Super Speedy Search changelog

Speeds up front-end and wp-admin search

Latest version5.96.2
Released3 November 2026
Last 90 days45 releases
Last 90 days181 changes
Tested up toWordPress 7.1
Product page
What Super Speedy Search does, what it costs and who it is for.
Knowledge base
Setup guides, how-tos and troubleshooting for Super Speedy Search.
Discord support
Ask a question in the Super Speedy Search channel and get an answer from Dave.
Downloads & licence
Grab the latest build or check your licence and renewal status.

5.96.23 November 2026

  • Updated super-speedy-settings to 1.14.5 creating the MCP connection now needs permission to add users, so a multisite sub-site administrator cannot create the agent account when the network does not allow it.

5.96.12 November 2026

  • Fixed live search returning "Too many search requests" to shoppers behind Sucuri, QUIC.cloud, Bunny or Fastly, which now limit each visitor by their own address.

5.96.02 November 2026

  • Fixed a post_type in the search URL matching post types that are not searchable, such as WooCommerce coupons.
  • Fixed password-protected posts appearing in search results and live search excerpts for visitors who have not entered the password.
  • Fixed search terms in the Search Analytics table, meta key names in the Meta Search list, search box shortcode attributes and combination suggestion names being read as HTML.
  • The Relevance Coach and the sss/test-query ability now search only searchable post types, and the coach saves only published posts to its history.
  • Fixed WooCommerce order searches with another filter, such as wc_get_orders() with customer, returning orders outside that filter; those searches now use WooCommerce's own order query.
  • New setting Limit long searches to their first 20 words, on by default: a front-end or live search longer than 20 words or 256 bytes searches its first 20 words, with no error shown.
  • Live search requests are limited to 300 a minute per visitor on sites with a persistent object cache such as Redis, answering HTTP 429 beyond that; sites without one are not limited.
  • Search Analytics now removes terms searched only once and not seen for 90 days, and keeps every term with a redirect or cache rule.
  • Fixed a saved meta key containing an apostrophe causing a database syntax error in index rebuilds, and in searches when Split meta search is on.
  • Escaped the remaining settings page values.
  • Updated super-speedy-settings to 1.14.4, which no longer ships the update checker's developer build script.

5.95.129 October 2026

  • Updated super-speedy-settings to 1.14.3 update downloads now send the licence key in a request header instead of the download URL.

5.95.028 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%%.

5.94.026 October 2026

  • Fixed taxonomy suggestions listing each category, brand or attribute term once per configured taxonomy for searches with only 1 or 2 character words, such as "xs" or "re".

5.93.024 October 2026

  • Fixed a rebuild still starting at the scheduled time after the Tables Rebuild Schedule was switched off, on sites that saved the schedule before updating to 5.80.0 or later.

5.92.022 October 2026

  • Faster searches containing a word of 1 or 2 characters, such as "re" or "red d", which now read the title's words from the index instead of working them out for every product; rebuild the index (version 5.52) to get the speed-up, searches work as before until you do.

5.91.022 October 2026

  • Added a separate Fast Ajax plugin list for suggestions, taxonomies and combinations beside the results list, in the existing Fast Ajax setting; suggestions now load only Search and your language plugin, and taxonomies and combinations load the results plugins until you change them.

5.90.022 October 2026

  • Fixed Fast Ajax's built-in stand-in theme not being recognised as a valid theme on sites where WordPress had cached its theme list from wp-admin or WP-CLI, or that register more than one theme folder.

5.89.022 October 2026

  • Fixed wp sspsss rebuild (and wp sss rebuild) sometimes failing with "The generation is not awaiting cancellation." while it took over a background rebuild.
  • Fixed searches containing a word of 1 or 2 characters, such as "zz" or "tz", returning products that do not contain it; short words now match the product title and metadata values such as the SKU, and no longer match descriptions or the product's web address.

5.88.021 October 2026

  • Fixed matching product variations, such as the red variation for "red dress", ranking below matching simple products; variations are now scored with the Products weights.
  • Added a Variation attribute match weight to the Products weights, on by default with factor 50, which ranks a variation whose attribute values, such as "Red" or "Large", contain a search word above simple products that match equally well; attribute names such as "Size" or "Colour" do not earn it. Rebuild the search index once after updating to turn it on.
  • Fixed a search for a punctuated word such as "2-in-1" or "9.7" not finding products where that word follows a bracket or other punctuation, such as "USB-C Adapter (2-in-1)".
  • Fixed a search for a word such as 2-in-1 not finding products where it is wrapped in punctuation, such as ("2-in-1"), or any bracketed word in whole-word mode. Rebuild the search index when prompted to pick this up.

5.87.021 October 2026

  • Fixed a background rebuild started shortly after another was cancelled or taken over by wp sspsss rebuild staying at 0 tasks completed and never starting.
  • Fixed wp sspsss rebuild (and wp sss rebuild) failing while it took over a background rebuild, with "Rebuild ownership changed while cancellation was requested", "Build failed at step-0008: Table '...superspeedysearch_stage_...' doesn't exist" or "Unknown table '...superspeedysearch_stage_...'".
  • Fixed a results-page search containing an apostrophe finding nothing, such as "Carpenter's Square" in quotes or 6' ladder.
  • Fixed a search for a full product title with two or more punctuated words, such as "USB-C Adapter (2-in-1)", finding nothing straight after that product was saved or the index was rebuilt.

5.86.021 October 2026

  • Fixed new and edited WooCommerce orders missing from the admin order search on sites whose WooCommerce order tables use a different collation from the WordPress tables, with the database error "Illegal mix of collations (utf8mb4_bin,NONE) ... for operation 'regexp_replace'". Run wp sspsss rebuild search once after updating to index orders saved before the fix.

5.85.021 October 2026

  • Fixed two simultaneous rebuild starts, or two background rebuild workers, both taking the same lock; exactly one now proceeds.

5.84.020 October 2026

  • Fixed category, tag and WooCommerce order changes saved while a rebuild runs (edits, new ones and deletions) not showing in the search dropdown's category suggestions or the admin order search once the rebuild completes.

5.83.020 October 2026

  • Fixed product and post changes saved while a rebuild runs (edits, new products and deletions) not showing in search once the rebuild completes.
  • Fixed product saves, checkout stock changes and new products waiting for a running rebuild, and failing with "Lock wait timeout exceeded" or "Deadlock found when trying to get lock" on large catalogues.
  • The variation shown for a product in the Show first matching variation, or show parent mode now ranks stock exactly as Super Speedy Filters does while Filters is active, so back-ordered variations and other plugins' custom stock statuses rank with in-stock ones unless Filters' Back-orders stock setting treats back-orders as out of stock.
  • The same choice no longer needs WooCommerce's wc_product_meta_lookup table; without it, the variation is chosen by menu order, then lowest ID.
  • Fixed product search showing an out-of-stock variation when an in-stock variation of the same product also matches, in the Show first matching variation, or show parent mode; the variation shown is now the in-stock one, then by variation menu order, then lowest ID.

5.82.020 October 2026

  • Fixed Search applying a deactivated Super Speedy Filters' Check Stock setting, which showed out-of-stock products in the search dropdown even though WooCommerce hides them.
  • Fixed wp sspsss rebuild reporting "Recovered abandoned CLI generation" or "Cancelled background generation" after the previous rebuild had completed normally.
  • Simplified the rebuild commands to wp sspsss rebuild (search, plus the post-title suggestions only if they have not been built), wp sspsss rebuild all (search and suggestions), wp sspsss rebuild search, wp sspsss rebuild suggestions and wp sspsss rebuild cancel; the paid wp sss rebuild takes the same commands.
  • The Rebuild button, the weekly scheduled rebuild and the rebuild after a Super Speedy Imports import do the same as wp sspsss rebuild, so suggestions that are built are kept; use wp sspsss rebuild all or the new "Rebuild all (including suggestions)" button to rebuild them.
  • Removed the Force Suggestions Rebuild setting; the SSS_FORCE_SUGGESTIONS_REBUILD wp-config constant is ignored.
  • --full and --normal still work in existing cron entries and print the equivalent command.
  • wp sspsss rebuild search also rebuilds the taxonomy combination suggestions.
  • Fixed wp sspsss rebuild suggestions rebuilding the search index instead of the suggestions when the suggestions table existed.

5.81.020 October 2026

  • Fixed Super Speedy Filters' Show Filtered Variations on search results: filtering a product search by an attribute such as colour now shows the matching variation, as it does on shop and category pages, instead of the parent product.

5.80.016 October 2026

  • Renamed the plugin's functions, classes, hooks, options, REST namespace and WP-CLI command from the sss prefix to sspsss, e.g. sss_post_types is now sspsss_post_types, /wp-json/sss/v1/ is now /wp-json/sspsss/v1/ and wp sss rebuild is now wp sspsss rebuild.
  • Settings and the existing index carry over automatically on the first request after updating, and the old names (hooks, $SSS, SSS_VERSION, /wp-json/sss/v1/, wp sss rebuild, admin.php?page=sss) keep working.
  • Moved the settings page to admin.php?page=super-speedy-search.
  • SSS_VERBOSE, SSS_ENABLE_WOOSA and SSS_STOP_WORDS are still read from wp-config.php but no longer defined by the plugin.

5.79.216 October 2026

  • Fixed searches containing a hyphen or apostrophe, such as T-Shirt, USB-C or Carpenter's, returning no results when strict SKU matching is on, unless a product has that text in its SKU or searched metadata.

5.79.18 October 2026

  • Fixed search-only command-line rebuilds returning empty search results when the saved index version was missing or outdated.

5.79.08 October 2026

  • Fixed Ranking Coach Apply and Undo saving built-in default weight rules into the stored Search settings.
  • Fixed PHP warnings logged by searches covering more than one post type, by the Ranking Coach and by Ajax results with no default image set.
  • The Tables Rebuild Schedule now defaults to every Sunday at 05:00 site time, and an enabled schedule is always kept scheduled, including on sites that never saved it.
  • A new rebuild schedule first runs on the coming chosen day rather than a week later.
  • Fixed the Tables Rebuild Schedule not starting a rebuild at the scheduled time.
  • Fixed the old Ultra Ajax helper (wp-content/mu-plugins/sss-fast-ajax.php from 5.65.0 and earlier) staying installed when the plugin is updated by WP-CLI or auto-update; the Fast Ajax helper now replaces it on the next request of any kind.
  • Removed the unused admin-ajax action inlinesss; the search box uses the sss/v1 REST routes.
  • Removed the unused admin-ajax actions get_sss_ajax_panel, get_sss_suggestions and get_sss_taxonomies; the search box uses the sss/v1 REST routes.
  • Removed the unused TGM Plugin Activation library, container polyfill script and two_char_suggestions.json writer.
  • Tidied code to WordPress coding standards: direct-access guards, gmdate(), wp_rand(), wp_json_encode(), consistent line endings and less debug logging.
  • Fixed search analytics date filters, the search caching periods and the SEO search evidence being offset by the site's timezone on sites not set to UTC.

5.78.023 September 2026

  • Fixed posts and pages missing from searches that also include products when WooCommerce hides out-of-stock items.

5.77.323 September 2026

  • Fixed Elevated Search Roles not applying to Ajax search results unless Log users in for REST search calls was enabled.

5.77.223 September 2026

  • Fixed Elevated Search Roles not showing out-of-stock products on the full search results page when WooCommerce hides out-of-stock items.

5.77.118 September 2026

  • Fixed rebuilds stopping with "Duplicate key name" by checking existing indexes immediately before creating them.

5.77.018 September 2026

  • Fixed variation selection and ranking consistency across Ajax, full-page and mixed searches while preserving posts, pages and section limits.
  • Fixed Ajax and full-page ranking consistency with recent-item prioritisation, including cached results and pagination.

5.76.017 September 2026

  • Fixed settings help links for wp-config.php overrides and data deletion.
  • Fixed missing external images in Ajax search results before visiting the product page.
  • Fixed HPOS order searches not finding transaction IDs; rebuild the search index to include existing orders.

5.7515 September 2026

  • Added Save changes, Reset to prior and Reset to default to the Ranking Coach header, with Preview now optional before saving.
  • Fixed Ranking Coach ignoring other unsaved weight changes when adjusting, previewing and applying a result's ranking.
  • Kept Ranking Coach product names and projected scores visible while scrolling the weight controls.
  • Fixed ranking adjustment buttons disappearing behind hovered product cards.
  • Fixed rebuild notice, search toolbar and Plugins Settings links showing "you are not allowed to access this page".
  • Added direct result selection and Adjust ranking to the Coach panel, with clickable score badges and visible actions that do not require hovering products.
  • Fixed Ranking Coach attaching to custom classic, block and WooCommerce search results using its own hidden item markers instead of theme selectors.
  • Updated Ranking Coach with a separate version pill and admin-only notice, and kept its panel closed until reopened from the Search menu.
  • Added Ranking Coach for search managers to inspect scores, preview and apply weight changes, undo edits and track reference results across saved searches.
  • Enabled Ranking Coach by default through the existing admin-bar weights menu, with an Advanced disable switch to restore the legacy viewer instead of a separate settings page.
  • Fixed authorised Search Managers receiving a permission error when saving the Ranking Coach enable setting.
  • Added fractional sliders, exact numeric entry, expandable score evidence and mobile-friendly Ranking Coach controls, including Meta Weight.
  • Added built-in _sss_bonus_weight and _sss_score_multiplier item controls with independent Advanced opt-outs and straight whole-score multiplication.
  • Replaced title-length and age penalties with configurable short-title and freshness bonuses; rebuild the index and review search rankings after upgrading.
  • Added a database-version rebuild warning while keeping existing indexes searchable before rebuilding.
  • Made private Ranking Coach previews retain the current page's category and search restrictions and include items entering the results after a demotion.
  • Fixed Ranking Coach evidence and bonus edits for grouped variation results, including previews where a different variation becomes the best match.
  • Prevented stale previews from being applied after input changes and kept Undo available while edits are saved.
  • Fixed variation score diagnostics failing with ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY and showing contributions from different matching rows.
  • Fixed search rebuilds repeating metadata values for products in multiple categories.
  • Added separate test-candidate builds and release readiness checks.

5.7415 September 2026

  • Added a read-only aggregate search evidence provider for landing-content tools, with explicit limits for context the search log does not collect.

5.7315 September 2026

  • Fixed ascending and descending Date sorting in WooCommerce HPOS order search, including backdated orders and pagination.

5.7214 September 2026

  • Fixed Polylang combination suggestions including categories from another language; rebuild the search index after updating.

5.7114 September 2026

  • Fixed theme Ajax result templates being ignored by REST and Fast Ajax searches.
  • Fixed later search boxes covering an earlier box's Ajax results.

5.7014 September 2026

  • Fixed development test-runner help failing from Git worktrees.

5.6911 September 2026

  • Fixed a disabled Ajax Search Suggestions section appearing beside content results.

5.6810 September 2026

  • Fixed variation score diagnostics failing with ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY and showing contributions from different matching rows.

5.6710 September 2026

  • Fixed search rebuilds repeating metadata values for products in multiple categories.

5.6610 September 2026

  • Added native Search rebuild steps to Super Speedy Imports, including progress, Stop and retry support.
  • Added a scrollable plugin selector to Fast Ajax settings.
  • Improved admin tabs with white padded settings panels and responsive spacing.

5.658 September 2026

  • Fixed Ajax searches enabling verbose debug output without an explicit sss_debug URL parameter.
  • Replaced Ultra Ajax with Fast Ajax, using normal REST requests with selectable plugins and optional theme loading.
  • Search weights now use cached index availability and refresh it after Ajax or CLI rebuilds.
  • Added Meta Weight to adjust how matches in selected custom fields, such as _sku, affect search result order without rebuilding the index.

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