{"id":68445,"date":"2012-01-06T12:17:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T17:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=68445"},"modified":"2022-03-10T23:38:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T23:38:22","slug":"how-to-search-wordpress-site-without-search-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/how-to-search-wordpress-site-without-search-box\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Search a WordPress Site When There\u2019s No Search Box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From time to time, as crazy as it seems, I come across a WordPress site that has no search box. Sometimes it seems to be because the theme itself never included one. But sometimes it seems that the site\u2019s developer just didn\u2019t want one.<\/p>\n<p>When you come across a situation like that, there are two good options for you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#use-wp-search-function-without-search-box\">Use the WordPress Search Function without the Search Box<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#use-google-as-your-search-box\">Use Google as Your Search Box<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"use-wp-search-function-without-search-box\"><strong>Use the WordPress Search Function without the Search Box<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Even though there may be no search box on the site, that doesn\u2019t mean that the WordPress search function has been completely disabled. You will just need to use it in a more manual way.<\/p>\n<p>Simply add the following to the end of the site\u2019s URL in the address bar of your browser:<\/p>\n<pre>?s=keyword<\/pre>\n<p>So, for example, let\u2019s say you\u2019d like to search WPMU.org for plugins. You would type the following in the address bar:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"..\/..\/..\/..\/..\/..\/?s=plugins\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/?s=plugins<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you have more than one keyword, simply add a + sign between the words. For example, instead of just \u201cplugins,\u201d let\u2019s say you wanted to search for \u201ctracking plugins.\u201d You would type the following into the browser:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"..\/..\/..\/..\/..\/..\/?s=tracking+plugins\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/?s=tracking+plugins<\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"use-google-as-your-search-box\"><strong>Use Google as Your Search Box<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Another (and possibly better) way to achieve your search is to use Google as your search box. Simply type in \u201csite:\u201d + the URL of the site + your keyword(s).<\/p>\n<p>Again, using the example of searching WPMU.org for \u201cplugins,\u201d you would use the following search in Google:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=site%3Awpmu.org+plugins&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;aq=t\" target=\"_blank\">site:wpmu.org plugins<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you wanted to search for tracking plugins, you would use the following search:<\/p>\n<pre>site:wpmu.org tracking plugins<\/pre>\n<p>Or even better, search for the exact term \u201ctracking plugins\u201d by putting your keywords in quotation marks:<\/p>\n<pre>site:wpmu.org \"tracking plugins\"<\/pre>\n<p>And that&#8217;s it: two ways to search a WordPress site that has no search box.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigstockphoto.com\/image-2454168\/stock-photo-search-peopl\" target=\"_blank\">Search People<\/a> from BigStock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a site has left you high and dry on search, one of these solutions will work for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84404,"featured_media":206681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[35,186],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-68445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorials","tag-seo","tag-search"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68445"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206892,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68445\/revisions\/206892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68445"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=68445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}