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Super Speedy Search

Speeds up front-end and wp-admin search

5.0 · 14 reviews

Shoppers leave when search is slow, irrelevant or cannot find the words they use. Super Speedy Search replaces WordPress's table-scanning search with a dedicated index, then lets you control what matches and what ranks first.

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Your site grew. Search did not grow with it.

A large WooCommerce catalogue adds products, variations, SKUs, attributes and categories. A publishing site adds years of headlines, excerpts, authors and article text. WordPress still has to search all of it.

What breaks as searchable content grows

Broad searches inspect too much content
WordPress wildcard searches cannot use a normal database index. Every new product or article adds more work to common queries.
Weak matches bury useful results
A passing mention in body copy should not compete evenly with an exact product title, headline, category, brand or SKU match.
Real searches do not look like clean database tokens
Visitors type short codes, partial words, punctuation-heavy SKUs and joined forms such as tshirt, Wi-Fi, M.2 and ABC123.

Let shoppers and readers search the way they think

A shopper should be able to type the SKU printed on a box and reach the product. A reader should be able to enter an abbreviation, partial headline or punctuation-heavy term and reach the right article. You should be able to see why one result ranked above another and change the rules when the ordering does not suit the site.

What better search looks like

  • Products remain findable. Shoppers can search titles, categories, brands, attributes, product metadata and variation SKUs.
  • Articles remain findable. Readers can search substantial text libraries without relying on an exact stored headline.
  • The right matches rise first. Separate weights for titles, taxonomies, metadata and content let the result order reflect the site.
  • You keep control of the engine. The index stays in the WordPress database, with no metered search service or per-query fee.

What customers found after changing search

The walkthrough shows Super Speedy Search with Scalability Pro on a large WooCommerce site. The reviews below are published customer reviews, kept in their original wording.

“I had that search up and running in minutes. It works really well, its fast and it does everything you would want (& more) from a search plugin.”

Sarah Large

“That is the best search plugin on the market and I can guarantee that – I have tried pretty much everything.”

piltchev

“After testing many pro search plugin, we found that SuperSpeedSearch was the only that could handle the amount of our products (300k+)!”

marinblu0000

How Super Speedy Search produces those results

Each fix below starts with the result a visitor or site operator needs, then names the search technology that produces it.

Find products however the SKU is typed
Three indexed punctuation forms handle separated and joined spellings. Optional Strict SKU search checks the original metadata when punctuation must remain literal.
Keep expensive ranking work bounded
Prioritise Recent Items searches a recent window first. Large Product Catalogue limits full weighted product ranking to a configurable candidate set, 5,000 by default. MySQL and MariaDB FULLTEXT return the highest-relevance matches first, so SSS fully weights the strongest candidates instead of sorting the entire loose-match set.
Put the strongest matches first
Set separate per-post-type weights for titles, taxonomies, content, metadata values and selected meta rules.
Guide visitors before they submit
AJAX results, suggested searches and taxonomy-combination destinations appear while the visitor types.
Keep each search box in the right section
Restrict a search box to selected taxonomy terms, the current archive or its top-level category, including child terms.
Find WooCommerce orders without scanning everything
The HPOS order index covers customer details, addresses, line items, product and variation SKUs, VAT numbers and order numbers.

How SSS handles the queries FULLTEXT misses

FULLTEXT handles the fast first pass. SSS routes recent-first searches, broad catalogue terms, short tokens, punctuation-heavy terms and literal SKU searches through purpose-built query paths.

Advanced search paths for difficult queries

  • Prioritise Recent Items. Search a configurable recent window first, fall back to the unrestricted index when it cannot fill the result set, and let visitors explicitly search older items when the recent page is full.
  • Large Product Catalogue. For broad, loose product queries, MySQL and MariaDB FULLTEXT return the highest-relevance matches first. SSS takes the first configurable candidate set, 5,000 by default, then applies the complete configured weighting and final order to that bounded set.
  • Short-token routing. One- and two-character tokens that MySQL FULLTEXT normally ignores are carried into dedicated LIKE conditions, while longer tokens still use the FULLTEXT index.
  • Quoted short tokens. Short tokens inside quoted searches use word-boundary checks, so an exact phrase can include terms below MySQL’s normal minimum token length.
  • Three punctuation forms. Indexed text carries boundary-preserving, space-separated and joined variants, so searches such as tshirt, t-shirt, wifi, wi-fi and ABC123 can reach the same underlying item.
  • Strict SKU option. When punctuation must remain literal, the optional strict mode narrows through FULLTEXT first and then checks the original, unnormalised metadata to remove punctuation-normalisation collisions.

Invest in Speed

Yearly plans include a year of updates and support and the plugin keeps working afterwards – renew at 30% off. Upgrade to a lifetime plan within 60 days and just pay the difference. Backed by our 60-day money-back guarantee.

1 Site

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 1 Site License
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
BUY YEARLY
Most Popular

5 Sites

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 5 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
BUY YEARLY

25 Sites

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 25 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
BUY YEARLY
Most Popular

5 Sites

Only 83 remaining at this price!
  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 5 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
Buy Lifetime

25 Sites

  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 25 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
Buy Lifetime

250 Sites

  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 250 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 2 support seats – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
Buy Lifetime

Start with the plan you need today.

If you need more sites later, move up without buying the plugin twice.

60 days

to try it properly

Ask for a full refund within 60 days of purchase, for any reason.

Upgrade and pay the difference

Within 60 days, your original payment counts in full towards a larger plan, including lifetime.

1 site yearly €795 sites lifetime €279= €200 more

Example based on our €79 yearly and €279 lifetime plans.

Upgrading later? You still get credit after 60 days, though the credit reduces over time on yearly plans.

How do yearly renewals work?

A yearly licence includes one year of updates and support. The plugin keeps working after that. Renewal for further updates and support is optional. Renew before or within one month after expiry for 30% off, within six months for 20% off, or later for 10% off. Full terms

Agency or hosting company? Get in touch for custom pricing

Watch results appear while the shopper types

The animation shows suggestions and matching results appearing before the shopper submits the search. It demonstrates the interaction rather than a controlled speed test.

Figure 1 – The live AJAX dropdownGIF of Super Speedy Search dropdown displaying instant search suggestions and results
Suggestions and matching products appear as the visitor types, with no page reload
The live ajax dropdown
Suggestions, taxonomy matches and product results all appear in this dropdown as the visitor types, using the plugin’s indexed AJAX search path rather than the default WordPress search.

Tune relevance to the way you sell

Set title, taxonomy, content and metadata weights separately for each post type. Test representative terms, map known equivalents with synonyms, then use Top Searches to find queries that still need work.

Figure 2 – Weight settings per post typeConfigure Super Speedy Search weights per post type
Per-post-type relevance weight controls
Weight settings per post type
The settings screen behind the weighting described above, with a separate panel for every post type, so a title match on a product can be scored differently to a title match on an article.

Check the fit before you buy

Super Speedy Search is a good fit when

  • Default WordPress or WooCommerce search gets slower as the catalogue or content grows.
  • Shoppers need results while typing, not only after submitting a search page.
  • You need deliberate relevance weighting across titles, taxonomies, content and product metadata.
  • You prefer an index stored on your own site without an external search subscription.

What it deliberately does not do

  • No fuzzy matching or automatic typo correction. Prefix matching means dres can find “dress”; drees will not. Add synonyms for known misspellings.
  • No zero-maintenance external service. The local index must be built and kept current. Normal and full rebuild modes let you choose whether suggestions are rebuilt too.
  • No promise of one universal response time. Search speed depends on hosting, database, index size, query and configuration.
  • No claim of verified WPML support. Polylang has explicit language handling; WPML is not currently verified.

Figure 3 – Per-post-type display settingsScreenshot of all the different config settings for Ajax post types in Super Speedy Search.
Per-post-type AJAX result display controls
Per-post-type display settings
Each post type gets its own row here: grid or list view, how many results to show, and where the “see all” link goes. Products and articles can be configured completely differently.

Super Speedy Search Knowledge Base

View full Knowledge Base →

What's new in Super Speedy Search?

View full changelog →
5.95.0 (28th October 2026)
  • Fixed products and posts saved in the first hour after installing not appearing in search, on sites with a persistent object cache such as Redis.
  • Faster strict SKU searches for words with an apostrophe, such as "Women's", which are now searched as ordinary words, and a SKU containing an apostrophe, such as QF-6'-STEP, now finds only that SKU under strict SKU search.
  • Fixed Ajax dropdown prices showing too few decimals, such as 48 as "48€" and 48.05 as "48,5€", when Fast Ajax runs without WooCommerce selected.
  • Rewrote the wp-admin user search so security scanners such as Jetpack Scan no longer flag it.
  • Fixed the wp-admin user search with a role filter selected, and the Quick Edit author list on a searched Posts screen, when Override User Search is on.
  • Fixed results that tie on relevance and title, such as two products with the same name, coming back in a different order from one identical search to the next; ties are now ordered by ID, so the dropdown and each results page always show the same items.
  • Faster searches for possessive words such as "Women's", "Men's" or "Kids'", which now find the same products without an extra phrase search; relevance scores for these searches are slightly lower.
  • Fixed product searches returning no results, with the database error "isn't in GROUP BY", when the database runs with ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY and variations are not grouped under their product, for every sort order including price.
  • Faster searches when Meta Weight is switched off or a weighted field's factor is 0: that field's full-text match is no longer run, and scores are unchanged.
  • Added "Score each weighted field with one full-text match instead of two" under Large Catalogues and Archives, which is faster on broad searches but changes relevance scores; off by default.
  • Faster relevance searches with many results: the posts table is now read only for the results on the requested page, with the same results, order and totals.
  • Added a Cancel Superseded Searches setting beside Fast Ajax, off by default: while a shopper types, each keystroke's dropdown search stops the previous keystroke's database query for that search box, with an optional time limit for any dropdown search (off unless you set one); a dropdown search it stops is recorded in the PHP error log with its post type, time taken and the limit.
  • Added the setting "Skip searches made only of words shorter than 3 characters" under Large Catalogues and Archives, off by default: when ticked, a search such as "re" or "xs" returns no products instead of reading the whole index, while "dress xl" and "cable 2m" still match as before.
  • Added Taxonomy Term Meta Exclusions to the Main settings tab, so category, brand and attribute searches can ignore term meta such as image IDs, social image URLs and SEO plugin settings; new installs get a recommended list, existing sites keep searching all term meta until you press Use the recommended list, save and rebuild. Developers can add keys with the sspsss_term_meta_excluded_keys filter. Rank Math and SEOPress SEO titles and descriptions stay searchable with exclusions in use, without their template variables such as %sep% or %%sitetitle%%.

Frequently asked questions

Does it correct spelling mistakes?
No. It supports prefix matching and synonyms, but not fuzzy matching, Levenshtein matching or automatic typo correction. Configure common misspellings as synonyms where needed.
What database does it require?
The search model uses MySQL FULLTEXT in BOOLEAN MODE. It requires MySQL 8.0 or newer, or MariaDB 10.2.2 or newer.
Does it require WooCommerce?
No. WooCommerce has deep integration, but you can index and search other WordPress post types too.
Can I restrict a search box to part of the site?
Yes. Restrict it to one or more taxonomy terms, the current archive or the current top-level category. Child terms are included.
How is the index rebuilt?
Use the wp-admin controls, wp sss rebuild, or the guarded SQL export. A normal rebuild keeps an existing suggestions table; a full rebuild recreates it.
Will search stop during a rebuild?
The plugin builds through staging and temporary tables so the live index remains available while the replacement is prepared.
Is there a free trial?
There is no free trial. Purchases are covered by a 60-day money-back guarantee, subject to the refund policy.
What happens when a yearly licence expires?
The installed plugin keeps working. A yearly plan includes one year of updates and support; renewal restores continued access to both.
What is the difference between Prioritise Recent Items and Large Product Catalogue?
Prioritise Recent Items is date-driven: it searches a configured recent period first, then falls back to the unrestricted index if there are not enough results. Large Product Catalogue is product-volume-driven: it takes a configurable number of the highest-relevance raw FULLTEXT matches, 5,000 by default, then performs the complete weighted ranking against that bounded set. The two settings are independent.
Can it find one- and two-character search terms?
Yes. Tokens below MySQL FULLTEXT’s normal three-character threshold are handled through dedicated LIKE conditions and can be combined with longer FULLTEXT tokens. Short tokens inside quoted phrases use word-boundary checks. This covers searches shaped like M.2, Wi-Fi 6 and segmented SKUs such as AB-12-93.
How does it handle punctuation-heavy SKUs and joined words?
The index stores three searchable forms of punctuation-bearing text, including a joined form. That lets tshirt find “T-shirt”, wifi find “Wi-Fi” and ABC123 find ABC-123. Mid-SKU components can also match. If punctuation differences must never collide, enable Strict SKU search to check the original metadata after FULLTEXT has narrowed the candidates.
Better together

Works well with

Some combinations get a bigger discount than others. Add this set to your basket to see its price.

Super Speedy Imports icon, purple corner-radial gradient Super Speedy Imports External Images icon, purple corner-radial gradient External Images Scalability Pro icon, rocket glyph on purple corner-radial gradient Scalability Pro Super Speedy Filters icon, teal corner-radial gradient Super Speedy Filters Auto Infinite Scroll icon, purple corner-radial gradient Auto Infinite Scroll
Add all to basket - see price Explore all solutions

14 reviews for Super Speedy Search

  1. Michael A. (verified owner) –

    Super Speedy Search + Scalability Pro are an amazing combo for any WooCommerce site. The Ajax search of Super Speedy Search is a game changer that can make your site stand out from others and also get users to the correct item amazingly fast. I also highly recommend Super Speedy Imports if you have any recurring import jobs. We had an import that took over an hour that now takes less than 3 minutes. No exaggeration. Over 8000 items fully updated in just a few minutes. Truly Amazing!

  2. Sarah L. (verified owner) –

    I already use a couple of products from Dave so when I need a good search plugin for a busy ecom website I didn’t need to look any further. I am not as techy as some of the people here, but I had that search up and running in minutes. It works really well, its fast and it does everything you would want (& more) from a search plugin. Excellent – thank you

  3. John Koenig (verified owner) –

    Game changing plugin with fantastic and responsive support. Our operation is currently small in scope when compared to other sites powered by Super Speed Search, however, we now have the confidence that we can continue to grow our catalog without destroying Woo’s performance.

  4. alan m. (verified owner) –

    Awesome support and a great product – I had trouble using the product and Dave went out of his way to help and to get it working for me. Highly recommended – great plugin for search. Thank you

  5. Timothy L. (verified owner) –

    This is really a game-changer for searching (products in my case) faster. It dropped a product search from 45 sec+ to 2-3 sec in combination with Scalability Pro. This is used on a website with 3000 products and as much variation. When you want to make your search faster, this is the plugin you need!

  6. Daelmir –

    Dave managed to achieve a full integration with my Woodmart e-commerce theme. On a store with thousands of products, product search is crucial, and speed is a precious asset. Previously, with Woodmart’s AJAX search, results took on average 2 to 3 seconds to load — now, thanks to Dave’s work, the search is instant. I highly recommend Speedy Search and thank David for what he has done!

  7. Zlati Z. (verified owner) –

    That is the best search plugin on the market and I can guarantee that – I have tried pretty much everything. I have a website with over 500k posts and I got to the point that I was thinking of removing my search bar. SSS is the way to go! Ordering and giving weights to search is easy, AJAX speeds are incredible. Thank you for making this plugin!

  8. Michel N. (verified owner) –

    After using 2 other plugins from Super Speedy Plugins, our choice for a new search plugin easily fell to Super Speedy Search: fast and immediate support and of course amazing speed!

    I also use Scalability Pro and Infinite Scroll, so when our previous search plugin provider raised prices 50-fold, we needed a new search plugin. Knowing that this existed, it was a quick and painless switch to Super Speedy Search as it would also improve back-end search, something we were struggling with as with about 35.000 products it wasn’t always as fast as we wanted it

  9. Mark F. –

    This is precisely the search plugin you need for your WooCommerce website. It performs well with our 50,000+ product catalogue.
    Support from Dave and his team has been excellent and any issues are resolved quickly.
    Thats 5 stars from me!

  10. Justin Murray –

    Incredible woocommerce search plugin, performs great, support is fast if needed, and integrates well into my theme.

  11. Andrew G. (verified owner) –

    I have been using Super Speedy Filters few years now and would recommend it to anyone running a large WooCommerce store. The filters are rapid compared to default WordPress ones and support is second to none. 10/10

  12. Andrew G. (verified owner) –

    I have been using Scalability Pro (also made by WP Intense) for a good few years now with no complaints and recently added Super Speedy Search and their Super Speedy Filters to our site.

    Super Speedy Search is working great on our site which has a hundred or so products, but the products have quite a lot of variations on them. Previously loading the full search results page was getting quite slow. Now with Super Speedy Search, when the customer hits enter or clicks to see all of the products from their search results it displays that page much quicker than any other plugin we have used previously. I’m very pleased with this, it is like some sort of performance wizardry!

    Customer service is great too and being able to get help from the discord server is very quick and convenient.

  13. Kostas M. (verified owner) –

    Amazing plugin to create comprehensive and the fastest search for WP.
    It looks great and does exactly what the information says it will!

    After testing many pro search plugin, we found that SuperSpeedSearch was the only that could handle the amount of our products (300k+)!

    The support we received was fantastic–very timely and helpful! Any question & problem we’ve had has been answered & resolved.

    We were looking for a very advanced plugin and this plugin has helped us do just about everything we were looking for and more.

    Keep going wpintense team!!!

  14. Shawn T. (verified owner) –

    Our current WP websites have been really laggy and despite switching to more powerful servers, we kept encountering bottlenecks until we found WPI.

    We are currently using Super Speedy Search + Scalability Pro and it has been phenomenal with the performance improvements!

    Across 2 of our websites on 1 server, we are looking at 90k MAU with 6k products total.

    Dave has also been a great help with any bugs during the setup process – really speedy response and he sure knows what he is doing!

Add a review

Invest in Speed

Yearly plans include a year of updates and support and the plugin keeps working afterwards – renew at 30% off. Upgrade to a lifetime plan within 60 days and just pay the difference. Backed by our 60-day money-back guarantee.

1 Site

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 1 Site License
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
BUY YEARLY
Most Popular

5 Sites

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 5 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
BUY YEARLY

25 Sites

  • Yearly licence – 1 year of updates and support, keeps working afterwards
  • 25 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
BUY YEARLY
Most Popular

5 Sites

Only 83 remaining at this price!
  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 5 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
Buy Lifetime

25 Sites

  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 25 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 1 support seat – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
Buy Lifetime

250 Sites

  • Lifetime licence – updates and support for life
  • 250 Site Licenses
  • Instant as-you-type search
  • Category, brand & attribute suggestions
  • 2 support seats – chat live with our engineers on Discord
  • Priority support
Buy Lifetime

Start with the plan you need today.

If you need more sites later, move up without buying the plugin twice.

60 days

to try it properly

Ask for a full refund within 60 days of purchase, for any reason.

Upgrade and pay the difference

Within 60 days, your original payment counts in full towards a larger plan, including lifetime.

1 site yearly €795 sites lifetime €279= €200 more

Example based on our €79 yearly and €279 lifetime plans.

Upgrading later? You still get credit after 60 days, though the credit reduces over time on yearly plans.

How do yearly renewals work?

A yearly licence includes one year of updates and support. The plugin keeps working after that. Renewal for further updates and support is optional. Renew before or within one month after expiry for 30% off, within six months for 20% off, or later for 10% off. Full terms

Agency or hosting company? Get in touch for custom pricing

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