Indexing hangs when indexing all custom fields

If the indexing gets stuck in the “Counting posts” step, check the browser javascript console. Are there any errors in there?

In general, indexing all custom fields is rarely the best option in the first place. It tends to lead into lots of garbage data, as the invisible custom fields include all kinds of meta data that is used only for very specific purposes.

So I would recommend you figure out the custom fields you actually need and try indexing only those. You have the knitting content there, so try having Relevanssi index just the knitting content fields. If some other fields have content that causes problems in the indexing, then it’s best not to index those fields.

Specifically “take out knitting one stitch at a time” is a tough search phrase, as it has tons of stop words in it: “take”, “out”, “one”, “at”. So it’s the same as searching for “knitting stitch time”.

Hi Mikko,
You have solved my problem! Thank you for helping me understand what the best practices are.

I have indexed only the custom fields I really need. I also went to the stop words setting (which I didn’t know about) and modified it.

I also removed a bunch of pages that had so much content on them that they were showing up at the top of all the SERPs.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me successfully use your plugin. I have left a 5-star review.

Thanks for the review!