Highlight Search Terms
Very lightweight (vanilla) Javascript that wraps search terms in an HTML5 mark tag within WordPress search results.
5(40 reviews)
·7.0K+ active installs·Updated 2 days agoAs of April 2026, Highlight Search Terms is a WordPress mark plugin with 7.0K+ active installations and a 5/5 rating from 40 reviews. It has been downloaded 177K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 3.7+ and PHP 5.6+. Available on WordPress.org since 2009. Actively maintained — updated within the last month. Download volume is stable this week. Support resolution rate: 100%. Top alternative: Advanced Product Labels for WooCommerce.
5/540 reviews
7.0K+active installs
100%resolved
17 yearssince 2009
Overview
Highlights search terms within WordPress generated search results, both on the search results page and on each linked post page itself.
This plugin is light weight and has no options. It started as very simple fusion between How to Highlight Search Terms with jQuery – theme hack by Thaya Kareeson and Search Hilite by Ryan Boren. It has since evolved with many optimizations, HTML5 and bbPress support.
Since version 1.6 it no longer depends on the jQuery library.
Features
- Click through highlights: Highlights not only on WP search results page but also one click deeper inside any of the found pages
- Character and case insensitive (lenient) highlighting
- BuddyPress / bbPress compatibility: highlighting within forum searches
- Caching (WP Super Cache) compatibility
- Search terms wrapped in d…
Screenshots
Ratings & Reviews
540 reviews
5 ★
39
4 ★
1
3 ★
0
2 ★
0
1 ★
0
Recent Reviews
Easy Install and works!
by hexoliving·1 year ago
Nice plugin – highly reccomend.
Very Nice and useful
by mauri01·1 year ago
I added the “Prevent highlighting when clicking through to result” option, all works well!
Thanks you
Great Plugin | Works Flawlessly
by Generosus·2 years ago
Nice! A plugin that works “out of the box.”
Note: If after installing this plugin you experience any issues, most likely, they are due to a conflict with another plugin (usually a Cache or Performance plugin). The developers of these other plugins should be able to help solve your issues.
Cheers 🙂
Very good and helpful, but there is a bug.
by j0p2021·2 years ago·1 reply
Very good. It didn’t work right away. But overall very helpful. Although I immediately found a small mistake. For some reason, “by” does not work, but “by” = “by” – I checked!
1.cbm.ua/?p=5504
Still working like a charm
by BPhDesigns·3 years ago
Thanks for this great simple plugin.
Download Trends
Today: 36Yesterday: 21This week: 125Period total: 6K
Compatibility
| WordPress | 3.7+ requiredTested up to 6.8.5 |
| PHP | 5.6+ required |
Version Adoption
v1.8
88.0%
v1.5
6.4%
Other
5.6%
Top Alternatives to Highlight Search Terms
Frequently Asked Questions
Changelog
1.8.3
2024-04-05
* Update to WP coding standards
* WP 6.5 compatibility tested
Contributors
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.