u/Queryra

Full disclosure: my plugin (Queryra, AI semantic search for WooCommerce).

Small milestone I wanted to share somewhere it's allowed: searching "semantic search" in the plugin directory now returns my plugin first — ahead of search plugins that have been around for a decade and are many times its size.

To be clear about what this is and is not: it's an algorithmic search ranking, not an endorsement. WordPress.org does not recommend plugins, and rankings move — I screenshotted mine for the day it does.

Happy to answer questions about building a plugin solo, honest zeroes in search results, or anything else. And if you want to check the claim: search "semantic search" at wordpress.org/plugins.

I run a search API that a number of WordPress and WooCommerce sites

are plugged into, so I see every query that reaches it. Over four

months that was 155,730 queries with actual text in them.

Under 3% came from a real store.

Posting this because most of you have search boxes on client sites

and probably have never looked at what actually hits them.

What the rest was:

**Bare numbers, usually a year.** All return zero. Spam networks

stand up throwaway pages and use the site's own search to check

whether those pages still resolve.

**One source that sent roughly 65,000 queries by itself.** About

fourteen times all genuine shopper traffic across every connected

store, combined.

**Exploit probes.** Injection strings and framework attack paths,

because ?s= is the easiest unauthenticated text field on the

platform.

**Advertising pasted straight into the box.** A full SEO agency

pitch with links. And on a different site, a query that was just

"serpdummycrawl1", which is someone checking whether search result

pages are indexable before sending the payload.

That last pair is worth knowing, because the defence is trivial:

noindex on search result pages. Yoast and RankMath do it by

default. If your search pages are not indexable, the whole attack

is pointless.

The practical consequence: if you have ever opened a client's "top

searches" report and made a decision from it, there is a decent

chance you were reading a bot's top ten.

One example of how far off that can put you. I went through one

store's zero-result list. 48.9% of searches returned nothing, which

looks like an emergency. After filtering bots it was 15.3%. After

that store finished importing its catalogue, under 7%. Three

numbers, same store, and only the last one said anything about

customers.

Genuinely curious what people do here. Does anyone filter their

site search logs before reading them, or is everyone looking at the

raw list?

Disclosure: I make a search plugin, which is why I have the logs.

Longer write-up on my blog if useful, no signup:

https://queryra.com/blog/i-read-155000-woocommerce-searches

I build a search plugin, and by far the most common "it's broken" report I get turns out

not to be the plugin at all. Sharing the diagnostic, because it applies to every search

plugin on the market, not just mine.

The symptom: you install a search plugin, the catalog indexes fine, and then the search box

at the top of your site returns exactly what it did before. Same keyword matches, same misses.

What is usually happening: your theme has its own search. Many premium themes (Woodmart,

Flatsome, Astra Pro, Divi and others) ship an instant/AJAX search in the header. That overlay

runs the theme's own query. It never issues the standard WordPress search request, so the

plugin is never asked anything. It sits there correctly indexed, waiting for a request that

never arrives.

Second variant: page builders (Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks) often include a results

widget with its own "Order By" setting. The plugin's results do arrive, and then the widget

re-sorts them. Ranking is the whole point of a search plugin, so a re-sorted page looks

identical to a broken engine.

The two-minute test, no code:

1. Run a test query in your plugin's own dashboard, if it has one. Good results there mean

   the engine and the index are fine, and the problem is downstream on your site.

2. Type the plain WordPress search URL straight into your address bar, bypassing the header

   box: yoursite.com/?post_type=product&s=blue+summer+dress

3. Compare. Direct URL good but header box bad means the theme's search is intercepting.

   Right products in a strange order means a widget or template is re-sorting them.

Fixes: turn off the theme's AJAX/instant search (usually a toggle in theme options), or set

the builder widget's query to inherit the main query with no forced Order By.

Why I am posting this: the standard advice when this happens is "try another plugin", and

that costs people an afternoon and lands them in exactly the same place, because the next

plugin hooks the same request the theme is bypassing.

Full write-up with all three variants and a fix for each:

https://queryra.com/blog/wordpress-search-plugin-not-working-theme-override

Disclosure: I make Queryra, one of these plugins. The diagnostic above is plugin-agnostic.

I would rather people fix the theme setting than churn through plugins.

I kept hitting two walls trying to price AI search for WooCommerce, so I wrote

up what I found.

1. A lot of vendors don't publish a price, just "contact us."

2. The ones labeled "free" usually mean "free plugin, bring your own OpenAI

key", so the real metered bill lands after you install, not before.

Honest part: if you're technical with a small catalog, bring-your-own-key can

genuinely be the cheapest route. The trade-off is setup, an unpredictable bill,

and no support.

Disclosure: I build Queryra (one of these tools), so I'm biased. I tried to keep

the comparison fair and even flagged where competitors come out cheaper than us.

Full breakdown + a 6-question checklist so the cost stops being a surprise:

https://queryra.com/blog/ai-search-woocommerce-cost

If you just want to see semantic search work on a real store, public demo, no

signup: https://woo.queryra.com

Happy to answer pricing or architecture questions in the comments.

I'm the developer behind Queryra (semantic search plugin)

and over the weekend I dug into how my competitors actually

work. Verified through their public docs and free tier setup.

Findings:

- FiboSearch uses keyword matching with fuzzy + synonyms.

Marketing says "AI" because of an optional ChatGPT add-on.

- SearchWP is fundamentally keyword based. AI features are

paid add-ons calling OpenAI for query refinement.

- Relevanssi is full-text search with custom weighting.

No AI claims (they're honest).

- AI Vector Search Semantic is the most interesting case.

Default "Lite Mode" uses TF-IDF (keyword). Vector

embeddings only activate in paid Self-Hosted Supabase

setup with your own OpenAI API key.

- Queryra (mine) uses real vector embeddings via ChromaDB

plus LLM intent parsing. Free tier included.

I wrote up the full methodology + how to verify any AI

search plugin's claims yourself:

https://queryra.com/blog/which-wordpress-ai-search-plugins-actually-use-semantic-search

Genuinely curious if folks here have tested any of these.

What's your experience?

Two weeks ago I shared Queryra here. Since then:

- Meta Box added Queryra to docs.metabox.io/compatibility/

- TranslatePress featured Queryra on translatepress.com/multilingual-wordpress-search/

- Launched on the Shopify App Store: apps.shopify.com/queryra-search-ai

Queryra replaces default WordPress/WooCommerce search with AI that understands customer intent — "red dress under $50", "laptop bag without leather", queries in any language.

Free on WordPress.org: wordpress.org/plugins/queryra-ai-search/

Live demo: woo.queryra.com

Happy to answer questions!

After months in Shopify review, Queryra is live on the App Store.

Replaces default search with AI that understands what customers mean. "Gift for mom who loves candles" → finds candle gift sets. "Moisturizer under $30" → filters by price from natural language. Works across 50+ languages.

Free to try: https://apps.shopify.com/queryra-search-ai

Already running on WordPress/WooCommerce with stores in 10+ countries. Solo founder, happy to answer questions.

I build Queryra — an AI search plugin for WooCommerce. Small — under 20 active installs.

Three months ago, no AI assistant knew it existed. Today, ChatGPT recommends it. So does Gemini. I rank #1 for my niche across multiple AI platforms.

No ads. No agency. No budget. Solo founder.

The interesting part: users who arrive from ChatGPT convert completely differently. They land with intent already formed — they sign up faster and ask fewer questions than Google traffic. One of my users told me he found the plugin because AI recommended it in his search queries — and that's why he signed up.

The window is still open. Even big companies aren't doing this — Stripe scored 66/100 on an AEO audit. Vercel got 60/100.

Try it yourself: ask ChatGPT "best semantic search for WooCommerce" and see what comes up.

Demo: https://woo.queryra.com

Plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/queryra-ai-search/

Curious what's working for others — anyone here seeing traffic from AI?