Title: Search Everything
Author: Sovrn
Published: <strong>October 26, 2006</strong>
Last modified: March 31, 2017

---

Search plugins

![](https://ps.w.org/search-everything/assets/banner-772x250.jpg?rev=514450)

This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.

![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/search-everything_242529.svg)

# Search Everything

 By [Sovrn](https://profiles.wordpress.org/sovrn/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/search-everything.8.1.9.zip)

 * [Details](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/#installation)
 * [Development](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/)

## Description

Search Everything improves WordPress default search functionality without modifying
any of the template pages. You can configure it to search pages, excerpts, attachments,
drafts, comments, tags and custom fields (metadata) and you can specify your own
search highlight style. It also offers the ability to exclude specific pages and
posts. It does not search password-protected content. Simply install, configure…
and search.

Search Everything plugin now includes a writing helper called Research Everything
that lets you search for your posts and link to them while writing. You can also
enable Power Search to research posts from the wider web (for WP3.7 and above).

#### Better WordPress search in three steps

 * Activate
 * Configure options
 * Search!

#### What it does

Search Everything increases the ability of the default WordPress Search, options
include:

 * Search Highlighting
 * Search Every Page
 * Search Every Tag
 * Search Custom Taxonomies ( new )
 * Search Every Category
 * Search non-password protected pages only
 * Search Every Comment
 * Search only approved comments
 * Search Every Draft
 * Search Every Excerpt
 * Search Every Attachment (post type, not the content itself – check FAQ)
 * Search Every Custom Field (metadata)
 * Exclude Posts from search
 * Exclude Categories from search

### Update

From Jan 24, 2014 Search Everything originaly developed by dancameron, sproutventure
will be maintained and developed further by Zemanta.

### Terms of Service

The plugin source code is released under GPLv2. Usage of our service is governed
by [Zemanta Terms of Service](http://www.zemanta.com/legal/terms-of-service/) and
[Zemanta Privacy Policy](http://www.zemanta.com/legal/privacy/).

## Screenshots

 * [[
 * Screenshot of the options panel
 * [[
 * Screenshot of the writing helper Research Everything
 * [[
 * Screenshot of a post with search results from the Research Everything writing
   helper

## Installation

Installation Instructions:

 1. Download the plugin and unzip it.
 2. Put the ‘search-everything’ directory into your wp-content/plugins/ directory.
 3. Go to the Plugins page in your WordPress Administration area and click ‘Activate’
    next to Search Everything.
 4. Go to the Settings > Search Everything and configure it.
 5. That’s it. Enjoy searching.

## FAQ

  Installation Instructions

Installation Instructions:

 1. Download the plugin and unzip it.
 2. Put the ‘search-everything’ directory into your wp-content/plugins/ directory.
 3. Go to the Plugins page in your WordPress Administration area and click ‘Activate’
    next to Search Everything.
 4. Go to the Settings > Search Everything and configure it.
 5. That’s it. Enjoy searching.

  It doesn’t search in my PDF/Word/Excel attachments

We know, this is not a bug. It’s not that easy to search through binary files.
 
Anyway, if there’s a will, there’s a way. Just ask us for a workaround and we’ll
gladly help.

  It doesn’t work

Read the installation guide.

  It *still* doesn’t work

Please open a new support topic at our [Support page](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything)

  I don’t get any results in research tool

Are you using WordPress 3.6? Sorry, but research tool requires at least version 
3.7.

  What Translations are included?

Note: We changed some labels in settings, old translations might not work and need
to be updated.

 * Arabic
 * Belarusian
 * China / Chinese
 * Czech
 * Dutch
 * French
 * German
 * Hungarian
 * Italian
 * Japanese
 * Korean
 * Latvian
 * Norwegian (Bokmål)
 * Norwegian (Nynorsk)
 * Romanian
 * Russian
 * Spanish
 * Swedish
 * Turkish
 * Taiwan / Chinese

  What about Terms of Service and Privacy policy?

Before using the plugin please read the full version of [Zemanta Terms of Service](http://www.zemanta.com/legal/terms-of-service/)
and [Zemanta Privacy Policy](http://www.zemanta.com/legal/privacy/).

## Reviews

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/65333ea0ca1a629077898c387f2007b189754a536b07c6c743a81e368ce6b35a?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Dead plugin, makes attempting to search return a critical error](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/dead-plugin-makes-attempting-to-search-return-a-critical-error/)󠁿

 [Erik Harris](https://profiles.wordpress.org/eharris/) February 24, 2023

As others have noted, this plugin has been abandoned, and has broken sites’ search
functions for quite some time. Don’t install this, and if you have it installed,
delete it.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/12e58d016c0b983e5128e00e5d729bef4d7c7274c0712278f91144913d74f2f2?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Abandoned and No longer works](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/abandoned-and-no-longer-works/)󠁿

 [delphineous](https://profiles.wordpress.org/delphineous/) May 19, 2021

I am updating my rating for this plug-in. The Search Everything plug-in used to 
work great and allow my Easy Digital Downloads content to be fully searchable. It
appears that the functions which this tool uses have been deprecated since it stopped
working with a recent WordPress update. Reinstalling doesn’t fix the issue. This
plug-in has been abandoned and does not work on modern WordPress installations.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a78fafaef435f27e85426947f91d5766df100706a895674f5fc19da69e8b3eec?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Breaks WooCommerce order search](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/breaks-woocommerce-order-search/)󠁿

 [jvwx](https://profiles.wordpress.org/enfueggo/) March 4, 2021

When the plugin is active, a backend search on the Orders page of WooCommerce always
loads zero results. It’s just a custom post type so I’m not sure what the issue 
is but be aware if you use Woo. /wp-admin/edit.php?s=MySearchPhrase&post_status=
all&post_type=shop_order

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8e550c0fd26b1528d17590ff3b13eb3ce188b0f708c02520e357f69ed27246f9?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[abandoned / fatal errors](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/abandoned-fatal-errors/)󠁿

 [Chad Reitsma](https://profiles.wordpress.org/chadreitsma/) January 15, 2020

Throws a fatal error when adding a new post with WP 5.3. We commented out the action
on line:935 – which might break some functionality of the plugin, but at least we
can add blog posts.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e744204bfa5e7418280f2ad7e78d8f79308940de033b567bff6c483326c91c41?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Two Words: Break Everything](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/two-words-break-everything/)󠁿

 [Paul Scollon](https://profiles.wordpress.org/scollonp/) October 12, 2018 1 reply

This plugin is completely outdated and breaks several other plugins, including Advanced
Custom Fields. It should be removed from the directory. DO NOT USE.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/02e413152906f9dda514e5d864180b0f9e89404ac2c1af47cd29be716a492e19?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[no more support – plugin has been abandoned.](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/no-more-support-plugin-has-been-abandoned/)󠁿

 [Svensonsan](https://profiles.wordpress.org/svensonsan/) August 13, 2018

As the developer mentioned in a pinned feedback in the support section: This plugin
receives no more support or development.

 [ Read all 86 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/)

## Contributors & Developers

“Search Everything” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Sovrn ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/sovrn/)
 *   [ Zemanta ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/zemanta/)

“Search Everything” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to [the translators](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/search-everything/contributors)
for their contributions.

[Translate “Search Everything” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/search-everything)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/search-everything/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/search-everything/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/search-everything/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/search-everything/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 8.1.9

 * Fixed a search issue that caused all results to be returned regardless of the
   options.

#### 8.1.8

 * Fixed a migration/update issue

#### 8.1.7

 * Compatibility with WordPress 4.7
 * Security update: resolve SQL injection vunerability related to WP 4.7

#### 8.1.6

 * Security update: filtering out empty search strings that could enable sql injections

#### 8.1.5

 * Compatibility with PHP 7
 * Bypassing highlighting in dashboard searches

#### 8.1.4

 * Removed unnecessary styles on frontend
 * Fixed php notice showing up sometimes
 * Czech language added

#### 8.1.3

 * Support for multitag search

#### 8.1.2

 * CSS bugfix

#### 8.1.1

 * Security update (CSRF vunerability fix)
 * Added form validation to Options page

#### 8.1

 * Fixed link search bug
 * Fixed bug of limiting number of results in Research Everything
 * Improved code robustness
 * Fixed translation system
 * Fixed upgrade bug
 * Renamed methods with too generic names
 * Fixed admin notices – they’re only visible to admins now

#### 8.0

 * Added research widget on compose screen
 * Reorganized settings
 * Security updates

#### 7.0.4

 * Urgent bugfix – changed migration script

#### 7.0.3

 * Fixed vulnerability issue in se_search_default and started escaping terms
 * Refactored code, extracted html from PHP code
 * Added support for ajax call

#### 7.0.2

 * Added config file with installation and migration functions
 * Refactored code, removed Yes options
 * Replaced deprecated functions

## Meta

 *  Version **8.1.9**
 *  Last updated **8 years ago**
 *  Active installations **10,000+**
 *  WordPress version ** 3.6 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **4.7.33**
 *  Languages
 * [Dutch](https://nl.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/), [English (Canada)](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/),
   [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/), and [Japanese](https://ja.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/).
 *  [Translate into your language](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/search-everything)
 * Tags
 * [category exclusion](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/category-exclusion/)
   [category search](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/category-search/)[search](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/search/)
   [search highlight](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/search-highlight/)[tag search](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/tag-search/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://scn.wordpress.org/plugins/search-everything/advanced/)

## Ratings

 4.1 out of 5 stars.

 *  [  61 5-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/?filter=5)
 *  [  4 4-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/?filter=4)
 *  [  3 3-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/?filter=3)
 *  [  5 2-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/?filter=2)
 *  [  13 1-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/?filter=1)

[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Sovrn ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/sovrn/)
 *   [ Zemanta ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/zemanta/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/search-everything/)