{"id":70,"date":"2005-08-27T13:30:12","date_gmt":"2005-08-27T03:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thunderguy.com\/semicolon\/search-meter-wordpress-plugin\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T02:38:17","slug":"search-meter-wordpress-plugin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/semicolon\/wordpress\/search-meter-wordpress-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"Search Meter: a WordPress plugin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latest version is 2.14.1, released on 3 December 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Search Meter is a WordPress<\/a> plugin that helps you keep your site focused on what your visitors want to read. It does this by keeping track of what your visitors are searching for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a Search box on your site, Search Meter automatically records what people are searching for — and whether they are finding what they want. Search Meter’s admin interface shows you what people have been searching for in the last couple of days, and in the last week or month. It also shows you which searches have been unsuccessful. If people search your site and get no results, they’ll probably go elsewhere. With Search Meter, you’ll be able to find out what people are searching for, and give them what they want by creating new posts on those topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search Meter includes a Dashboard widget so you can see the last week of searches right on your WordPress Dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also show your readers what the most popular searches are. The Popular Searches block displays a configurable list of recent popular successful search terms on your site, with each term hyperlinked to the actual search results. There’s also a Recent Searches block, which simply displays the most recent searches. For older WordPress themes or installations, these functions are also available as widgets and template tags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search Meter installs easily and requires no configuration. Just install it, activate it, and it starts tracking your visitors’ searches. Here’s a screenshot of the Search Meter dashboard, showing some of the reports you’ll get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Search<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Compatibility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Search Meter is updated as necessary whenever new WordPress versions come out. The Search Meter page<\/a> at the WordPress Plugins Directory has the latest compatibility information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Log in to your WordPress administration console. Under Plugins, select Add New. Type Search Meter<\/em> in the box and the rest should be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also download the Search Meter files from the WordPress Plugin Directory<\/a>. You can download older version of the plugin, or check the development version for the latest unreleased goodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

View Statistics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To see your search statistics, Log in to WordPress Admin, go to the Dashboard section and click Search Meter. You’ll see the most popular searches in the last day, week and month. Click “Last 100 Searches” or “Last 500 Searches” to see lists of all recent searches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manage Statistics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a couple of management option available if you go to the Settings section and click Search Meter. Use the Reset Statistics button to clear all past search statistics; Search Meter will immediately start gathering fresh statistics. If you’re technically-minded, you might want to check the “Keep detailed information” checkbox to make Search Meter save technical information about every search (the information is taken from the HTTP headers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popular and Recent Searches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Popular Searches<\/strong> block displays a list of the most popular successful search terms on your site during the last 30 days. The Recent Searches<\/strong> block displays a simple list of the most recent successful search terms. In both cases, the search terms in the lists are hyperlinked to the actual search results; readers can click the search term to show the results for that search. For each block you can configure the text colour and size, the title, and the maximum number of searches to display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add these blocks to your page, log in to WordPress, then go to the page you want to add them to. Click Edit Site<\/strong> to go to the page editor. You can add a block, and you’ll be able to add the Popular Searches and Recent Searches blocks, and customize them as you wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blocks only display successful searches, so they will only display words that actually appear in your site. If you still want to prevent some of these words appearing in the blocks, you can add search filter words in the Search Meter settings page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title will be a standard size and the same colour as the rest of the block. If you want its appearance to be different, you can leave it blank to omit it. Then you can just add a Heading block above the Search Meter block, and configure it however you like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your WordPress installation does not support Blocks, then you should be able to use the Search Meter widgets instead — they work pretty much the same as the blocks. And if you’re prepared to edit your theme files, you can always use the Search Meter template tags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Template Tags<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s better to use the Blocks or Widgets if you can. But if you really want (or need) to use the template tags, here are the details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sm_list_popular_searches()<\/code> template tag displays a list of the 5 most popular successful search terms on your site during the last 30 days. Each term is a hyperlink; readers can click the search term to show the results for that search. Here are some examples of using this template tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sm_list_popular_searches()<\/code>
Show a simple list of the 5 most popular recent successful search terms, hyperlinked to the actual search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sm_list_popular_searches('<h2>Popular Searches<\/h2>')<\/code>
Show the list as above, with the heading “Popular Searches”. If there have been no successful searches, then this tag displays no heading and no list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sm_list_popular_searches('<li><h2>Popular Searches<\/h2>', '<\/li>')<\/code>
Show the headed list as above; this form of the tag should be used in the default WordPress theme. Put it in the sidebar.php<\/code> file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sm_list_popular_searches('<code><li><h2>Popular Searches<\/h2>', '<\/li>'<\/code>, 10)<\/code>
This is the same as the above, but it shows the 10 most popular searches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sm_list_recent_searches()<\/code>
Show a simple list of the 5 most recent successful search terms, hyperlinked to the actual search results. You can also use the same options as for the sm_list_popular_searches<\/code> tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you add these to your theme, wrap them in a function_exists<\/code> call so your theme won’t break if you deactivate Search Meter. It should look something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if (function_exists('sm_list_popular_searches')) {\n    sm_list_popular_searches();\n}<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Problems, questions or requests?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If your WordPress installation is (very) old, you may be affected by a WordPress bug that stops multi-word search links from working in Recent Searches or Popular Searches. For more information and a way to fix the problem, see my Search Fixer<\/a> plugin to ensure the search links always work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contribute<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The source code is maintained on the Search Meter github repository<\/a>. You know the drill: fork, hack, send a pull request, and bask in the warm glow of satisfaction that is open source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you find any problems, please let me know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this page. You can also leave a comment if you have any questions about how it works, or if you would like to request a feature.<\/p>\n
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