Troubleshooting

Searches work as before, without typos or the dropdown

Searchline answers searches once its index has been built.

1. Go to WooCommerce → Searchline → Index. If a notice says the index is being built, wait until it's done; keeping the tab open speeds it up.
2. If it says "The index hasn't been built yet", click Rebuild the index.
3. On the Settings tab, check that Answer the store's searches from Searchline's index is ticked.

If the build doesn't move on, WooCommerce's scheduled actions may not be running on your site: check WooCommerce → Status → Scheduled Actions for pending "searchline" actions. With WP-CLI, wp searchline index builds the index straight away.

A product doesn't show up

• Is it published, and not password-protected or private?
• Is its Catalog visibility "Shop & search results" or "Search results only"? "Shop only" and "Hidden" are never in search results.
• Is Hide from search results ticked in its Publish box?
• Is it out of stock, with Leave out-of-stock products out of search results ticked, or WooCommerce's Hide out of stock items from the catalog on?
• Is its content type ticked under Content types?
• Was it imported straight into the database? Click Rebuild the index.

With WP-CLI, wp searchline search "your words" shows what the index finds, before any visibility rules.

The wrong products come first

• Raise the weight of the place your right words are in (often the title or SKU), and lower Description and content if long descriptions mention many products. See How results are found.
• With Any word, the most matching words first, a search finds anything with one of its words. Every word is stricter.

A typo isn't forgiven

Typos are never allowed in words of 3 letters or fewer, words with digits or SKUs, and only one typo is allowed below the two-typo length. When a misspelt word is itself a word in your catalog, Searchline treats it as meant. For words visitors often get wrong, add a synonym, or fix it from the search report.

The dropdown doesn't appear

• Check Show results while visitors type under Settings → Live search.
• With On every search form unticked, the dropdown only appears on the Searchline search blocks, the Elementor widget and the [searchline] shortcode.
• The dropdown starts after the number of characters set in Start after … characters.
• Clear your caching or optimization plugin's cache after changing these settings.

"Too many searches. Wait a moment and try again."

A visitor went over At most … live searches per visitor per minute. If it happens to normal visitors, your site may be behind a proxy or CDN that makes everyone seem to come from the same address. Raise the limit, or ask your developer to pass on the real visitor address with the searchline_client_ip filter (see Hooks).

The search report stays empty

• Check Count what visitors search for under Settings → Search report and privacy.
• Searches you open from the report itself aren't counted, nor are searches by crawlers and searches that look like an email address or phone number.
• Searches in the dropdown are counted once the visitor stops typing on results, not on every letter.

A search is missing from the report

• Check the period: choose a longer one next to Filter.
• You may have ignored it. Open the Ignored view; hover over it and click Stop ignoring to bring it back.
• Found nothing only lists searches that found nothing in the whole period. A search that found something on one day of the period is under All.

"Nothing was saved: fill in both the search and a valid web address or words."

A redirect needs a search and a path on your site (/returns/) or a full address starting with http:// or https://. A synonym from the report needs at least one word in Also find.

"Nothing was saved: another redirect already has that search."

Each search can have only one redirect. You edited a redirect's Search to the search of another one. Edit or delete the other redirect first, or keep the old search.

"That didn't save. Reload the page and try again."

A fix or an edit couldn't reach your site, for example because you were logged out or the page was open for a long time. Reload the page and try again.

Still stuck?

Deactivate other plugins one at a time to rule out a conflict, then contact us with what you searched for, what you expected and what happened instead.