WP Search with Algolia

An excellent way to get Algolia search working on a WordPress site. Easy index setup and auto-synching out of the box with the free version. Impressive!

I was benchmarking an alternate plugin on a website with thousands of products, and we ended up sitting with over 1 million lines in a table that was used to index search results. Not exactly sustainable, and not fast. Since switching to this plugin we have enjoyed, in some cases, under 100ms response times to auto-complete searches.

I did have to splurge for the pro version due to needing to upload product data from WooCommerce, but again. 100ms. An external server handles the search overhead so your site doesn’t need to do any heavy lifting. You can log into Algolia and manage the ranking and re-ranking criteria, search parameters, and how it looks in the results.

Suitably impressed.

When I say this plugin drastically improved my site’s search speed, it’s an understatement. My website would take anywhere between 15 to over 30 seconds to load search results. This was AFTER image optimization, caching, and plugin cleanup.

After Algolia though, my products popup probably less than two seconds after search. It also wasn’t super difficult to setup. The only downside which is understandable is the fact that the more premium WooCommerce features are paid. Still I would happily recommend this plugin to anyone looking for faster search.

It doesn’t work with flatsome theme.

1. autocomplete/livesearch is not working. Basically the wordpress autocomplete is used instead of algolia.

2. If you try to implement “instant search” it looks totally broken out of box design wise. Not only that but you don’t get the “instant search”. You still have to press “enter” to get any result.

3. Obviously it’s not working with woocommerce not even in a trial mode. I didn’t buy the woocommerce/pro version because the standard version failed to work (see above).

This is effectively a continuation of the official Algolia WordPress plugin that Algolia abandoned in favor of focusing on their main product/services. Thankfully, WebDevStudios stepped up to the plate and released this plugin to keep it alive with their own set of updates & ongoing support.

I’ve been using this plugin since the very beginning (having used the official plugin from Algolia before that) and it’s been a seamless transition with it being straightforward to use & customize if/when needed in these past years, for example having custom facets/filters being added to the search results page template / allowing linking to a specific set of search filters & queries / etc. which then uses the official Algolia implementation for that aspect of things so it’s well documented (this also then shows a warning in the site admin if/when a customized search template in the theme is then left using an outdated version which might warrant being checked and/or updated as needed [then updating the version stated in that template file to get rid of that notice in that process.])

Developer support for this plugin has always been receptive & responsive when it comes to both bug fixes as well as potential features to add in a future update.

I find it difficult to try to find a better value and/or better overall search provider for WordPress than Algolia, and at that point, there doesn’t look to be a better method to integrate it with a site quickly & effectively than what this plugin provides (easy to get up and running while customizable in the ways one would expect if/when needed.)