Search Fixer: a WordPress plugin

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

I have created a plugin to solve a subtle but annoying WordPress bug. With the Search Fixer plugin installed, search links like those in Search Meter‘s “Recent Searches” widget should work correctly.

The bug is WordPress bug 13961. This prevents “pretty” search URLs from working properly. For example, http://example.com/search/hello%20world should search the example.com blog for the words “hello” and “world”, but because of the bug it actually searches for “hello%20world” and fails to find anything.

Search Fixer should make everything work as you’d expect. Sometime during 2011 2012 the bug fix should make it into the WordPress core. At that time I will update this page and we will all be able to deactivate Search Fixer and breathe a sigh of relief.

Install

The Search Fixer plugin is in the WordPress plugin repository, so you can install it using the Plugins section in your WordPress console.

Feel free to fork the project on GitHub if you want to tinker with it. And send me a Bitcoin if you find the plugin useful.

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21 comments

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  1. Hoooraaay!!!! ….. you are the man! You are my savior!
    After months of error finally this has been fixed by using your plugin!
    You are very smart!! Incredible patch! Now the latest WP version can safely be used. (I’m hold the old wp 3.0.1 until I found your patches)

    Million thanks Bennet!! May God Bless You!!

  2. Search Fixer currently has one limitation: it changes the search from a word search into a phrase search. For example, searching for “John Keynes” will not find “John Maynard Keynes”.

    I am testing a new version that should fix this once and for all. It should be ready in a few days.

  3. Search Fixer 2.0 is out now. It works perfectly. Download it and enjoy.

  4. Search Fixer is now in the WordPress plugin repository, so you can install it easily using the Plugins section in your WordPress console.

  5. thanks Bennett! Amazing Plugin . searchmeter+searchfixer is powerful SEO plugins

  6. Thanks very much the fixer… er.. fixed it! πŸ™‚

  7. Doesn’t work anymore

  8. @Calin, it still works for me in WordPress 3.3.1. What problem do you see?

  9. Works fine for me, just tested it. Thanks!

  10. Still necessary using this plugin?
    Has it been integrated into WP core ?

  11. Hello,

    Is it possible that the link from the search widget would be to the non-pretty parma link URL? (e.g, to : site.com/?s=searchTerm)

    Due to a bug in wp-super-cache, the terms of the /search/searchTerm, are not cached properly.

    Thanks,
    Tal

  12. My log shows 2 searches for every search. I tested it with weird words to be sure it’s not a coincidence. Any ideas?

  13. My log ALSO shows 2 searches for every search, its duplicating. Any ideas?

  14. The search plugin isn’t checking pages for some reason, it is only checking posts. Do you think it is possible to fix this so it gets results from pages as well?

    Results for pages that contain part of a search word, for example cat in the search cats, would also be useful.

  15. ПослС обновлСния ΠΏΠ»Π°Π³ΠΈΠ½Π° (Search-Meter),Π½Π΅ ΠΌΠΎΠ³Ρƒ Π·Π°ΠΉΡ‚ΠΈ Π½Π° свой сайт.Бпасибо.

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