Ajax Search Pro Documentation
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  • Ajax Search Pro Documentation
  • GDPR and Cookie policy
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  • Plugin Updates
    • Automatic Updates
      • Activation on Development and Staging environments
      • Managing purchase codes
      • Purchase Code (license key)
    • Manual Updates
    • Safe Update Guide
    • Plugin update issues or errors
    • Disabling update check
  • Installation instructions
    • Uninstallation & Reset
  • Getting started
    • Importing from the Lite version
    • Editor Blocks
    • Search Shortcodes
    • Search Widget
    • Gutenberg and Other Page Editors
    • Replacing the default theme search bar
    • Placing the search shortcode in theme files
    • Search as menu item
    • Custom result box position
    • Custom filters box position
    • Shortcode generator
  • Search Sources
    • Search Engine
    • Post, Page, Product and other Post Type Search
    • Searching Titles, Content, Excerpt
    • Search in custom fields
      • Search By Product SKU
    • Search by categories, tags or other terms
    • Search in Attachments
      • Mime types table
    • Search in File contents (pdf, word, excel etc..)
    • Search in Users
      • User meta fields
    • Limits (number of results)
    • Categories and terms as results
    • Image options
    • Result ordering
    • Peepso Groups & Group activities search
    • Grouping title duplicates
  • Behavior
    • Return/Enter key and Magnifier icon click actions
    • Search logic (primary and secondary)
      • Exact Matches vs Fuzzy Matches
      • Search logics explained
    • Live search triggering events
    • Results page override
    • Results, Archive Page and Shop Live Search and Filter
  • Elementor Integration
    • Elementor Pro Posts Widget Live Filter
    • Elementor Loop Grid Integration
    • Elementor Pro Product Widget Live Filter
    • Custom results page with Elementor Pro
    • Elementor custom search page archive override and live filter
  • Other Integration
    • Jet Engine Listing Grid Integration
  • Multisite Settings
  • Frontend Search Settings & Search Filters
    • Settings layout, position and visibility
    • Generic Selectors
    • Content Type filters
    • Date filters
    • Category and Taxponomy term filters
    • Post type Filters
    • Custom field filters - selectors
    • Search button
    • Reset button
  • Layout Settings
    • Result Layout Types
    • Results information box
    • Results position & snap
    • Content, author, date and description in results
    • More results loader and infinite scroll feature
    • Results behavior
    • Results text keyword highlighter
    • Compact search box layout
    • Auto Populate - Automatic search results on initial page load
  • Autocomplete and Keyword suggestions
    • Autocomplete
    • Results and Keyword suggestions
    • "Try these" - suggested phrases
  • Theme Options - Visual changes to the search bar
    • Theme chooser
    • Preview
    • Search box and input field layout
    • Settings and Magnifier icon
    • Settings dropdown
    • Typography
  • Index Table
    • Generating the index table
    • Enabling index table engine
    • File Content Search Addon
    • Index table FAQ
    • Synonyms
  • Relevance Options
  • Advanced Options and Uses
    • Using the Results shortcode as a custom results page
    • Shortcodes in results content
    • HTML tags in results
    • Primary and Secondary title and description fields
    • Advanced title and Content fields
      • User Search - Advanced Title and Content fields
    • Excluding & Including results
      • Exclude by category or terms
      • Exclude or Include by authors (users)
      • Exclude or Include by date
      • Exclude by Item or ID
      • Include by ID
      • Include by categories or terms (restrict to category)
      • Exclude or Include by custom field values
    • Grouping results
    • Keyword Exception & Exclusions
  • Result priority settings
    • Individual Priorities
    • Priorities by Rules (priority groups)
  • Performance Tuning
    • Fine tuning the search configuration
    • Cache
    • Visual performance
    • Ajax performance tracker
  • Compatibility Settings
    • Javascript Compatibility
  • Google Analytics Integration (GA4)
    • Tracking with Google Site Tag (gtag.js)
    • Tracking with Google Tag Manager
    • Site Search Tracking
  • Troubleshooting
    • Styling issues
    • The response data is missing from the ajax request error message
  • Translating components
    • Translating with WPML
    • Translating with Polylang
  • Pre-Purchase FAQ
  • Plugin API
    • Actions list and usage
    • Filters list and usage
    • asp_query_args filter
    • Theme functions
    • Front-end filters API
    • Javascript API
  • Other Useful Things
    • Additional search keywords for post types
    • Negative keywords
    • Meta box on post editor screen
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On this page
  • High performance impact changes
  • For big databases - Use the Index WP MySQL For Speed plugin
  • Use the index table engine
  • Disable search when typing
  • Front-end filters
  • Exclusions or inclusions by taxonomy terms or tags
  • Disable autocomplete, or use only google as autocomplete source
  • Disable secondary (fill) logic
  • Enable the search cache
  • Medium performance impact changes
  • Enabling the custom ajax handler
  • Disable image cropping
  1. Performance Tuning

Fine tuning the search configuration

PreviousPerformance TuningNextCache

Last updated 3 months ago

After selecting the proper environment and plugins, there are a few tricks to increase search performance.

High performance impact changes

These changes are recommended on most shared hosts and lower performance servers, as well as in cases with thousands of posts. These changes can improve the search performance significantly.

For big databases - Use the Index WP MySQL For Speed plugin

If you have a relatively big database, then the is a amazing tool to generate additional indexes on database tables like the posts, post metadata, users etc.. It can yield a huge performance gain for your overall site as well as the queries.

WARNING! Please be very careful when using any database altering tools. Make sure to have a full website backup before initiating any commands or changes.

Use the index table engine

If your main results are Posts, Pages, Products or other custom post types, you should definitely consider using the .

Using the index table engine is highly recommended if:

  • there are over 1000 posts or the post contents are lengthy

  • searching by is neccessary

  • searching by

  • searching in media files

Disable search when typing

While it's a great feature, it requires a decent server to handle. Shared hosts tend to have an execution limit, which can be reached very quickly with constant ajax requests.

To disable this feature go to the Search Sources -> Live Search Triggers panel. t to 'Trigger live search' (see screenshot).

After this change the user will have to hit the Return key or click the magnifier icon to start the ajax search process (depending on your configuration).

Front-end filters

Front-end filters are effective even if they are visually turned off! To disable them, they have to be removed on the search configuration.

  • Make sure to minimize the number of front-end filters

  • Remove the less important filters if possible

Exclusions or inclusions by taxonomy terms or tags

  • Minimize the number of items excluded/included - instead of excluding/including by multiple child categories, exclude the parent category only etc..

Disable autocomplete, or use only google as autocomplete source

Autocomplete is triggered on every keystroke, so just like the previous option - unless only google is selected as the source. In that case your server is not invoked in the process.

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Disable secondary (fill) logic

By default this feature is disabled, but in case you decided to use it, it can cause a decent performance slowdown.

To turn it off, go the the Search Behavior -> Keyword logic & matchingpanel and set the "Secondary logic" option:

Enable the search cache

There is a built-in, optional file and database based search cache. To enable it, go to the Cache Settings submenu.

There is either a File or Database caching method. We recommend trying both to find out which one works in your case faster.

Medium performance impact changes

These changes can have a relateively big impact on the overall performance.

Enabling the custom ajax handler

As discussed in the previous section, the ajax performance is unfortunately affected by every single plugin you have installed.

However there is an implemented custom ajax handler, which can try to bypass unneccessary plugin loading, making this process faster.

To enable the custom ajax handler, click the Compatibility Settings submenu.

Disable image cropping

Cropping images to thumbnails can cause a definite slowdown, mostly in cases where the source images are too big. Image cropping can be disabled on the Caching options page:

Using can be a major blow for the overall search performance, especially when combining a lot of filters on a large set of results.

Use them in combination with the

The exclusion/inclusion documentation .

Do not use the inclusions and exclusions at the same time. In that case using an should be sufficient, as everything else is excluded.

Index WP MySQL For Speed
Index Table engine
categories (or tags or any other term)
custom fields
front-end filters
search cache
can be found here
inclusion
Cache Settings