Description
Introducing WP Fast Total Search (WPFTS), the ultimate WordPress full-text search plugin that will revolutionize how you search for content on your website! WPFTS extends the standard search capabilities of WordPress by creating a transparent word-based index. This allows you to search not only by the title and content of posts, but also by meta-fields, custom types of posts, shortcode content, and even by the contents of attached files.
What’s more, WPFTS doesn’t require the installation of external indexing software, making it ideal for shared hostings. Plus, all other plugins will automatically use the word-based index after installing WPFTS. You can easily specify the relevance function by assigning weights for the title, content, and each of the meta-fields in your posts.
Unlike other search plug-ins, WPFTS doesn’t replace the standard WP search, instead, it expands its functionality. All built-in functions of WP_Query are saved, and other plug-ins automatically use advanced search with WPFTS. With its built-in Live Search functionality, you can quickly find what you’re looking for without ever leaving the search bar. Simply switch it on with WPFTS’s native flexible Search Widget, which you can install anywhere on your page/post with a special shortcode ([wpfts_widget]).
The extended (Pro) version of the plugin allows you to automatically index the text content of attached files such as PDFs, giving you quick access to information contained within them.
With WPFTS, you can enjoy true indexed text search within title, content, shortcodes, meta field values, or programmatically-created text data. It dramatically extends the native WordPress search, supporting phrase search and offering powerful index clustering system. Plus, you can order results by relevance, date, post ID, title, slug, type, random, comment_count, and more.
WPFTS is not just free, it doesn’t require 3rd-party libraries or services. Everything happens right inside your website! It also supports language translations (English, German, Dutch, Russian and Ukrainian are ready now), removes HTML tags and comments from post content before indexing it (useful for Gutenberg-driven sites and themes), and does the text search inside shortcode content.
With its TRUE relevance algorithm using improved TF-IDF, WPFTS offers a relevance formula that can be justified via settings. You can make default search WP ordering configurable, and it has API and full documentation to customize plugin’s behavior.
WPFTS works well with PHP 5.6+ up to PHP 8.2+ and supports add-ons, including a big library of them. You can even write your own extensions!
In short, WPFTS is the ultimate WordPress search plugin that you simply must have. Try it today and discover how easy it is to find the information you need on your site!
TEST DRIVE | GET PRO ??
Please note, that the PRO version of this plugin also supports:
- File attachments search by their content (PDF, DOC, DOCX and other files currently supported)
- Filter file search by mime-type
- Display PDF content in search results using Smart Excerpts
- External service to extract text information from files can be used (license included)
- Technical support (with installing, configuring, fixing conflicts)
- Regular automatic updates (it works the same way as WP repository updates)
- A bunch of add-ons which makes it possible to index and search the content and files generated by other plugins and themes (for example: file search add-on for WordPress Download Manager plugin, add-on for Filebase Pro, add-on for Delicious Downloads, and many more). Pro user may ask us to build a custom add-on for their own websites.
Translation
We want to give a huge thanks to the following translators who made our plugin accessible to non-English speakers:
torkeller (@torkeller) for German and German_formal
Peter Smits @psmits1567 for Dutch
Lera Suhanova for Ukrainian
epsiloncool @epsiloncool for Russian
We invite you to translate the plug-in into your language. Let it be useful to everyone.
Documentation
Please refer Documentation.
Security Policy
Reporting Security Bugs
Please report security bugs found in the WP Fast Total Search plugin’s source code through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team will assist you with verification, CVE assignment, and notify the developers of this plugin.
Screenshots
Main Configuration 
Indexing Rules 
Indexing Defaults 
Smart Excerpts (Google-like search results) and styling settings 
Analytics (Query Log) 
Support & Docs 
Data Collection Diagram 
Search Results Example
Installation
- Unpack and upload
fulltext-searchfolder with all files to the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Press
Rebuild Indexbutton to initialize index (actually this function will run automatically on first plugin install)
FAQ
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Where can I put some notices, comments or bugreports?
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Do not hesistate to write to us at Contact Us page.
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Where do I report security bugs found in this plugin?
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Please report security bugs found in the source code of the WPFTS Fast Total Search plugin through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team will assist you with verification, CVE assignment, and notify the developers of this plugin. # Security Policy ## Reporting Security Bugs Please report security bugs found in the YOUR_PLUGIN_NAME_HERE plugin’s source code through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team will assist you with verification, CVE assignment, and notify the developers of this plugin.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“WP Fast Total Search – The Power of Indexed Search” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“WP Fast Total Search – The Power of Indexed Search” has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “WP Fast Total Search – The Power of Indexed Search” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.78.258
- Added compatibility hook functionalities for themes
- Fixed a bug with “score” value preventing it from displaying
1.77.256
- Fixed a problem with memory_limit value conversion when it’s given in Gigabytes (G).
- Fixed a problem with “style” and “script” tags removal from the indexing when the corresponding option is set.
1.76.254
- Fixed some issues with autocomplete (Live Search Widget functions)
1.75.250
- Increased core algorithm search speed (especially for popular words)
- Added “Relevance Finetune” Settings. Alpha version, try with care.
1.74.247
- Fixed possible loop while updating DB and error happen
- Added detailed info on DB update fail so admin can ask technical support (us) what to do
- Fixed “Check Rules” link (was wrong for websites with /subfolder/ URLs)
1.73.245
- Fixed some issues with database syncronization
- Fixed some notices appeared on PHP8.3+
- Added support for sub-index records
1.72.240
- Fixed wrong database structure syncronization while plugin updates (thanks to Rafael Fischmann / @rfischmann !)
1.71.238
- Added Smart Text Fragments functionality that allows to see clicked sentences on the full post page and highlights searched words (still in alpha)
- Added an ability to limit query log size via Analytics / Query Log / Settings
1.70.236
- Fixed CSRF Vulnerability detected by Majed Refaea (thanks a lot!)
1.69.234
- Fixed XSS Vulnerability detected by justakazh and Majed Refaea (thanks, guys!)
1.68.232
- Urgent fix for MySQL older versions: VARCHAR index size limit.
1.67.231
- Changed logo and style of the plugin
- Fixed warning in indexer (no finish_ts variable found)
- Fixed indexing on bad words found (some non-latin words incorrectly indexed by MySQL that’s why inserting to the vectors table failed)
- IRules logic changed to be compatible with the wpfts_irule/filters
- Fixed plugin styling on non-english WP installations (the plugin admin interface was completely broken in NL, for example)
- Added support for non-string chunks
1.65.225
This release is a result of a lots of improvements, fixes and updates.
- The internal code structure has been improved to make it easier to read and edit
- Improved compatibility with the latest version of WordPress
- Enormous work has been done to increase code security
- Added support for indexing rules
- Added the ability to configure post_type and post_status to create the main index
- Added check and warning if the amount of script memory is insufficient for correct operation
- Fixed errors in the operation of presets
- Fixed errors in fast search in the WordPress control panel
- Fixed errors in logging search queries
- Added processing of special clusters __debug and __used_rules
- Script execution session time increased to 60 seconds when indexing (if allowed by your hosting provider)
- Improved plugin performance with PHP8.3.6
- The Flare service now automatically reconnects when the connection is lost, and if the connection is successful, it blocks AJAX ping to relieve the server from frequent AJAX requests.
1.61.215
- Added Flare re-connection to prevent falling back to the polling scheme after some time or when network lost
- Fixed broken “default search logic” setting
- Added experimental “Indexing Rules” tab
1.60.213
- Fixed Cross-site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerability issue in WPFTS :: Live Search widget. Thanks to Ng? Thiên An (ancorn_ from VNPT-VCI) for discovering this issue!
1.59.211
- Fixed another bug with “tp” table
1.59.209
- Fixed a bug with constantly growing “tp” table
- Improved compatibility with WP 6.3.2
- Removed extra files / Some clean up
1.58.207
- Fixed a bug with memory_limit = -1 that can be set on some hostings
- Improved compatibility with WP 6.3.1
1.57.205
- Fixed a MySQL bug with indexing some words contains specific hieroglyphic literals (Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc)
- Fixed a bug with logging
1.56.203
- Some bugs fixed
1.55.201
- Officially changed the plugin’s name to “WP Fast Total Search”
- The code was reorganized to be clearer and simpler to update
- The plugin’s description was improved
- Added Query Log details page
- Improved compatibility with WordPress 6.2.1 and PHP 8.2+
- Improved block-based themes support
- Added smart updater for database allowed to preserve current index while updating the plugin version
- The main search algorithm was redone to be sufficiently less RAM-consuming and faster
- Fixed 21 issues in the code
1.51.178
- Query Log analyzer added
- Index Browser added
- Fixed 9 small issues
1.50.175
- Improved support for Block-based themes (in particular, 2022) – Smart Excerpts is now shown in those themes
- Preparations for the modular structure
- Maybe added a lot of bugs, please report! (will be fixed soon)
1.50.168
- Compatibility with WP 6.0
- Fixed bugs with Live Search widget
- Fixed 5 minor bugs
1.49.164
- Localization-related fixes
- Analytics submenu added
- Text description fixed
1.48.162
- Added more flexibility for WPFTS Live Search widget and widget shortcode
1.48.156
- Added “Remove non-text HTML nodes” functionality
- Fixed 3 issues
1.48.150
- Increased compatibility with PHP8.0+
- Fixed 7 bugs with database access and deprecated code
- Added hooks to add flexibility to remove/add specific shortcodes from the indexing
1.47.148
- Improved style/js loading code (thanks to @nextendweb !)
1.47.146
- A course is taken to significantly improve the functionality of the plugin. Changed the design of the admin panel
1.46.140
- Added primary keys to temporary tables to let 3rd-party plugins (like backup tools) work better with wpftsi_* tables
1.45.138
- Added fail detection to the indexer to prevent stops because of 3rd party plugins’ fails
1.44.134
- Fix: enforce indexer via AJAX in case the server is local with wrong DNS/hosts file or disabled CRON
1.44.132
- Replaced TRUNCATE with CREATE-RENAME-DROP to avoid system locking
1.44.130
- Added a checkbox to switch ON/OFF the search inside WP admin
- Improved indexer execution for hostings where DNS is configured incorrectly and/or native WP cron does not work properly
- Added a fix (optional, with the checkbox switch) for MariaDB issue with new experimental search option
- WPFTS Index Optimizer is switched OFF by default now (you can bring it back using the switch)
- Rebuild Index button from Attachment Edit page now works again
- Optimized IDLE mode for indexer
- Added wpfts_set_pause() method
- Visual issues fixed
- Fixed main_search tweaker routine
1.43.128
- Added Flare support
- Fixed a bug in autocomplete widget
- Added ‘wpfts_is_force’ parameter to WP_Query
1.42.124
- Fixed MySQL error (thanks Daan!)
- Clean up some code to remove extra Flare&Fire calls
1.42.122
- The indexer sequence and algorithm was completely rebuilt
- Pause mode was added to the indexer
- Improved indexer logging
- Added search index status to the Edit Post page
1.41.120
- Added shortcode [wpfts_widget] that lets you install search widget to any place of post/page or template
1.40.117
- Improved input parameter processing to remove dependency with is_main_query() and is_search() for repeated WP_Query calls
- Bugs fixed
- Improved compatibility with 3rd-party themes and plugins
1.39.112
- Fixed Live Search console error
- Fixed 5 minor bugs
1.39.108
- Fixed 8 bugs and issues
- Added shortcode content search support!
- Improved Smart Excerpt preparation (removed html entities)
1.38.106
- Fixed 10 big and small issues
- Added: extension port in free version
- Improved indexing speed
1.37.101
- Some fixes in the code
- Fixed forum and documentation links
1.36.98
- Word indexer was optimized for low-memory webservers
- Fixed some notices appeared for rare cases
1.35.96
- Fixed an issue with AND settings (now works again, thanks to @clapierre)
- Fixed 2 other bugs
- The notice on the Smart Excerpt Settings page was fixed
1.34.94
- Translation-related fixes
= 1.33.92=
* Fixed an issue with index length on VARCHAR fields
* Confirmed compatibility with WordPress 5.5
* Fixed language domain and code to be compatible with WordPress Translate service
1.32.90
- Added support for x86 platforms (by x64 software emulation)
- Fixed notices when result is empty (thanks to Mihajlo!)
- Fixed DB collation issues (now WPFTS is using the same collation as WordPress does)
1.31.88
- Fixed “expected to be a reference, value given” bug, thanks to @gregamer!
1.31.87
- Fixed found_posts / max_num_pages issue
- Fixed text typo
1.30.85
- Added new algorithm that supports sentences
- Deep search is now faster (no more afraid to use it)
- Character limit (3 chars) was removed
- MyISAM support was dropped
- Faster index rebuilding
- Fixed some UI/UX issues
- Fixed around 15 issues in the code
1.28.75
- Fixed some UI bugs
- Added German and German-formal translations (thanks to torkeller (@torkeller) !!!)
- Improved Russian translation
1.27.72
- Fixed UI second-level tabs bug
- Some new texts prepared for translation
1.27.70
- Changed UI logic: now tabbed
- Approved compatibility with WordPress 5.4
- Fixed 3 small issues
1.26.67
- Fixed Smart Excerpts view issue
- Added more code for custom widgets
- Attachments caption and description are searchable now!
1.25.65
- Fixed design (now looks much better)
- Fixed text typos
- Fixed 4 small issues
1.24.62
- Fixed texts and typos
- Improved indexing speed
- Some code preparations for sentence-enabled search
1.23.58
- Fixed 3 issues
- Updated the plugin description
1.23.56
- Fixed notification windows dismiss function
1.23.54
- Fixed incompatibility with Gravity Forms and possible some other plugins
1.23.50
- Added modern design of the plugin backend. All forms and controls were rebuilt
- Fixed 5 bugs and issues
1.22.46
- Added alpha Live Search functionality
1.21.44
- Justified design
- Fixed 2 bugs
1.20.42
- Tested and approved compatibility with WP 5.3
- Fixed 3 secondary issues
1.19.40
- Fixed number to string conversion for some locales
1.18.35
- Added CSS style editor for Smart Excerpts block
- Added external parameters for WP_Query: “word_logic” and “wpfts_disable” (refer documentation)
- Fixed: Smart Excerpts now works well for content contains non-UTF-8 characters
1.17.33
- Fixed: The Smart Excerpts algorithm was completely rebuilt. Now working on any post and excerpt length. Thanks to Kathy
1.16.31
- Fixed: single UTF-8 quote issue made some “beautifyed strings” unsearchable. Fixed now. Thanks to Sophia.
1.16.29
- Fixed: make text search case insensitive not depends from MySQL config. Thanks to Sophia
1.16.27
- Fixed: search result items with zero relevance does not show anymore (BIG thanks to @bolus150 for the bugreport!)
- Added possibility to set up cluster_weights as a WP_Query parameter
- Added wpfts_cluster_weights filter
- Added Settings option to strip_tags before put post content to the index (useful for Gutenberg driven sites)
1.15.24
- Localization improved (new pot file, added __ in some places the code)
1.14.22
- Big update: lots of functions was moved from the Pro version to the Free WPFTS Version
- Interface bugs were fixed
- Relevance formula was completely rebuilt
- Reindex algorithm was sufficiently improved (now 5 times faster!)
- Word max length was increased to 255 characters
1.11.16
- Code optimizations
- Indexing speed increased
1.11.15
- Improved compatibility with WordPress 5.2.2
- Fixed 3 small issues
1.10.14
- Fixed an issue with database locking with MYISAM
- Small interface fixes
1.10.13
- Fixed an issue with indexing
- Added compatibility with WordPress 5.2
1.10.12
- Fixed 3 issues
1.10.11
- Improved compatibility with WP 5.1
- Fixed 7 issues
1.9.10
- Added Google-like Smart Excerpts
1.8.9
- Fixed 5 tiny bugs (thanks users for reports!)
1.8.7
- Added Multisite support
1.7.6
- Fixed 9 warnings and 21 notices while optimizing plugin for PHP 7.2
- Added support of PHP 7.2
1.7.5
- Added Main WP Search Tweaks settings
1.6.4
- Fixed a bug – it was a reason why plugin can’t activate correctly on some hostings
1.6.3
- Added InnoDB support
- Added a switch of MySQL table type (InnoDB/MySQL)
- Fixed a bug with popup message
1.6.2
- Fixed MySQL queries: search speed sufficiently improved
1.6.1
- Added “Deeper Search” flag and functionality
1.6.0
- Added support for internal query filtering
- Added wpfts_search_terms filter
- Fixed some indexing speed issues
1.5.9
- Fixed Readme.txt
- Fixed queries to WP multisite support
1.5.8
- Compatibility with WP 4.8.1
- Indexing speed increased a bit (code was optimized)
1.4.6
- Added support for sites with specific DB table names
1.3.4
- Cosmetic changes
1.2.3
- Changed regexp which is splitting texts to words (non-english characters are now supported)
- Added
wpftp_split_to_wordsfilter which enables you to define your own “text splitting” algorithm
1.2.1
- Added complex query analyzer (support quotes)
1.1.7
- Added plugin icon
- Fixed description
1.1.6
- Lowered save_post hook priority to index metadata correctly
1.1.5
- Small bug fixes
- Debug logging removed
1.1.4
- Added cluster weights capability
- Plugin assigned to GPL license
1.0
- First WordPress version
0.4
- Automatic indexing were added, over 30 bugs were fixed
0.1
- Initial edition. Basic functions added