the keyword.
Just to be clear if i want to find the keyword “wordpress” and I just insert “wordpress” all works fine…
If I insert instead some strings before … “I like wordpress” the plugin shows no results…
It’s possibile to solve this scenario?
It seems to me pretty important…

Cheers

Reply
1. Kento
  
  August 19, 2019
  
  Hi Fabio,
  
  When you input several search terms, it will produce matches that contain all of the terms. For example, searching for “gold” will provide matches that contain the term, will searching for “gold silver” will only produce matches that contain *both* “gold” and “silver”.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
saad

June 15, 2019

هل يمكن اخفاء نتيجة البحث ما لم تكن متوافقة مع الادخال؟

Reply
1. Kento
  
  June 19, 2019
  
  Hi saad!
  
  Looks like you are asking “Can I hide a search result unless it is compatible with the input?”, correct? The search results that the tool provides would correspond to matching posts (and other post types). It will look in all public post types to provide results but if you want to restrict the post types to only particular ones, then you can use the search_live_post_types filter which is described on the API documentation page.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Luk

June 8, 2018

Hi!
Thanks for that awesome plugin!

I’m looking for the possibility to output the content of another widget-shortcode, that is placed in the excerpt of a woocommerce product.
The shortcode itself is being shown in the results, but not the content of these shortcode.

Where and how to hook in, so i can see the content instead of just “raw” shortcode?

I*m not a programmer, so I’m thankful for clear advices. 🙂
Luk

Reply
1. Kento
  
  June 13, 2018
  
  Hi Luk,
  
  Thanks for your kind comment! Let me check this and issue an update as this is not supposed to happen.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Luk
    
    June 13, 2018
    
    Hey Kento,
    
    thanks for the answer.
    Is there a possibility to send you the url to the website, where the problem exists? I don’t want to post the site here.
    
    Greetings, Luk
    
    Reply
    1. Kento
      
      June 17, 2018
      
      Hi Luk,
      
      Thanks I’ve already checked it, it’s not particular to your site but seems to happen in general. I’ll need to review the plugin and fix it so it doesn’t show the shortcodes in the content but rather the rendered content.
      
      Cheers
      
      Reply
      1. Luk
        
        June 17, 2018
        
        Hello Kento,
        
        I’ll check for updates in future.
        
        Thanks
        
        Reply
Mark

March 15, 2018

I just wanted to say I added your plugin to my site and it works great! I do have one question I am trying to keep the standard styling but change the background to a light grey. When I try to use the inline styling it doesn’t change the output. So I was wonder if you could help me with the inline styling.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  April 2, 2018
  
  Hi Mark,
  
  Sure, could you please share what CSS rules you have added?
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Marco

January 3, 2018

Hi, great job making this plugin, we’re using it because it works perfectly with the Groups plugin.
I’m wondering if it’s possible to use this plugin to search through custom post meta fields? I didn’t find a shortcode that does that

Reply
1. antonio
  
  January 4, 2018
  
  Hi Marco,
  Sorry, right now the plugin doesn’t support custom post meta.
  It seems a good idea, we will review it for future updates.
  Thank you very much for the contribution.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
  1. Marco
    
    January 4, 2018
    
    Thanks for the reply, Antonio.
    Let me give you an example of what I said (that, by the way, is the current situation of our website).
    For an e-commerce website is fundamental to let people search for product codes (like SKUs or EANs) through the searchbar.
    We, for example save those codes as custom post metas.
    In our website, I installed the Groups plugin (another amazing plugin) and this search plugin is the only compatible with it, so I absolutely have to use this plugin.
    Right now, I solved the issue by adding to each product description (post_content) the SKU code, so that by writing the code into the search bar, the product would show up.
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      January 9, 2018
      
      Thanks Marco,
      Remember that you are using Woocommerce and its SKU product fields, you have available the Woocommerce Product Search plugin.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
ingosch

September 11, 2017

Hi, great plugin. Thanks!

wondering if it is possible to search for tags as well?

Would be very very useful to add this feature.

thanks

Reply
1. Kento
  
  September 13, 2017
  
  Hi,
  
  Many thanks for your kind comment. Currently the plugin doesn’t allow you to search based on tags but I’m working on several enhancements and this (searching also in tags and more generically terms) feature is part of it. I can’t promise on an ETA yet but there will be quite a few welcome surprises 😉
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
tj

July 24, 2017

Hi, first of all thank you for the plugin – great work.
Second, I have a little problem: when it doesn;t find any post it displays all the posts from the wp. It should say that no post was found… Where I can change this? Thank you

Reply
1. Kento
  
  July 30, 2017
  
  Hi tj,
  
  You’re right, I’ll include a fix for this in the next update. Thank you very much for your feedback and for reporting the issue.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
Ondrej

June 28, 2017

Hi, great plugin and I am very happy to use it. Thing is – it stopped working suddenly. (Nothing has changed, no updates, no nothing). It shows results after submitting, but it stopped showing live results.

http://www.scitecard.com

please advise

O.

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 28, 2017
  
  Hi Ondrej,
  I can see that you have javascript errors.
  Please check if your plugin folder is ‘search-live’.
  If this is ok, then check if another plugin related with performance or security is changing the javascript load process (you can try to disable them).
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Tim

June 8, 2017

Hi, just installed your plugin and put this on my site: [search_live title=”yes” content=”no” excerpt=”no” placeholder=”Suchen…”]
Works well so far but i dont get any instant results shown under the search bar itself. I think im just too stupid to setup correctly ^^. I added a new Pages with a Title (e.g. “Dog”) and then i type “dog” in search form and i dont get instant result but when i press enter i get a link to this page called “Dog”. So that works well!
I do not use any other search plugins so there cannot be a mess (i think).
Can anyone help me maybe?
Thanks !!

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 9, 2017
  
  Hi Tim,
  Please give me an url to test it.
  Sometimes users get confused with the widget and use the normal wordpress search widget, maybe is this the problem?
  If you are using the normal search widget, you need to have activated the ‘Replace the standard WordPress search form’ option (from Serach Live->Search Live)
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
  1. Tim
    
    June 9, 2017
    
    Hi, thanks for response. Okay so my test URL ist https://raubtier-portal.de/ so if u search for “marder” and press enter then it will show a correct search result (a link to the page “marder”) but not an instant result^^
    I did checkbox “replace the standard WordPress search form” and i deleted all search widgets. I only work with the shortcode for your plugin (now its [search_live placeholder=Suchen…]) But i can understand if you cannot help me via this chat. maybe i need to ask a friend who knows a bit more about wordpress at all so he maybe can check my backend.
    
    Regards, Tim
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      June 12, 2017
      
      Thanks Tim,
      I have tried this code:
      echo do_shortcode( '[search_live placeholder=Suchen…]' );
      and it seems to work correctly.
      Maybe is a cache problem? If you are using a cache plugin, please try to disable or clear cache.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
ian

February 6, 2017

hi, just want to ask, can i use this to replace wordpress’ default search bar on the top menu? or it cal only be used as a shortcode or in the sidebar?

thanks!

Reply
1. antonio
  
  February 6, 2017
  
  Hi ian,
  You can add the search form in your themes. Please have a look at the API page.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Nick

January 28, 2017

This is a nice plugin. But i have a question. Can i change in the setting that you must fill in the whole title and than will you see one search result. Is that possible?

Reply
1. antonio
  
  January 30, 2017
  
  Hi Nick,
  Really if the user need to write the whole title, he doesn’t need the search. You could play with the ‘Characters’ param in the Search Live widget, so the user need to set a minimum number of characters to start the search.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Henrique

January 6, 2017

Hello! I have translated the plugin’s strings to Portuguese (Brazil). Is there any way I can send you the files, so they can be included in a future update?

I would also suggest you guys consider moving to WP’s online translation platform – https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/search-live

Cheers and thanks for the great plugin!

Reply
1. antonio
  
  January 7, 2017
  
  Hi Henrique,
  Sure, you can send us the translation to itthinx[at]itthinx[dot]com
  Thank you very much for the contribution.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Focke

October 21, 2016

Hello, installed your Search Live plugin and it fits perfect for my use!

Just one question: How can I change the title (Search…) in the search field? I would like to replace this by a (german) phrase.
Thank you in advance!
Kind Regards,
Focke

Reply
1. Kento
  
  October 23, 2016
  
  Hi,
  
  If you’re using the widget, you will see there is a field “Placeholder” where you can change it – please see http://docs.itthinx.com/document/search-live/widgets/ for details. Does that help?
  
  Thanks for using the plugin and great to hear you like it! It would be great if you could give it a 5 star rating, a review will take you only a minute – and of course if there is anything that would keep you from giving it 5 stars, please make sure to let me know so we can improve it.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply
  1. Focke Deparade
    
    October 24, 2016
    
    Hi,
    thanks for your fast reply! I’m using the plugin with a shortcocode within a page. But it’s solved, I added the placeholder phrase the shortcode.
    Kind Regards,
    Focke
    
    Reply
ruben

October 7, 2016

Hello, Thanks for the excellent plugin. I have a question. How can it work faster? I am typing some terms in the search form and it takes like 2 mins to show the results

Reply
1. antonio
  
  October 15, 2016
  
  Hi Ruben,
  It should not take so long, you may have a conflict with another plugin.
  You could try to disable unnecessary plugins and activating them one by one to find the possible problem.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
2. Webmaster
  
  October 23, 2016
  
  I’ve noticed this to be a problem amongst many instant search or typeahead related search plugins. I’ve had best of luck with itthinx plugin, no doubt but take antonio advice. here are three things to try:
  
  • activate debug in wp-config
  • disable than reactive one at a time
  • upgrade your hosting environment
  • change theme that is using slop code
  
  Reply
  1. antonio
    
    October 24, 2016
    
    thanks for the contribution matt.
    Kind Regards,
    Antonio B.
    
    Reply
Webmaster

August 22, 2016

Hey buddy, great plugin!

Here is current shortcode: [search_live placeholder=”Search “]

How do I get placeholder to display PHP? I just want placeholder to match current page title.

Thanks in advance!

https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_the_title/

Reply
1. antonio
  
  August 22, 2016
  
  Hi Webmaster,
  We’re using this code apply_filters( 'search_live_placeholder', $placeholder );, so you can use this filter to create your own custom solution.
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Alley

June 21, 2016

I need to search only in specific category or post type . How can i customize this plugin

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 22, 2016
  
  Hi Alley,
  right now this option is not available. The post_type used on the search is set in search-live/core/class-search-live-service.php, line 270 (if you need to customize your solution, but remember that modify the code is not the best solution).
  Kind Regards,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
Pascal

June 20, 2016

Hi, many thanks for your really nice plugin. But there is one big think I’m missing in the plugin! For my search results I had installed the plugin “Search Exclude” which is function to exclude a page or post when this one is selected. The standard search results of WP was using this but your plugin is not looking to it any more. This results that all posts and pages are shown even when I don’t want to have them at the results. Will it be possible to add this to the search results?

Further it would be really nice if you would have the settings to say which results you would like to include or exclude. For example exclude all pages, or some categories, etc.

Many thanks.
Pascal

Reply
1. antonio
  
  June 22, 2016
  
  Hi Pascal,
  That’s true, this feature is not available, and it could be useful. We will consider it for future updates.
  Thanks for the suggestion,
  Antonio B.
  
  Reply
  1. Pascal
    
    September 4, 2016
    
    Many thanks, would be really great if it does. Is there a way to change it by my self in the plugin?
    
    Reply
    1. antonio
      
      September 5, 2016
      
      Hi Pascal,
      You will need a developer to create your custom solution.
      Please understand that small hacks, modifications, low or under-budgeted projects are not accepted.
      Maybe in http://jobs.wordpress.net/ you can found a developer.
      Kind regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
    2. Kento
      
      September 6, 2016
      
      Hi Pascal,
      
      Many thanks for your suggestions. We’re in fact working on an extended version which will provide more detailed control over the post types that can be included. Also the idea with allowing to exclude certain pages is interesting and I think we should certainly take it into account. Regarding your question, please have a look from line 270 in search-live/core/class-search-live-service.php – I don’t normally recommend to hack plugin code itself, but meanwhile you can set the $post_types variable to those post types you want to include only.
      
      I hope that helps, please let us know if you need more help.
      
      Cheers
      
      Reply
    3. antonio
      
      September 6, 2016
      
      Hi Pascal,
      if you go to work at it, let me know if I can help you.
      Kind Regards,
      Antonio B.
      
      Reply
Hans

June 10, 2016

Sorry, the post is missing something: “and pressing on my keyboard” must be “and pressing ENTER on my keyboard” and “Can I disable the -key?” must be Can I disable the ENTER-key?

Reply
Hans

June 10, 2016

Hi,

Installed your Search Live plugin and it is perfect, thanks for sharing! I have one question… When entering the search term and pressing on my keyboard the ugly WP/Theme search results page is shown. Can I disable the -key?

Best regards, Hans.

Reply
1. Kento
  
  June 12, 2016
  
  Hi Hans,
  
  There is an option to inhibit the Enter key, e.g. for the shortcode it’s the inhibit_enter attribute – see http://docs.itthinx.com/document/search-live/shortcodes/.
  
  Cheers
  
  Reply